Arizona's James Akinjo 'the engine that makes us go' says coach Sean Miller

Because confidence is often seen as a big reason behind shooting rhythm, James Akinjo had every reason to approach the free-throw line with some trepidation Saturday.

The UA point guard has shot 6 for 23 from the field over his past two games, and missed all six of his 3-pointers. In the Wildcats’ 69-61 win over UTEP on Saturday, he was just 2 for 11 from the field.

So even though Akinjo did pick up seven fouls from the Miners, his resulting 14 trips to the line could have been shaky, forgettable, maybe even rough enough to cost the Wildcats the game.

Nah. Not Akinjo.

He hit all 14 of them.

“No difference,” Akinjo said of his approach from the field and free-throw line, adding he had the “same mentality I come in with every day.”

The same tough, aggressive mentality every day. Asked if he ever had such a disparity between field-goal and free-throw shooting as a career 88.5% free-throw shooter at Pitt, UA coach Sean Miller put it this way:

“James’ style is he’s an attacking guard, so he gets fouled,” Miller said. “He puts pressure on the defense. Obviously, we don’t want him to go to 2 for 11. He doesn’t want to go to 2 for 11. But when you go 14 for 14 from the line, get fouled seven times, have three assists to one turnover and two steals ....

“He’s the engine that makes us go and I’m glad we have him. One big reason we won a game is his overall play.”

Now averaging 4.8 fouls drawn per 40 minutes, Akinjo found generating them Saturday off dribble drives came somewhat naturally. Saying he’s always comfortable and confident on the floor, Akinjo said he sensed UA needed him to be aggressive and get to the line.

So he did.

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“I feel like I was getting into the paint at will,” Akinjo said. “The shots wasn’t falling and I felt like no one was staying front of me. My teammates give me the confidence to do whatever I see fit.”

Besides, Miller said, Akinjo’s 2-for-11 shooting from the field wasn’t all his fault, with a UTEP defense that was heavily committed to the perimeter.

“He might have taken a couple tough ones but I think that he almost tried to score the ball for us when we were struggling at times, and he’ll learn from that,” Miller said. “But in his 36 minutes, he did a lot of good things, and his shooting numbers will come around.”

Similarly, Miller did not blame Arizona’s overall perimeter shooting on the shooters themselves, even though the Wildcats went without a made 3-pointer for the first time since he took over the program in 2009-10.

What really bugged Miller was a lack of efficiency inside because, in a way, it made shooting 3-pointers and moving the ball outside even harder.

Arizona picked up 18 offensive rebounds but came up with only 11 second-chance points, while its post players shot below 50% despite single-coverage defense, allowing UTEP to remain locked in on the Wildcats’ perimeter.

“You have to understand that UTEP really tried to stick with our perimeter players,” Miller said. “When we got the ball in and around the basket, we had no post crowd. We had no double team (to face). They just let our bigs go one-on-one with unlimited dribbles against their bigs and we didn’t really exploit that defense.

“If a team does that, you’ve got to be able to score a little bit easier. … The same thing on our drives. We had some good drives but our drive to pass in some ways was taken away, because they did a good job of kind of staying at home on the perimeter.”

That ultimately helped lead to Arizona recording just eight assists to its 22 made baskets, while also coughing up 16 turnovers.

“So when I talk about us not finishing, that’s the storyline,” Miller said. “If we finished jump hooks, finished second shots, I think what you would have found is we would have ended up shooting more 3s and making a few because they would have had to adjust.

“So it’s getting our big guys better, more comfortable, finishing more. That’s something that I think this game taught us.”