Wildcats turn focus to Oregon State, forging a split during long break between games

CORVALLIS, Ore. — Given nearly 72 hours to hang out in the Willamette Valley between games, with virtually no incentive to spend any of it outside, the Arizona Wildcats had plenty of time on their hands this weekend.

Since school isn’t in session either, the Wildcats’ agenda mostly just included practices, film study and the occasional field trip.

On Friday night, that was a dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings, where the Wildcats watched the UA women’s team face Oregon State in McKale Center. Saturday’s agenda included a meal at an Old Spaghetti Factory.

“We break their day up pretty good,” UA coach Sean Miller said Saturday from the team’s riverside hotel. “And they have some free time this afternoon if they’d like to leave the hotel.”

Except leaving the hotel meant stepping into near-constant 40-degree rain showers and, at least immediately after the Wildcats returned from their practice Saturday afternoon, nobody was seen doing that.

So free time sometimes just consisted of watching television or plugging into their phones to see what’s up: Ira Lee posted an Instagram story with a photo of himself and Nico Mannion hamming it up at the Buffalo Wild Wings, while Josh Green showed a television broadcast of his old IMG Academy team in action, among other things.

Maybe more than anything, though, the Wildcats had time to think.

About having a game Sunday against a presumably motivated Oregon State team, which was having a notably successful season until it inexplicably lost to Arizona State on Thursday.

About what to do with a multi-skilled Pac-12 Player of the Year contender in Tres Tinkle, or how to work around the shot-blocking presence of OSU big man Kylor Kelley.

And, of course, about that overtime loss at Oregon on Thursday, about any number of individual plays that ultimately resulted in the kicking away of a game the Wildcats led for 33 minutes.

There was so much time, and so much to go over, that Miller said the Wildcats didn’t even really practice on Friday as much as they did some extensive film review of the Oregon game. Miller said after Thursday’s game that six to eight 50-50-type plays in the middle of the game really made the difference, and found especially upon review that many of them were from missed defensive rebound opportunities, letting Oregon get 13 offensive rebounds off their 39 missed shots.

“It’s just … we weren’t good enough,” Miller said. “We were three (rebounds) away, we were two away, and that was a big difference in the game.

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“It’s bittersweet because we certainly played well enough to win the game but we didn’t.”

Then there was another “50-50” play of sorts, the one Miller complained notably about during and after the game.

That was the missed 15-footer from Zeke Nnaji near the end of regulation, in which Oregon’s Payton Pritchard appeared to block the shot but may have also hit Nnaji’s wrist. The replays,shown from an opposite point of view that Miller had from the UA bench, were largely inconclusive.

By Saturday, though, Miller indicated he didn’t keep rewatching that one.

“That’s like the definition of insanity, right?” Miller said. “You can keep watching and watching it, but the results are going to be the same. You know, officials are human and sometimes they get it right, sometimes they don’t.”

On the previous three extended trips the Wildcats have made to Oregon, where the first game was followed by two full days off, Arizona has lost the second game each time. But the Wildcats won the first game of those trips and Miller said because Thursday’s game was a “fierce” one they lost, he hoped the extra day could become a positive this time.

He said the Wildcats were healthy and practiced well on Saturday, too.

“So much on the road is trying to get a split,” Miller said. “The long trip is hard for the road team. … But it’s tough to make a lot of from a year ago or two years ago. Each team is different. There’s so much change from one season to the next. For us we’ve got to play well. We have to play well. We played well the other night. We did. We weren’t able to get the job done but if we play at that same level against Oregon State, we’ll have a chance to win.”

The Beavers have reason to believe if they play the way they usually play at home, they’ll have a chance to win, too.

Oregon State hadn’t lost a single home game this season and beat Colorado in Boulder last weekend before Arizona State beat the Beavers 82-76 on Thursday.

That gave the Beavers a few things to think about over the long weekend, too.

“We’ve had a thing in a handful of losses where we’re just waiting too long to put our foot on the gas,” OSU forward Tres Tinkle said Saturday. “We’ve gotta be more aggressive on the jump. Coming out, maybe we felt a little too high from coming off a big road win. But we’ve gotta move on. We understand what we have to bring into every single conference game, especially against a team like Arizona.”