Cats scheduling more aggressively for next season, Miller says

If five-star recruits Terrance Ferguson or Josh Jackson choose Arizona sometime this spring, it won’t just affect how the Wildcats will look next season.

It could also affect the teams they play.

Arizona has two openings on its 2016-17 schedule remaining, and UA coach Sean Miller said Wednesday he might wait to see “who’s going to show up” in his 2016 recruiting class before filling them. He said he expects six or seven players total, with three already on board in signee Lauri Markkanen and commits Kobi Simmons and Rawle Alkins.

The Wildcats will likely fill one schedule slot with a one-time guarantee game against a mid-major opponent, but it is possible the other one could be against a higher-level team on a neutral or home floor.

“We have a couple of great opportunities in a neutral-court setting,” Miller said.

As of now, the Wildcats already have four neutral-site games scheduled: Michigan State at Pearl Harbor, Gonzaga at Los Angeles’ Staples Center and two in the Thanksgiving-week Las Vegas Invitational — on top of games at Missouri and against New Mexico at McKale Center.

But UA basketball operations director Ryan Reynolds said it’s getting increasingly harder to schedule high-major teams in true home-and-away series, so neutral-site games may be the best way for the Wildcats to increase their nonconference strength of schedule.

Miller said UA may also schedule a solid team from a non-power conference.

“The curve always starts at the top, and if you’re following what some of the top programs in the country are doing, they’re trading some of their home and away series for neutral games,” Miller said. “There’s a trickle-down effect when they do that.”

The Wildcats played their weakest nonconference schedule in decades last season, and, even though teams such as Pacific (academic issues) and Northwestern State (star player tore his ACL) were severely compromised, Miller said he knew it hurt the Wildcats in their NCAA tournament seeding.

“We were able to go 12-1 and build a lot of confidence, but that doesn’t mean that’s our model moving forward,” Miller said. “We’re not trying to go undefeated as much as give ourselves a chance to improve and get prepared for our conference.”

Trier refocused

Allonzo Trier had until May 25 to decide if he wanted to return for his sophomore season, but didn’t want to sit on the fence.

“I’m an all-in type of person,” Trier said Wednesday, two days after announcing his decision to stay. “I didn’t want to be one foot out the door, one foot in with this university and this basketball team. I wanted to show I was going to be dedicated and give my all to this team and start locking arms with these guys, really start working toward being a great year.”

Trier was not projected as a first-round draft pick, but Miller said he encouraged Trier to think about testing the draft. But Miller also said Trier can help his NBA stock at UA by continuing to improve defensively and that he expected Trier would double his 31 assists last season.

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New shirts for Miller

Turns out, Miller didn’t have to buy new clothes after infamously sweating through his white dress shirt during the NCAA tournament loss to Wichita State.

Now, he just gets them for free.

“I will tell you, I have received boxes,” Miller said, smiling. “I received a box (of undershirts) from the CEO of Tommy John. I have received five different types of shirts. I mean, this has worked out well for me.”

Miller said he has “great regrets” about what he wore, saying it was a new shirt that he didn’t test out or wear an undershirt with.

“It seemed like something happened to me, like I was sick or I was a raving lunatic on the sideline, that I sweated at a level that’s never been seen before,” Miller said. “But the truth be told, I tried a new shirt that was positioned to me as being more breathable ... which means less material.

“Clearly I made an error not having an undershirt, and no question I had a bad night, coupled with the fact that we lost. If anything, people may have talked more about me and less about our team, and that may be a good thing.”

Miller also joked that he’s now “in the market for some major-league endorsement opportunities” with shirts.

Miller: Grads should redshirt

Although the immediate eligibilities of grad transfers Mark Lyons (2012-13) and Mark Tollefsen (2015-16) have benefited the Wildcats, Miller said grad transfers should have to sit out a redshirt season before becoming eligible.

“It’s really a major problem in college basketball right now, now that coaches are losing their jobs because their best players they’ve invested in three or four years leave them,” Miller said. “It’s not healthy for anybody. It’s not healthy for the NBA, not healthy for college basketball, a coach’s tenure or a program’s ability to sustain. So we have to slow that down.”

Miller said it was “hard” to think about how USF fired coach Rex Walters this spring, after Walters lost Tollefsen as a grad transfer, but indicated that UA had its own challenges.

“Nobody really puts your arm around you when you lose as many players to the NBA draft like we have,” Miller said. “So how do you keep it up? We were on the brink, if we were healthy, of maybe winning a Pac-12 championship or winning a few games in the tournament. We were able to do it in large part because of the transfers.”

Rim shots

• Junior forward Elliott Pitts is still taking classes at UA, though Miller said he couldn’t comment further. Pitts didn’t play past Dec. 5 and left the team in February for an undisclosed off-court issue.
• Ryan Anderson and Gabe York have committed to play in the seniors-only Portsmouth Invitational predraft camp from April 13-16, Miller said.
• Markkanen was only sick for about a week but withdrew from Saturday’s Hoop Summit game because of travel and an inability to train regularly, Miller said.