On treacherous trip for Sean Miller, here's why the Oregon schools might spoil Arizona's visit

Oregon trail has been treacherous for Miller's Cats

On Sean Miller’s seventh try, after MoMo Jones carried the Wildcats to a three-overtime victory at Cal back in 2010-11, the UA coach finally broke through with his first Pac-12 road sweep.

As Miller points out often, they aren’t easy to get.

Especially the one the Wildcats will take this week.

Arizona has become by far the Pac-12’s best road team since the conference expanded to 12 teams, winning 65.6 percent of its Pac-12 road games. But the Wildcats have recorded two-game sweeps just 13 times over 35 trips since Miller became the UA’s head coach in 2009-10.

And they’ve never left the state of Oregon without a loss in conference play.

That’s right: Even the Derrick Williams-led team of 2010-11 couldn’t win at Oregon State. The 2013-14 Elite Eight Wildcats lost at Oregon, where last season’s Wildcats were drilled 85-58.

And while the UA lost only four games in 2014-15, one of them was at Gill Coliseum, the site of Thursday’s UA-OSU game.

So it’s been hard for the Wildcats. Here are five reasons why this trip might be difficult, too:

1. The Beavers and Ducks already scared Arizona at McKale Center this season.

Arizona stumbled early against Oregon State’s matchup zone defense on Jan. 11 at McKale Center before winning by nine and, two days later, hanging on for a tense 90-83 win over Oregon.

You knew that one was tense because Miller was even more animated than usual, gesturing wildly to officials after Oregon regained possession on a ball that appeared to go out of bounds on the Ducks toward the end of the first half.

“I almost a had an out-of-body experience,” Miller said, smiling. “I couldn’t remember where I was. I thought I was having a stroke in the locker room. Then I came to my senses. Because I just saw the ball go off them. No official’s perfect but that’s one they probably missed.”

Arizona wound up beating the Ducks in large part because the Wildcats went to the free-throw line 37 times and hit 34 shots, scoring 13 more points at the line than the Ducks did. In Oregon’s home environment on Saturday, the UA may have trouble getting that kind of advantage again.

Oregon State, meanwhile, already has the confidence of knowing it can mess with the Wildcats. Of Arizona’s first nine possessions on Jan. 11, two resulted in turnovers and six ended with missed shots. By halftime, the Wildcats managed only 21 points.

Arizona redeemed itself by scoring 20 points off 15 OSU turnovers.

“Turnovers were definitely a key, and I had quite a few, but it was more not paying attention to the game plan,” said OSU forward Tres Tinkle, who had seven turnovers in that game. “But obviously playing in that environment at Arizona we knew it would be tough.”

The Beavers might not be so rattled in their home gym this time.

2. There’s a certain, uh, magic about Gill Coliseum.

Oregon State’s home venue is like no other in the Pac-12, a fieldhouse-style throwback to college basketball’s roots. While many parts of it have been renovated, Gill Coliseum still features vaulted ceilings, enclosed concrete staircases, a basement housing locker rooms and exposed pipes alike, and black-painted rails and posts that pop up all over the place. 

The 69-year-old building feels older than Washington's 91-year-old Hec Edmundson Pavilion, which has been thoroughly made over. So entering the building, with its tributes to legendary coach Ralph Miller and Slats Gill plus two generations of Gary Paytons, can be like entering a mid-century time warp.

For players used to modern amenities, it can be something else all together.

“My sister (Joslyn) played for Stanford, and when she came to play Oregon State, she said it was always a weird feel, just maybe the old look it has,” Tinkle said. “We’re comfortable with it, though. We think it’s a good place to play because of the environment, the look not being as modern. I think it works to our favor for sure.”

The Beavers often play much better at home than on the road and this year is as extreme as ever: OSU is 0-8 in road games, 1-10 overall away from Gill — and 12-3 at home.

3. They’ll have to get that Eugene memory out of their heads.

Arizona was 10-0 in Pac-12 play when it entered the contrastingly state-of-the-art Matthew Knight Arena at Oregon last season. The Wildcats were promptly blown out by the biggest margin (27 points) since BYU’s Jimmer Fredette hung 49 on them in a 30-point BYU win during Miller’s first UA season.

The Ducks made 16 of 25 3-pointers and hit 10 of their first 13 from long range, a performance Miller compared earlier this week to a “video game."

That was something Oregon’s Dillon Brooks pretty much admitted to.

"It was getting ridiculous,” Brooks said after last season's game. “But guys feed off each other. One guy's hot, another guy gets hot. In this game it was like five, six, seven guys that got hot."

The good news for Arizona is that Brooks isn’t around anymore. Nor are Tyler Dorsey, Jordan Bell and Chris Boucher, the core of that Ducks team that went on to the Final Four last season.

“There’s a lot of new faces on both teams,” Miller said this week.

4. Tinkle and the Beavers are at full strength.

The way Tinkle was going earlier in his college career, with foot and wrist injuries costing him much of his first two seasons, he figured he might not even be around playing basketball these days.

He spent the end of his freshman season in 2015-16 in a knee walker, missing OSU’s historic trip to the NCAA Tournament, because of a broken foot. Then he was forced to redshirt last season because of a wrist injury.

“I think when those injuries happened, at the time, I was telling my parents, `I don’t want to play any more if I’m gonna keep going through this,’" Tinkle said. “But they just reminded me that it was more from freak accidents, landing hard on my wrist. And my foot injury was something over time, just stress from all the hours I put in the gym and I just didn’t take care of it.”

One of his parents, of course, is OSU coach Wayne Tinkle, who has benefited this season from his son’s return. Tres leads the Beavers in scoring (18.1), rebounding (7.0), assists (3.8) and free-throw percentage (87.0).

While OSU point guard JaQuori McLaughlin left the team in the nonconference season for what appeared to be academic and athletic reasons, Oregon State still has a generally healthy and experienced crew that is also led by skilled combo guard brothers Stephen and Ethan Thompson, plus rugged big man Drew Eubanks.

“I think Drew Eubanks is one of the most underrated players in our conference,” Miller said. “He’s very good. He’s a great shot-blocker. He can hurt you in the low post. He runs the floor exceptionally well. He’s agile and very experienced.”

5. Dana Altman is pretty good at filling voids.

Not long after the Ducks made their first Final Four since 1939 last season, coach Dana Altman suddenly found he had only one regular rotation player back, point guard Payton Pritchard.

But, while the new-look Ducks have struggled to a 7-7 conference record so far, they have a projected first-round NBA Draft pick in wing Troy Brown, a pair of competent and experienced grad transfers (guard Elijah Brown and forward MiKyle McIntosh), a reliable four-year transfer from Georgetown (Paul White) and other talented freshmen in forward Kenny Wooten and guard Victor Bailey, Jr.

They aren’t Final Four material, maybe not even NCAA Tournament material, but the Ducks have plenty of room to grow. Last weekend in Los Angeles, Oregon lost to USC by two points and took UCLA to overtime before losing.

“You wake up the next day, you can improve tremendously,” White told the Eugene Register-Guard after the UCLA game. “Some people hit the lottery and improve their financial status just like that. The sky is the limit, we just have to understand our potential.”

So even if Oregon and OSU both have double-digit losses already, Miller isn’t any less concerned.

Especially since they’ll be the hosts this week.

“Sometimes in a given year you squeak out a couple that could have gone either way and once in a while it goes the other way,” Miller said. “Oregon and Oregon State are both very good.”