Arizona-MSU postgame: On Simmons' confidence, Izzo's regrets and more (minor) injuries

HONOLULU – In one sense, the first day of the Arizona Wildcats’ regular season was just like their preseason.

That is, guys got hurt.

In UA's 65-63 win over Michigan State on Friday, Kadeem Allen sprained his left knee and Kobi Simmons sprained his right ankle, though neither injury appeared major.

Probably the biggest issue is that both of them had to make the six-hour flight back to Phoenix almost immediately after the game, cramming their sore joints into place overnight.

Simmons grimaced in pain when he was hurt late Friday's game but did sub back in with seven seconds to go and said afterward the ankle was fine. Allen also appeared fine – he did race downcourt to make the game-winning bucket, after all – and he walked out of the Stan Sheriff Center with only a slight limp.

Simmons didn't take long to step up and start grabbing Allonzo Trier’s points and minutes.

Simmons entered the game just after three minutes had passed and put the Wildcats on the board 50 seconds later with a 14-footer. At that point UA was down 9-2 and the Wildcats go on to fall behind 17-2, but Simmons made it a game again by scoring 15 of his team-high 18 points in the first half.

“Kobi Simmons, for a freshman, showed a lot of confidence and a lot of ability,” UA coach Sean Miller said. “He had 15 of our 34 at halftime and that’s a big reason we got back in the game. He was outstanding. He has a lot of talent. We watch him every day and I think the best is yet to come for him, too.”

It isn’t every day that a McDonalds All-American comes off the bench – though it has happened a few times at UA – but Simmons is saying the kind of words coaches like to hear.

“I just want to win,” Simmons said. “At the end of the day, if coach thinks this was best, well that’s what’s best and that’s what I want to do.”

Miller said it’s too early to determine how Simmons is fitting into his role, because roles have hardly been set at this point.

“Who starts two weeks from now and who starts today could be different,” Miller said. “But whether he starts or not he’s certainly one of our biggest players., one of our most important players. We’re only playing eight guys so all of our guys are very important.”

The start of the regular season has not changed UA's stance on Trier's apparent ineligibility. Miller again declined to comment on Trier, and UA has now gone nearly a month without even categorizing why he isn't playing.

Michigan State coach Tom Izzo put a lot of the blame for the Spartans’ loss on himself, saying he needed to do a better job of adjusting his lineup, and dealing with “situational stuff” like the play that led to Allen’s game-winning basket.

But Izzo said some water on the floor helped the game-winning play, too.

“We wanted to put a lot of pressure on,” Izzo said. “Josh (Langford) slipped on water in front of our bench and nobody helped him. That was completely our fault. It was the fault of the other guys who didn’t come back and help him.

“If he doesn’t slip, I think we were fine. Because we had everybody in help (defense).”

Win or lose, Miller said, the Wildcats had plenty to gain from Friday’s game, which was far from your typical UA season opener against a mid-major at McKale Center.

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“Nobody respects Michigan State more than our team and program,” Miller said. “We, in large part, wanted to be in this event because we knew they would be our opponent. I mean that because when you play against somebody who’s as excellent as they are year in and year out, it has a way of being able to teach you a lot of things.

“They did. They taught us things. Their ability to draw charges, crash the offensive glass, how they move the ball, all things we want to get better at ourselves.”

Miller also had plenty of chance to mix and match his big guys to find out what works against a smaller, athletic group such as the Spartans. He wound up giving only 18 minutes to Dusan Ristic, but still went “big” with a frontline of Chance Comanche, Lauri Markkanen and Keanu Pinder at times.

“That’s who we have,” Miller said. “It’s not like we have a lot of choices. We have a group of eight and we have to try to bring out the best in that group of eight.

"Any coach in his first game, we don't necessarily know completely what to expect or what to get better at. You learn through game experience. I think this is obviously an experience where we know a lot more about our team than when we came here."

Rawle Alkins went 1 for 4 in 26 minutes, being called twice for charges as he tried to drive too hard into traffic.

Miller didn’t sound too worried about it. He had Stanley Johnson doing some of the same thing early in his brief UA career, too.

“Rawle’s gonna be fine,” Miller said. “He’s that guy you’ve seen time and time again, you watch him a month from now, a couple weeks from now, and he’s going to be a completely different player than he is now.

“And he did some really great things in tonight’s game. It’s just he’s used to scoring. It’ll come. He just has to find out how it works for him.”

Oregon coach Dana Altman received a new seven-year contract that puts his salary comparable to Miller's: He'll earn an average of $2.63 million per season through 2022-23.

UCLA freshmen Lonzo Ball and T.J. Leaf made life difficult for Damon Stoudamire in his debut as Pacific's head coach: The Bruins won 119-80.

Colorado's George King and his mother celebrated Veteran's Day in a pretty unique way during halftime of the Buffs' opening win against Sacramento State. Video of the ceremony is on Pac-12.com.

The Pac-12 actually went 10-0 on opening day, with the closest calls being UA's victory and WSU's close call against Montana State.

Our updated game story and the official box score are attached, and our seen-and-heard notebook can be found here.

Here's the game story from Mlive.com and a column suggesting MSU relied too much on Miles Bridges.