PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas -- Probably the most surprising thing Sean Miller said during his postgame news conference late Thursday (actually early Friday) came after he spoke of freshman jitters, rebounding trouble and Rawle Alkins' absence.
He said he was thinking about playing zone.
A devoted man-to-man believer, Miller has threatened to do so before and sometimes he's even followed through by using a zone in spots over his eight-plus years of coaching the Wildcats. But this time there's an interesting twist:
Miller says he's thinking about the zone so he can keep Deandre Ayton and Dusan Ristic on the floor at the same time, and not have to worry about defending small-ball teams such as N.C. State and SMU, which both beat the Wildcats in the Battle 4 Atlantis.
In turn, he reasoned, doing so could help expand what is a two-dimensional offense consisting of Ayton and Allonzo Trier.
"If they go small, they'll have to deal with our two bigs instead of just one," Miller said. "So that’s up to us to figure that out. And again it’s a long, long season. No one is trying to lose down here but sometimes when you lose this way you can get better when you get to the other side."
Miller played Ristic only 11 minutes on Thursday and said he "felt bad" doing so because Ristic was playing well offensively and on the boards. More of Miller's reasoning about the zone is in the first sidelines note in our scouting report on Friday's Arizona-Purdue game.
So what else is wrong? There are theories all over Twitter today, a lot of them in reply to a tweet from ESPN's Jeff Goodman that says "I feel as though off-season distractions have taken their toll on Arizona." My first tweet on Miller's zone comments also picked up a few.
CBS' Gary Parrish dropped Arizona completely out of his Top 26.
"Which is not to suggest I believe Sean Miller's team is destined for a bad season," Parrish wrote. "Whatever was possible for Arizona two days ago remains possible now. The talent in place remains capable of a Final Four appearance. But Arizona is suddenly and surprisingly 3-2 with zero top-150 KenPom victories and losses to the schools picked 12th in the ACC (NC State) and fourth in the AAC (SMU). That's rough."
Purdue's having a bad time of it in the Bahamas, too.
And all these collective troubles mean the Boilers and Wildcats will have a "Top 25" matchup ... for seventh-place.
