After its overtime loss to Oregon on Saturday, Arizona dropped to 3-6 in games decided by five points or less.
Sean Miller took some blame for that during his weekly news conference Tuesday.
When asked about late-game plays, including those on Saturday, Miller noted at one point:
“We were in a position to win and we didn't," he said. "That's what the coach is for -- to win, not to lose, so I'll take that.”
Miller has been criticized for years for often burning through timeouts and not having one sometimes left in the final seconds, often reasoning that it’s better to right things with an earlier timeout before a game gets out of hand. But he noted that he did have one at the end of overtime Saturday.
In fact, he used that last one with 5.6 seconds left in regulation to set up a play in which Nico Mannion inbounded from the sideline to Josh Green, who faked a return handoff to Mannion, and then curled around to get an open drive down the left baseline to the basket, where he was fouled.
“At the end of the game, a drive is just really big,” Miller said. “Most of the time the game is going to be won, not on the first shot but the second shot, as evidenced by what Oregon did to us.
"And you want to put your team in in a position to get a good shot. A drive a lot of times creates rotation. It sometimes forces a big guy to come over to help, which then opens the floodgates up for an offensive rebound or a putback. But we couldn't have got a better opportunity than when we got it was straight line drive, fouled at the rim.”
So he didn’t blame himself there, but…
“We've had a couple of shots around the rim and we haven't delivered, just haven’t delivered in those one-possession games,” Miller said. “And the coaching is a big part of that, having a timeout -- a number of times, maybe we could have saved the timeout and come out after a timeout and create maybe a more organized, better shot.
“Sometimes if you call a timeout, it doesn't mean that the other team won't be equally as organized or switch defenses, sub a matchup that could be more favorable. Those are all things that happen on their end at a timeout.
“This time we did have a timeout. And you want to develop confidence in your players so maybe our guys need a little more confidence. That falls on me. You want them to believe they're going to win at the end of the game.
"We're going to continue to be hard at that part of coaching and that part of our practice. We want to give our guys the most confidence they can have, so that when we're in those tight games that they feel like they can deliver.”
While noting that Mannion has taken "quite a few" of the late-game shots, Miller said in some situations clearly Zeke Nnaji is also an option he’d like when the circumstance is right.
Miller had 5.6 seconds with an inbounds situation on the right sideline when he went to Green.
Miller has often preferred to go inside to generate a shot or foul in last-second situations. So I asked Miller with what time left in last-second situations he would feel best about going to Nnaji (meaning more in general than about that last play in regulation against Oregon).
His answer was detailed.
“You know, I really believe in Zeke,” Miller said. “He shoots 59% from the floor. He has a chance to be the Pac-12 (freshman) of the year. He shot 260 shots, he shot 169 free throws. He's very good free throw shooter as well. If he misses his own shot, he leads us in offensive rebounds with 77. He averages 16 points a game and does a good job of taking care of the ball.
“I mean, clearly I want to get him the ball as much as we can and if that's two seconds, five, eight, 10, that's something that we really, really want to do. If you're asking me about that last play with five seconds, I think we got one inch from the rim. Maybe the wrong guy shot it, (maybe the) right guy shot it. I thought it was a great drive.
“Everybody focuses on the last play and it's certainly not Josh's responsibility that we lost the game. There's hundreds and hundreds of plays in that game, but we like to get the ball to Zeke, get the right block, left block, charge circle, either elbow, against the zone. In the high post area, he's tremendous. And clearly, being able to get him the ball in scoring position is a big, big deal. A really, really big deal. Maybe the biggest deal that we have going on here at Arizona basketball in 19-20.
“And we're gonna keep trying to get him the ball at the end the games, end of the half, in the post. If you have a suggestion on the way to get it to him, I'd be more than happy to listen because we want to get him the ball there's no doubt about it. He is incredibly efficient. And like I said, he has a chance to be the, the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year.”
Jemarl Baker said he once played for fun at Pauley Pavilion after his sister played in a tournament there.
“It was great for me, knowing that I wanted to play Division I basketball at a big-time school,” he said.
Born in Compton, then growing up in Carson until moved to Menifee at age nine, Baker said he expects his entire family to be at Arizona’s games with USC and UCLA this week.
“Very excited,” Baker said. “And it's in the same neighborhood where I lived. So I’m very excited to be there. Hopefully we can go out there, play hard and win some games.”
Half of the Wildcats’ 10-man playing rotation has ties to Southern California, something that can lead to distraction during the trip to face USC and UCLA. Though the Wildcats who have roots there are veterans Ira Lee, Max Hazzard, Stone Gettings and Baker plus freshman Christian Koloko, who is really from Cameroon but played two years of high school ball in the San Fernando Valley.
Miller said their collective experience would help in dealing with going there and, besides, at this point, UA might be a better road team than at home.
“I think our team in some ways is very easily distracted because we're dependent on a number of guys that have a lot at stake who are first year players,” Miller said. “We’ve been a very inconsistent team at home. We really have.
“Just watching us play at home is really a head-scratcher because even within the same game we we've been two different teams. On the road, we've been more of the same. We've struggled at times, early on with shot selection and maybe getting off to a good start, but if you look at the final scores of the road games that we've played, I think that speaks to my point.”
Like Miller, the Oregonian's John Canzano is convinced Payton Pritchard is an NBA player.
SI's Pat Forde says there are indications Auburn has received an NCAA notice of allegations (though Arizona still has not at this point).
Meanwhile, UCLA coach Mick Cronin is aware that he's suddenly hosting the Pac-12's biggest game Thursday.
Mick Cronin on coming home to a first-place showdown against Arizona State on Thursday: "It’s great. Obviously, we all saw this coming five weeks ago."
— Ben Bolch (@latbbolch) February 25, 2020
