BOULDER, Colo. β After his 14th-ranked Wildcats fell apart so acutely Saturday that it reminded him of the trip to the Bahamas, coach Sean Miller had any number of excuses to pick from.
In an 80-77 loss to Colorado that wasnβt really as close as the score indicated, the Wildcats were playing at over a mile-high elevation. They had to fly in after a tough win at Utah, then turn around to play Colorado 39 hours later, at the early hour of noon. And they had to do so against an increasingly confident group of Buffaloes that upset ASU on Thursday.
Miller chose none of the above. Instead, the coach says heβs to blame for the entire thing β the 54.7 percent shooting the Wildcats allowed, UAβs disjointed zone offense and its overall lack of will.
βSometimes when you lose, all of a sudden the coach starts blaming the players. Thatβs the furthest thing from what Iβm gonna do,β Miller said. βIβm gonna take all the responsibility. When you have a team like ours and you win a game like we did in Salt Lake City, itβs such a quick turnaround on a road trip like this that itβs your job to have your team ready.
βI did a terrible job of having them ready. We werenβt ready. We didnβt play with any β any β emotion, any togetherness. And I didnβt know really what button to push other than maybe just donβt play the guys who werenβt playing hard.β
The loss dropped UA to 12-4 overall and 2-1 in the Pac-12, where all teams have at least one loss after just two weekends. It also was the first Arizona loss in the United States and snapped a streak of nine straight UA wins, dating back to the Wildcatsβ three-loss showing in the Thanksgiving week Battle 4 Atlantis event.
Colorado improved to 10-6 and 2-2, having also upset fourth-ranked Arizona State in overtime on Thursday at Coors Events Center.
While Arizonaβs loss at Colorado was closer than those in the Bahamas, especially its 89-64 loss to Purdue, Miller said he found it similar to all of them.
As UA guard Allonzo Trier noted, there were also similarities to Arizonaβs second-half effort at Utah on Thursday. The Wildcats allowed Utah to hit 9 of 14 3-pointers in the second half, but held off the Utes for a 94-82 win largely because Deandre Ayton was unstoppable after halftime, collecting 19 points and eight rebounds in the second half.
Ayton couldnβt bail the Wildcats out Saturday, even as he tried with 21 second-half points, including two dunks and a jumper over the final 1:44, while UA tried one last time to get back in a game that Colorado led by 20 points in the first half and by 10 with 4:35 to go.
Considering that the Wildcats also struggled on the other end against a mostly zone defense from a CU team that normally plays a UA-style man-to-man, shooting just 38.4 percent for the game, it just wasnβt enough.
βI just feel our effort and concentration level just wasnβt there in the first half,β said Trier, who had eight points with 2-of-8 3-point shooting. βIt actually really started in the second half of the Utah game and carried over to today. We basically played a full game of really poor basketball (between the second half at Utah and first half Saturday).
βWe had a great second half but when you dig yourself that deep of a hole, itβs really hard to come back and win the game.β
UAβs problems were rooted in some early defensive struggles that were obvious shortly after tipoff.
The Wildcats fell behind 7-3 early and struggled to defend the Buffs throughout the first half. Among UAβs bigger problems was finding 7-footer Dallas Walton, who averaged just 4.1 points entering Saturdayβs game but took advantage of light coverage to score inside and out through the middle of the half, helping the Buffs push their advantage to 20 points.
Walton hit a 3-pointer and later an unguarded 18-footer that gave Colorado a 21-12 led, then later scored twice inside to help Colorado go ahead 34-20.
UA also left alone another light scorer, DβShawn Schwartz, alone in the right corner and he hit a 3-pointer with 3:33 left in the first half to give the Buffs a 42-22 lead, their biggest of the game.
The Wildcatsβ defense was so bad early that Miller called three timeouts in a five-minute span over the middle of the first half and even inserted Emmanuel Akot β the freshman he once declared UAβs likely defensive stopper β after not playing Akot at all in the Wildcatsβ previous two games.
Miller said Akot played well, but he didnβt elaborate. What he did elaborate on was himself, his team, and the contrast to what the Buffs were doing.
βColorado took a different approach offensively β they played really fast, a shoot-quick, thrive-in-transition, and do a great job on the offensive glassβ approach, Miller said of the Buffs, who had 11 fewer offensive rebounds than UA in part because of their better shooting. βI think once they saw our guys were struggling, they stayed with it. β¦
βBut we had a lot to do with that. You always want your team to play for you as the coach β¦ and they really struggle playing for me, they really do.β
Miller was asked what he meant by that statement, so he elaborated some more.
βI canβt get them to play hard. I really canβt,β he said. βWe do it for a while. I know weβve had a win streak but weβve also had a good team β we have a lot of talent. A lot of times our offense can get us to the finish line but you have to be able to play both offense and defense β¦ with our team, man, itβs really hard to get our guys to run as fast as they can and thatβs not them, thatβs me. I have a hard time reaching our guys.β
The Wildcats did come out of halftime with a strong effort, however. Down 45-29 at the end of the first half, the Wildcats kept Colorado scoreless for 5 minutes and 16 seconds early in the second half to pull within 49-46 on a layup from Trier with 12:17 remaining.
On one notable CU possession, the Wildcats successfully defended a 3-point try and layup attempt from George King β and then went downcourt to feed Ayton for a dunk that he converted to a 3-point play by hitting a free throw after a foul from Tyler Bey.
But Colorado never let the Wildcats tie or take a lead in the game, and instead took a double-digit lead back, 65-55, with 5:39 left after layups by Dom Collier and McKinley Wright. Later, a three-point play from Dusan Ristic cut Coloradoβs lead to 68-61 entering the final media timeout (3:48) of the game.
A layup from Walton gave the Buffs a 72-63 lead with 1:58 to go, and they hung on from there.
Walton finished with 15 points on 7-for-7 shooting while reveling in the chance to play against fellow 7-footers Ayton and Ristic. He was one of five Colorado players scoring in double figures, with Wright collecting 16 points and 10 assists.
βI canβt put into words how fired up I was,β Walton said. βThe opportunity to match up against two pros is something you donβt get every day.β
Miller can only hope his future pros get that excited.
After the game, Miller said his staff would either fix the problem or continue to get βour asses kickedβ and said he didnβt know if there was a personality issue that was preventing him from getting through.
βI can only go on what I know,β Miller said. βYou know when team is really trying, giving everything they have.
βWe played against a team thatβs doing a great job, so you have to give them credit. But with our credit that we give Colorado, this team, man, I canβt reach them. I really canβt.β
