LOS ANGELES – After his Arizona Wildcats nearly melted down again Thursday, this time when a 23-point lead shrunk to just three, coach Sean Miller said he might start benching those with sagging motivation.
The problem, as revealed yet again when the Wildcats hung on to beat USC 73-66 at Galen Center, is that he has only three reserve scholarship guys to turn to. Especially since Allonzo Trier was unavailable yet again Thursday and likely won’t be Saturday at UCLA either.
Trier admitted to a positive PED test Wednesday and said he can’t return until he tests clean, having missed 19 games already. During Thursday’s broadcast, the Pac-12 Networks’ Lewis Johnson said that Trier won’t be tested again until next week.
Johnson’s statement suggests Trier is out for the UA-UCLA showdown on Saturday, though Miller said UA doesn’t have a testing schedule and largely declined further comment.
“I’d like to elaborate on that but I can’t, as much as I would like to,” Miller said. “And it’s not even that we’re trying to hide anything. It’s that it’s the situation. We have our fingers crossed that at some point he’ll join us but I really don’t know any more than you in terms of when that will be. We’re just hopeful.”
Whatever the case, a Trier absence at UCLA means the Wildcats are stuck with the same eight players, who were largely bailed out Thursday when Lauri Markkanen scored 23 points that included a banked-in 3-pointer late in the shot clock with 37 seconds left.
“We had about 14 or 15 things go wrong in a row, but got lucky,” Miller said. “Lauri’s a great player but he made a lucky shot.”
The Wildcats led just 67-64 entering the final minute, with USC shooting 50 percent for the second half, though Markkanen’s 3-pointer expanded UA’s lead to 70-64 and the Wildcats hung on from there.
“It was a broken play so I saw I should shoot it,” Markkanen said. “I’ve made those shots before and I was confident.”
Markkanen’s confident play was one of the few things the Wildcats had going down the stretch.
While Arizona held a 22-point lead as late as with 11:01 left, 56-34, the Trojans gradually cut the lead down in large part because of USC guard Elijah Stewart’s hot shooting and open looks.
Stewart was only 2 of 7 from the field and made just 1 of 4 3-pointers in the first half, but hit four three-pointers in the middle of the second half to help USC cut the UA lead into single digits.
Stewart later made a three-point play with 3:40 left to cut it to 64-57, and after Rawle Alkins fouled De’Anthony Melton behind the 3-point line with 2:36 left, Melton hit all three ensuing free throws to make it 65-60. Shaqquan Aaron later made two free throws to cut it to 67-64.
Even though the Wildcats hung on at the end, Miller and center Dusan Ristic alike exited the locker room acting as if the game was a UA loss.
After all, they had let up late in wins over Texas A&M, ASU and Colorado, and had the same thing happen Thursday just as they were entering their toughest road trip of the season. UA (17-2 overall and 6-0 in the Pac-12) will face UCLA on Saturday at 2 p.m.
“We just had a long conversation about this,” Ristic said of the Wildcats’ postgame locker room scene. “This is not the first time this has happened. We’ve got to learn from this.”
The difference was starker Thursday than it had been before. In the first half, Arizona held the Trojans to just 25.8 percent shooting and took a 29-19 halftime lead, before USC shot 50 percent in the final 20 minutes.
Even early in the second half, Arizona kept jumping on the Trojans. USC shot just 1 of 4 and had four turnovers through the first four minutes after halftime, when UA took a 42-21 lead.
Then it all, almost, fell apart.
Miller shuddered to think about what a similarly bipolar effort would create on Saturday at Pauley Pavilion.
“It’s a pattern that we have to break,” he said. “It’s my job to break it. If we have to take a loss because guys have to learn we just can’t pick and choose how hard we want to play, then we’ll do that.”
Later Miller tried to look at the big picture, but still couldn’t get his mind off the second half.
“We’re 17-2 overall and 6-0 in the Pac-12, I get it,” Miller said. “But I can only go on what I just saw and it’s concerning. It only gets tougher from here as the calendar gets ready to turn to February.”
