PROVIDENCE, R.I. — With about four minutes left in the game, Allonzo Trier bit his lip.
Never one to show much emotion on the court, this might as well have been the equivalent of him crying one week earlier in the locker room at MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas, face in his arm, struggling to find the words to describe how Arizona fell short.
This week, the Wildcats fell even shorter, and all Trier could do was bite.
He was re-entered the game later, and Arizona cut Wichita State’s massive lead to single digits with 90 seconds left in the game.
Then, he took maybe his last shot as an Arizona Wildcat, a 3-point jumper swatted into the stands by Wichita’s Shaquille Morris with 20 seconds left on the clock. Trier was 4 for 12 from the field, scoring 10 points; he finished with one assist and two rebounds, and turned the ball over four times.
In the locker room after the game, Trier sat next to a senior Mark Tollefsen. He stared at the ground — not crying, just thinking.
A reporter shined a bright light on Trier and asked him point blank if this was the end of his Arizona career.
He paused.
There was no biting this time.
At a volume near a whisper, he said, “no comment.”
The volume didn’t jump much when he talked about his disappointment in the way the season went for the Wildcats, either.
“It’s almost unreal,” Trier said. “Your season is over, and that’s it for the year. I don’t know what to say about that.”
“It’s just a really sad ending for us. We started early August getting ready together, being battle-tested, we went through a lot this year as a team, some stuff that a lot of teams couldn’t go through and still get to this moment, but I’m proud of our guys. We just ran into a team that was better than us today.”
Sunday, Draft Express reported that Trier had intended to enter this year’s NBA Draft. With 5-star guards Kobi Simmons and Rawle Alkins committed to the UA, there may be a battle for touches in 2017.
Trier is already 20 years old, and he’ll be 21 by the time the 2017 NBA draft comes around.
If Trier had thought about that before Thursday, he wouldn’t say.
If Thursday was his last-ever Arizona game, it will fall in line with the disappointment Stanley Johnson felt a year ago at Staples Center.
Then, Johnson wouldn’t comment on his future either, fresh off a rough loss to Wisconsin in the Elite Eight that saw Johnson get poked in the eye early, and never recovering, really, in scoring a career-low six points.
After, he was asked about his future, and he similarly said “no comment.”
But Johnson was a 6-foot-7-inch, 245-pound specimen, and a sure lottery pick.
Trier is 6-4 with an innate scoring ability, but a question mark in enough other areas that most projections have him pegged right now as, at best, a second-round pick.
If this was his final game, it wasn’t his best.
“Just, I don’t know,” Trier said. “My emotions are all over the place. It’s just unfortunate to know that the season is over. We have no more practices, no more games.”
Pressure cookin’
Arizona was a popular pick to be upset.
It brought back memories of 2013, when Kaleb Tarczewski and Gabe York were freshmen and as the Wildcats were a No. 6 seed facing 11th-seeded Belmont.
Arizona won that game.
Before Thursday’s game, KenPom.com had Arizona projected to lose by one point, with only a 43 percent chance of winning.
He was right about the winning part, but it was never really that close.
“It really doesn’t matter once you get in the tournament,” Wichita State coach Gregg Marshall said after the game. “It’s about the team you’re playing, not the number in front of it.”
The team Arizona was playing was as experienced of an NCAA roster as any in the entire 68-team field, and it showed from the get-go.
Wichita’s pressure defense stymied the Wildcats from the get-go, forcing seven turnovers of point guard Kadeem Allen and 19 overall from the Wildcats.
“It was big time,” point guard Fred VanVleet said of the defensive effort. “Big time effort, big time game plan. You’re talking about coaches that are skipping sleep and really just locking in this time of year and putting everything that we’ve got into one common goal. I think disrupting their timing was big.”
A second loss
Thursday’s loss marked just the second time that UA coach Sean Miller has lost to a higher-seeded team in the NCAA tournament since he was hired to coach the Wildcats. The last one came two years ago, when top-seeded Wildcats team lost to No. 2 seed Wisconsin.
“No one thought we would lose in the first round like we did,” UA forward Chance Comanche said.
