One of Sean Miller’s virtues is that he respects the game he coaches — OK, maybe not all the referees in it — but once the game is over, he leads the league in tenderness and benevolence.
During a game, Miller will chew your hands off; he’s like wrestling an alligator.
But at the conclusion of Saturday’s overtime masterpiece at McKale Center — Gonzaga coach Mark Few referred to it as “epic” — Miller didn’t just blow through the handshake line and adjust his tie for an ESPN close-up.
He stopped Gonzaga guard Byron Wesley, placed his hand on Wesley’s head, leaned close and said something like “keep your chin up” or “you can play for me anytime.”
Wesley pulled up his jersey and sniffed into it.
That was maybe 20 seconds after Wesley shockingly shot an airball and went 0 for 3 from the foul line in a game that was 66-63 and ended 66-63. The message was: There wasn’t a loser in this game. Not Wesley. Not the Zags (especially not the Zags) and not the fortunate fans who got to watch a game so good that somebody should make a commemorative T-shirt.
Something like:
ZAGS AND ZONA
BEST IN THE WEST
Wesley is such a good ballplayer that two years ago, playing for the toxic remains of a USC program that imploded, he scored 18 points against Arizona and shot 8 for 8 from the foul line.
On Saturday, when Arizona’s indefatigable defense shut down the Zags in the game’s final nine minutes, rallying from a 58-52 deficit, Wesley wanted the ball.
Maybe that’s why he introduces himself as “cold-blooded” on his twitter page.
“He’s been a clutch player for us already this year,” said Few. “I was more than happy he got fouled” with 3.3 seconds remaining in overtime.
Few knows what it is to play in the fire, and he knows that losing Saturday at McKale won’t have any negative ramifications. He might be the nation’s most daring schedule-maker. Five years ago, Gonzaga played Duke, Memphis, Michigan State, Wisconsin and Oklahoma before New Year’s. Next week, his club plays at UCLA.
By March, Byron Wesley won’t be shooting airballs with a chance to send a game into double-overtime. He’s a 74 percent career foul-shooter, but on Saturday he inexplicably bricked a few when it counted most.
Who hasn’t blown a tap-in putt?
What I liked is that Few didn’t treat it like a world-ends-now moment like so many coaches. He allowed reporters into the cramped Gonzaga locker room, which is almost heresy in today’s college basketball culture. He wasn’t hiding from anything.
In the middle of Gonzaga’s dressing room, Wesley sat on a folding chair with a towel over his head. It’s the same sad scene repeated over and over in college basketball. Arizona’s Grant Jerrett held that pose in a 2013 Sweet 16 loss to Ohio State, and the UA’s Aaron Gordon was almost inconsolable, towel over his head, after last year’s Pac-12 tournament ouster by UCLA.
On Saturday it was Wesley’s turn in the unhappy chair. He sat there, motionless, until all of his teammates had showered, dressed, and gone to the bus.
He sat no more than three feet from Gonzaga’s intractable point guard, Kevin Pangos, who explained that his mano a mano battle with Arizona’s T.J. McConnell wasn’t just another day in the gym.
“He’s a feisty dude,” Pangos said. “He made me work for everything.”
Wesley surely overheard Zags center Przemek Karnowski, who, nearby, admitted that Arizona’s defense “just destroyed us down in San Diego last year.”
The Wildcats took Gonzaga apart 84-61 in that Round of 32 NCAA game a year ago — the Zags committed 21 turnovers — but that was before Wesley transferred in from USC and game-changing front-liners Kyle Wiltjer and Domantas Sabonis, became Zags.
There is no reason to have sad eyes at Gonzaga anymore. The Bulldogs have more scorers than Arizona, have as much size and muscle, maybe more, and the one coach who seems to admire them most is Miller.
“To me, there’s not a loser in today’s game,” he said. He said that playing a team as lethal as the Zags, rather than dodging them, “is the right thing to do.”
It was virtually a win-win all around, except for Wesley.
When he finally put on a gray hoodie and walked to join his teammates down a quiet corridor, two adult men and a woman — his family from Los Angeles — greeted him.
“Don’t let this define you,” one of the older men said. “It’s just basketball.”
Wesley was having none of that. He pulled the hood over his head and looked off into the distance.
Maybe three months from now Arizona and Gonzaga will have a rematch at Staples Center in Los Angeles, with a berth in the Final Four at stake. Maybe one of them won’t make it that far. Maybe both.
But on the first Saturday in December, Arizona and Gonzaga played the kind of game that reinforces Tucson’s unyielding passion for college basketball.
A rematch? Please.
