The Arizona Wildcats have been beating each other up in practice for nearly four months now, and they’ve played 20 games already.
Their last game was their biggest win of the season, at UCLA. The postseason is still six weeks away. Washington State is coming to town on Thursday, and there isn’t another really big game to point to until Feb. 4 at Oregon.
Normally, the way UA coach Sean Miller explains it, that’s a recipe for some doldrums.
Except this year, Allonzo Trier popped up.
"We have, I almost feel, a shot of energy at a time when not a lot of other teams can feel that way," Miller said. "You’re about ready to head into the second half of conference play here soon. The calendar is turning to February. As a coach, you guard against complacency. You worry about practices not being as crisp or sharp as they once were.
"It's almost as if we have a new life. We have a different team."
A team that, junior center Dusan Ristic says, now has the potential to be better than any he’s played for at Arizona, and he was a freshman on UA's 2015 Elite Eight team.
“Now that we have Allonzo back, I think we can still develop our game and improve,” Ristic said. “I think maybe our peak of the season is yet to come. We’ve had Allonzo only one game so I’d say in five or six games we’ll be more used to playing with him and that’s what we need heading into the postseason.”
Here are five ways the Wildcats now might be better with Trier, who returned from a 19-game PED-related suspension Saturday:
