Arizona Wildcats head coach Sean Miller shouts out a play in the second half during a game at Alaska Airlines Arena in Seattle, Wash., on Saturday, Feb. 18, 2017. Arizona won 76-68. Mamta Popat / Arizona Daily Star

In the big picture, all is well with the Arizona Wildcats. Maybe better than could be expected.

They’re resilient, to be sure, having dealt with two season-ending ACL tears, the Allonzo Trier Saga, Parker Jackson Cartwright’s bum ankle and Kadeem Allen’s popped pinkie β€” all while collecting a 24-3 record, first-place position in the Pac-12 and track to a No. 2 or No. 3 NCAA Tournament seed.

They’ve been through so much adversity that coach Sean Miller says if he had been told beforehand about it that β€œI would have said we wouldn’t be in the NCAA Tournament.”

But since Trier returned on Jan. 21 and the Wildcats pulled out their biggest win of the year, 96-85 at UCLA, it has been difficult to gauge exactly where they are heading.

They struggled at home with the zone defenses of Washington and Washington State, fell behind at halftime to then-winless Oregon State, were blown out at Oregon, posted single-digit home wins over Stanford and Cal β€” but managed to convincingly sweep the return games with the Cougars and Huskies last weekend.

This weekend could be a much clearer test of where they are, with home games against sneakily talented USC and again-surging UCLA at McKale. Maybe by then we’ll know the answers to questions like these:Β 


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