Timeline: Allonzo Trier mystery ends with news that he'll play Saturday
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Arizona Wildcats unwittingly took performance-enhancing drug, setting up unprecedented standoff involving UA, NCAA.
- Greg Hansen
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So much has changed, so little has changed.
When Miles Simon was about to play his junior season at Arizona, leading to the 1997 NCAA championship, he was academically ineligible for the fall semester. It was news THIS BIG in Tucson.
Whatever he wanted to say, Lute Olson was muted. While asked frequently about Simon's possible return, Olson would invariably say that federal "FERPA" laws prohibited him from talking about Simon. Olson would often apply the FERPA rules — which protect the privacy of a student's educational records — to any player eligibility situation, even when it didn't apply.
Now it's Sean Miller's turn. He is unable to speak publicly about whether sophomore forward Allonzo Trier is eligible to play in the regular season. UA athletic director Greg Byrne also declined to speak about Trier on Friday night. Obviously, something's up.
College athletes are now protected from prying eyes to the point of being in the Witness Protection Program. Access and insight is limited because of a proliferation of untrained website "media" people.
A year ago, it was Elliott Pitts. This year Allonzo Trier. If there is any good to this entanglement, it's that Trier plays on the wing, the most replaceable position in college basketball.
- Bruce Pascoe
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SAN FRANCISCO — After Arizona sophomore Allonzo Trier was scratched from Friday's Pac-12 basketball media day, two replacements showed up instead.
One was Arizona guard Kadeem Allen. The other was an elephant.
Because Trier's eligibility status remains unclear this week — and Arizona continues to refuse comment in any form — his no-show at the league's annual preseason publicity event only added a higher profile to the question marks.
Trier had been long planned to represent UA at the event, and was listed on the Pac-12's official schedule earlier this week. But Allen's name surfaced on the online calendar Friday and the senior wing showed up instead of Trier.
While Miller spoke highly of Trier's recent on-court efforts during the Pac-12 Networks' televised media-day show, he was asked later on the interview podium if Trier's absence was related to his eligibility, and what that status is.
"I'm not going to comment on that," Miller said.
Miller's response was consistent with his podium interview after the Oct. 14 Red-Blue Game. Arizona athletic direct Greg Byrne has also declined to comment.
In a way, Trier's situation was fitting on a day when absences and question marks were arguably more newsworthy than the Pac-12's annual media poll, which picked Arizona to finish second behind Oregon as expected.
Not only were conference player of the year candidates such as Cal's Ivan Rabb, Oregon's Dillon Brooks and Washington's Markelle Fultz nowhere to be found, but Brooks' foot injury is yet another mystery that could affect the way the league plays out.
While Oregon is loaded with veteran talent, Brooks' ability to get a shot off nearly anywhere on the court — in addition to his rebounding and passing — are vital needs if the Ducks are to become the conference favorite and a Final Four contender.
Yet it isn't clear if Brooks will be at 100 percent from his summertime injury by the time the conference season rolls around New Year's weekend. Oregon coach Dana Altman said Brooks is "on schedule" but said the Ducks might have to go with a three-guard front if he's not available any time soon.
"If it were up to him, he'd be practicing right now but we'll listen to the doctors," Altman said. "If he's not available early, it will be difficult for our team because we have a very challenging November. But (if he's missing) I think our guys will look at it as a challenge to pick up the areas that Dillon would generally do."
While Brooks' status was unclear, the Ducks still received 23 of 27 first-place votes among media members who regularly cover the conference, while Arizona picked up the other four.
UCLA was picked third, followed by California and Colorado. It is the Buffaloes, who lost low-post mainstay Josh Scott but return nearly everyone else, that Miller said could be better than expected.
"In a quiet way they're gonna be as good as they've been," Miller said. "They have experience, talent and Tad (Boyle, CU coach) obviously does a great job. Then I think you have a heavyweight at the top with Oregon, a one seed (in the NCAA tournament) last year. When you have a team that good in the conference it kind of pulls everybody up."
It was the first time since the Pac-12 poll went to media voting in 1992 that the Ducks have been picked first, giving the Ducks the kind of target that has both Altman and Oregon guard Tyler Dorsey on the alert.
"Every night it doesn't matter who we're playing, they're gonna want to beat us," Dorsey said. "It's gonna be very competitive and teams are going to want to beat us and we're going to have to be ready and mentally prepared. We can't look past anybody."
Oregon's emergence in this year's Pac-12 poll marked the first time in five seasons that the Wildcats have not been picked to win the league, though UCLA wound up winning the Pac-12 in 2012-13 and Oregon did it last season.
Maybe that was just as well for the Wildcats, who now have the hype of unprecedented recruiting success this fall on top of a highly rated freshman class featuring Lauri Markkanen, Rawle Alkins and Kobi Simmons.
"I think the thing we try to guard against is you think you're better than you really are," Miller said on the Pac-12 Networks show. "That's one of the problems we have at Arizona."
After the TV show and podium interviews were finished, Miller noted that how the race plays out is all subject to some uncertainty anyway.
The Wildcats were picked to finish first last season, but suffered a number of preseason injuries, went without starters Kaleb Tarczewski and Trier for about a month each during the regular season, and lost key reserve Elliott Pitts as part of what was eventually revealed to be a university finding of sexual misconduct.
"First or second — it's not like we got picked sixth. That would be different," Miller said. "We're near the top, and a lot of it is health and things that sometimes happen within your own team that derail you.
"Oregon's already facing something right now with Dillon Brooks having an injury. I'm sure if you talk to them, they wish he was healthy, you know."
Arizona may be hoping it isn't facing the loss of a key player, too.
- Bruce Pascoe
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The eligibility status of sophomore Allonzo Trier, the Wildcats' other returning starter, continues to remain unclear.
Miller declined to comment during his Monday news conference when asked if Trier has been practicing or would play Tuesday. Miller initially declined to comment on Trier after the Oct. 14 Red-Blue Game and again when Trier did not show up as scheduled for the Oct. 21 Pac-12 media day in San Francisco.
- Greg Hansen
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If you are aching to know why Allonzo Trier isn't in uniform, here's the best available answer:
The UA athletic department no longer lists birthdates of players in its media guides. It no longer includes a brief bio about a player's parents and their occupations.
That's now considered sensitive and potentially compromising information, and so schools like Arizona play it safe.
Why isn't Trier allowed to play?
The UA's only answer has been "no comment," and that's because multiple agencies protect students' privacy — including their birthdates — and those agencies are known by the initials FERPA, HIPAA, PPRA and HUSHUP.
OK, I'm kidding about HUSHUP, but the others are legit agencies that make it mostly illegal for someone like Arizona basketball coach Sean Miller to divulge what keeps Trier on the bench.
It's a good thing, too, because what if Miller — or some other coach at another college — said that Joe Schmoe isn't playing because he violated a rule.
That allegation would follow Joe Schmoe for years, even if he appealed the ruling and won. You can't do that. If nothing else, it's not fair.
Miller's program motto is "honor the process," and it's ironic that the legal process has become such a conspicuous part of Arizona basketball the last 11 months, starting with ex-Wildcat Elliott Pitts and rolling over to Trier.
As Arizona rolled to an 86-35 victory over College of Idaho in Tuesday's season-opening exhibition game, Trier sat in a position usually occupied by walk-ons, deep on the UA bench, past the baseline, almost in basketball oblivion.
He sat next to sophomore center Chance Comanche, also in civilian clothes.
The UA released a statement about Comanche's availability on Tuesday, saying he is indefinitely suspended "due to his own lack of academic responsibility."
So why describe Comanche's situation and not Trier's? Although no one's willing to talk on the record, it's probably because Comanche's classroom work has been determined to be lacking, while there has been no final determination on Trier's situation.
The most important thing is to protect Trier's rights.
Arizona's basketball players are more visible in this community than the mayor and the chief of police, and even a fringe player like Pitts became the hottest topic of conversation in Tucson last winter.
This isn't new at McKale Center.
In November 2000, a season Arizona would reach the national championship game, two key Wildcats were sitting next to Lute Olson in their civvies. It was as intensely observable, and quiet, as it is now with Trier.
Senior center Loren Woods was suspended for six season-opening games by the NCAA. His error? Accepting illegal benefits from his old high school coach. How much of an error was it? The NCAA said the benefits were between $300 and $499.
Arizona appealed, asking for a three-game sentence. The NCAA insisted on six. Only after the sentence was announced did Olson and the school comment publicly. The Tucson basketball community could finally breathe again.
At the same time, junior forward Richard Jefferson was suspended two games for accepting a plane ticket and an NBA Finals ticket from Bill Walton, the father of UA forward Luke Walton.
Jefferson faced a potentially longer suspension but was reinstated when Arizona agreed to have Jefferson repay the estimated $281 in benefits to a charity.
Arizona insisted on a "no comment" policy until Jefferson had gone through the NCAA's legal process. Trier is getting the same treatment that Woods and Jefferson did 15 years ago.
Some schools aren't as strict with interpretations.
Last spring, Florida football coach Jim McElwain suspended two of the Gators' leading players and, anticipating the public's thirst for information, disarmed the entire situation by saying: "We're without a couple of guys who haven't been with our team since January. They're still doing some schoolwork and that kind of stuff. You won't see those guys out there at practice. This will be the last that we talk about that."
End of conversation. The Florida football community moved on.
It's not that easy in Tucson, where deep-dish worry accompanies all basketball things that don't flow downstream.
Thirty minutes after Tuesday's game, Matt Ensor, Arizona basketball communications chief, said, "We still can't comment on Allonzo Trier's status right now."
Not that there isn't enough news to fill your computer screen.
Miller's rotation has been shot to smithereens before the first official game. Trier and Comanche are out, Ray Smith left the game with a leg injury, and suddenly junior Keanu Pinder, who once seemed like a recruiting afterthought, appears to be the sixth man.
"He's a powerful, powerful piece of this team," said freshman guard Kobi Simmons.
Pinder has to be a powerful piece because, as Miller said 30 minutes after the game, "We don't have any depth."
No team, not even Duke, can afford the loss of Trier, Comanche and Smith at any time in any season.
"It's heartbreaking, it really is," said Miller, referencing Smith's injury. "I don't have any words to couch it and make it better than it really is. It's awful."
In a stunning turn of events, the Wildcats have been humbled, and it is only Nov. 2. This is one time "awful" might be an understatement.
- Bruce Pascoe
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Four scholarship Arizona basketball players dressed in street clothes Tuesday, and the Wildcats' hearts ached over the distinct possibility that a fifth might now be joining them.
In the second half of Arizona's 86-35 exhibition win against the College of Idaho at McKale Center, redshirt freshman Ray Smith was helped off the court with an apparent knee injury after he has already suffered ACL tears in both knees over the past 27 months.
With 12:39 left in the game, Smith went up awkwardly for a layup and then crumpled next to the basket. He signaled for help, at one point using a throat-cutting gesture, and was then helped off the floor with neither leg touching the ground.
UA coach Sean Miller said he didn't know exactly what the injury was, but that "certainly it didn't look good."
"It's heartbreaking," Miller said later. "It really is. It's awful."
Smith's injury came on a night when the Wildcats were already missing guard Allonzo Trier, who was out for unspecified reasons, and center Chance Comanche, who has been suspended indefinitely for academic reasons. Those two joined the redshirting Dylan Smith and the injured Talbott Denny in street clothes on the bench.
While UA was blitzing the undersized and undermanned Yotes in the first half, holding them to just 9.7 percent shooting before halftime, Smith briefly left the game in the first half which turned out to be a false alarm in his knees.
His first fall to the floor drew a collective groan from the crowd of 13,844 at McKale, but he walked to the locker room on his own power and returned quickly.
"He seemed fine" then, Miller said. "I don't know if what happened the first time had anything to do with the second time."
In any case, Miller said, Smith has run and jumped and landed repeatedly during preseason practices and the Wildcats have given him occasional days off practice while he eased his way back in.
"Obviously, it was a tough night for us watching Ray go down," Miller said. "It's not about our team when you see somebody like him that we've been involved for couple of years now, watching him fight, going through surgeries and rehabbing even harder, being so talented, then watching it happen."
It probably wasn't any fun for anyone in the building to see, and a postgame news conference with UA players Parker Jackson-Cartwright and Kobi Simmons was understandably subdued.
"Obviously, it's a scary moment," Jackson-Cartwright said. "We just hope for the best, especially for a guy like him."
Things were so muted during their press conference that Simmons' demonstrative alley-oop dunk, on a pass from Kadeem Allen, never even came up. Simmons quietly said his teammates have given him confidence and that the Wildcats would "stick as a family" no matter what happened next.
Smith's departure left the Wildcats with just seven active scholarship players. That meant instead of getting a chance to start sorting out a rotation, Miller was simply handed the only one he may have for a while.
"We don't have any depth," Miller said.
Since Trier's status has been unclear for nearly three weeks, his non-appearance Tuesday was not a surprise. But then Comanche showed up in a polo shirt for warmups and, five minutes before game time, UA issued a statement with Miller saying Comanche was out "due to his own lack of academic responsibility."
"As a member of our basketball program, you are a student and an athlete, and you are expected to do the best of your ability in both areas," Miller said in his statement. "It is not an option to compete and be held accountable on the court but not in the classroom."
With Trier, Miller has repeatedly declined to comment and a UA spokesman said before Tuesday's postgame press conference that he could not comment again.
Tuesday's game itself was never an issue for the Wildcats. While the College of Idaho is ranked No. 7 in the NAIA Division II poll, the Yotes faced a considerable size and talent deficit that was obvious early. UA 7-foot forward Lauri Markkanen scored UA's first two baskets inside, overpowering a team that had nobody over 6-foot-7.
The Wildcats led 50-9 at halftime and began inserting walk-ons with 8:30 to go.
By the time both walk-ons Jake DesJardins and Tyler Trillo made their debuts on the McKale Center floor with eight minutes left in the second half, the Wildcats were ahead 74-23 and had outshot the Yotes 56 percent to 17 percent.
The seven UA players who remained after Smith departed Tuesday's game all made up a remarkably balanced offense.
Dusan Ristic led the Wildcats with 14 points and nine rebounds, while Keanu Pinder had a double-double off the bench with 10 points and 11 rebounds.
Simmons led UA in scoring with 17 points, while Jackson-Cartwright, Allen and Rawle Alkins each had 11 points.
The Wildcats were only 1 of 13 from 3-point range, however, with Alkins and Simmons each missing three. They also allowed the undersized Yotes to collect 16 offensive rebounds.
Miller started Jackson-Cartwright, Allen, Alkins, Markkanen and Ristic. Pinder was the first player off the bench, while Smith and Simmons were later inserted.
That was an eight-man rotation. Now there's probably seven.
During a pregame news conference Monday, Miller may have unknowingly foreshadowed that.
"Every year at this time, we have depth," he said, "and inevitably injuries and other things can take it away."
- Bruce Pascoe
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HONOLULU — Sophomore guard Allonzo Trier did not accompany the Arizona Wildcats to Hawaii on Tuesday, suggesting he probably won't play in the team's regular-season opener Friday against Michigan State.
Arizona has steadfastly refused to comment on Trier or characterize what might be the issue with his eligibility and would not say earlier this week if Trier would make the trip. But the team's American Airlines flight from Phoenix deplaned Tuesday at Honolulu International Airport, and Trier did not appear to be on it.
All of the Wildcats' other scholarship players exited the plane with two exceptions: Guard Dylan Smith is not allowed to travel as a redshirting transfer, and Ray Smith remained in Tucson as he awaits knee surgery.
Trier did not show as scheduled for the Pac-12 media day in San Francisco last month and did not play in either of UA's two exhibition games.
ESPN analyst Jay Bilas, who is also an attorney, said a school's reluctance to comment in any form in a situation like Trier's is either an indication that the coach wants to keep it internal or a sign of a student-privacy issue.
"It's certainly not normal," Bilas said. "I can't think of a lot of other instances where you were not told anything when there's been a player who hasn't played. I'm not sure what his practice situation is either, but I know he didn't play in their exhibition game.
"There are a lot of rumors flying around."
UA went over two months last season without saying why forward Elliott Pitts did not suit up for games. Pitts was eventually suspended after a university finding of sexual misconduct and other infractions of student behavioral rules, and he has since transferred to a junior college.
Arizona will have only seven active scholarship players if Trier is out Friday, but Miller said on an ESPN podcast Monday that a "lot of things could clear up here over the next couple of weeks."
Center Chance Comanche will probably play Friday, Miller said, after he was suspended for academic reasons in UA's two exhibition games.
"We've certainly been hit here early on, but a lot of things could clear up here over the next couple of weeks," Miller said on the podcast. "Things are never as bad as they seem and certainly a month ago they probably weren't as good as they seemed. It's right in the middle and we have a long, long way to go."
Signing period begins
Arizona will start formally reeling in its top-rated 2017 recruiting class on Wednesday, with forward Ira Lee of Los Angeles, guard Brandon Randolph of Yonkers, New York, and Alex Barcello of Tempe planning signing day events at their high schools.
Lee tweeted that he will sign at 3:30 p.m. Pacific Time at Crossroads School in Santa Monica, California. Barcello said he would sign at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at Tempe's Corona del Sol High School. Randolph's mother, Robin, said via text message that he would sign at his Westtown School in Pennsylvania.
Lee posted a photoshopped picture of him standing in an Arizona uniform, with the McKale Center crowd behind him. Barcello posted a picture of all four UA commits — Lee, Randolph and DeAndre Ayton and himself — in separate poses.
Good news, bad news for injured Smith
Miller also told ESPN that forward Ray Smith's third ACL tear on Nov. 1 was "worse than the other two times combined," and that the redshirt freshman forward was never eligible to secure catastrophic injury insurance because he first tore the knee during the summer before his senior year of high school.
However, Miller said Smith's UA scholarship will be honored until he graduates, and UA athletic director Greg Byrne confirmed that it would remain an athletic scholarship. NCAA rules allow schools to pay for scholarships to injured athletes, and it won't count against the 13-player limit in basketball.
"Ray doesn't even have to do anything associated with the program, but in my initial talks with him, he really wants to," Miller said. "He wants to be a broadcaster, and when you meet him, talk to him, you'll see. I think that could really be in the cards for somebody like him. Not just his story, but he's really an engaging and charismatic guy.
"He has thought about coaching. So we're gonna keep him involved in what we do. I think it's great for our team in many ways because those guys really look up to him. It's a reminder to everybody to not take things for granted. You're the guy who misses class, or you're the guy who comes to practice and really doesn't want to be there just because you've had a long day — and there's a guy on the sidelines who would do anything to play college basketball, but he can't."
Miller said after UA's exhibition game with Chico State on Sunday that he would talk with Smith more upon returning from Hawaii to discuss "concrete" things he can do with the team this season.
Senior Allen's leadership emerging
Although UA entered the season with question marks over its potential leadership, with its most experienced players on the quieter side, fifth-year senior Kadeem Allen may be answering them.
Allen had 15 points with two rebounds and four assists to one turnover against Chico State, added a block and hit 7 of 8 free throws. He played 33 minutes while appearing vocal on the floor.
"Kadeem's awesome," Miller said. "At a time when everybody cares about leaving Arizona as fast as you can, leaving college basketball as fast as you can, he's the example of the young guy who has just bought in, has worked, has sacrificed and become a really good player.
"He's our heart and soul in many ways and certainly the leader of the team, and he's earned it. He's a guard that any college coach would love to have. His experience, his leadership, his toughness, those are all things that are going to help his teammates through our long journey."
- Bruce Pascoe
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HONOLULU — If there was one thing Arizona figured to miss the most without Allonzo Trier in the lineup, it was pure scoring.
Outside jumpers that he often created on his own, drives to the basket, and tons and tons of free throws, which Trier made at a 79.3-percent rate last season.
There wasn't supposed to be anybody else on the roster with that exact same skillset. But then, in UA's season-opening 65-63 win over Michigan State on Friday, Kobi Simmons scooped a lot of it all up.
The slender, athletic freshman guard from Atlanta had 15 points on 4-for-6 shooting, plus 5 of 6 free throws — in just 13 minutes of the first half in UA's win, pulling UA almost singlehandedly out of an early 17-2 deficit.
So maybe there was a silver lining in Trier's situation? That a guy like Simmons had a chance to grow quickly with all that opportunity?
"There is no silver lining without Allonzo Trier," UA coach Sean Miller said.
Maybe not. But as the length of Trier's ineligibility remains uncertain — UA hasn't even categorized his status for nearly a month now — the Wildcats at least have another scoring threat they can look to.
"Kobi Simmons, for a freshman, showed a lot of confidence and a lot of ability," Miller said. "He had 15 of our 34 (points) at halftime and that's a big reason we got back in the game. He was outstanding.
"He has a lot of talent. We watch him every day and I think the best is yet to come for him, too."
The only current UA player to have participated in a McDonalds All-American Game, Simmons said he feels like he has to enter a game with confidence. The difference was Simmons did it off the bench, a different role for just about any UA freshmen, especially a high-profile one.
Simmons says he's OK with that.
"I just want to win," Simmons said. "At the end of the day, if coach thinks this was best, well that's what's best and that's what I want to do."
Miller said it's too early to determine if Simmons fits a sixth-man role in part because he may not always be a sixth man.
"Who starts two weeks from now and who starts today could be different," Miller said. "But whether he starts or not he's certainly one of our biggest players, one of our most important players. We're only playing eight guys so all of our guys are very important."
Miller said the Wildcats learned plenty from playing Michigan State, and Simmons' emergence on a big stage was one of them.
What else UA learned:
They have a go-to guy in the clutch. Miller has shown a penchant to give the ball to his top veteran when the game comes down to a final bucket, and Friday was no exception.
Kadeem Allen, already drawing Miller's praise for his vocal leadership of the team, was the first option off an inbounds pass with seven seconds left. He delivered by racing confidently coast-to-coast for a game-winning layup.
Miller "put faith and trust in me," Allen said.
Their bulldog is in training. Freshman wing Rawle Alkins struggled to play his power guard game Friday, being called twice for offensive fouls while driving to the basket, and going only 1 for 4 from the field.
But Miller didn't sound too worried about it, having seen Stanley Johnson pick up similar fouls early in his brief UA career, too.
"Rawle's gonna be fine," Miller said. "He's that guy you've seen time and time again where you watch him a month from now, a couple weeks from now, and he's going to be a completely different player than he is now.
"And he did some really great things in (Friday's) game. It's just he's used to scoring. It'll come. He just has to find out how it works for him."
Their frontline is adaptable. Arizona struggled early on defense and had trouble matching up with Michigan State star freshman Miles Bridges throughout Friday's game.
But UA eventually found ways to minimize Bridges' damage, with Miller reducing Dusan Ristic's role (18 minutes) while going with a still big but more athletic frontline of Chance Comanche, Lauri Markkanen and Keanu Pinder at times.
"That's who we have," Miller said. "It's not like we have a lot of choices. We have a group of eight and we have to try to bring out the best in that group of eight.
"Any coach in his first game, (you) don't necessarily know completely what to expect or what to get better at. You learn through game experience. I think this is obviously an experience where we know a lot more about our team than when we came here."
They don't have to be all-business. On a typical Arizona road trip, players barely have time to walk around town, with meetings, study sessions and most meals held in team hotels on top of daily practices.
But last week, the Wildcats spent parts of three straight days at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, learning about history and military life, while preparing to win a Top 25 showdown.
Turned out to be a pretty good way to spend the week.
"It was great all around," Miller said. "First of all, this has been an incredible learning experience for our team. If you ever want to know what our Armed Forces do, veterans, come to Pearl Harbor.
"That in and of itself made this trip worth it. And we knew we were playing against a quality team and program.
"Whether we won or lost we were going to grown and get better from this. The fact that we were able to win makes the trip even nicer."
- Bruce Pascoe
- Updated
Another week has gone by in the Arizona Wildcats' season, which meant another week of speculation swirled around UA guard Allonzo Trier, with the current trend suggesting his pending eligibility issue will be resolved soon.
It was on Oct. 14 that UA coach Sean Miller first said he wouldn't discuss "rumors" about Trier, and Miller declined to comment when Trier didn't show up as expected at the Oct. 21 Pac-12 MediaDday and when he didn't make UA's trip to Hawaii for its season opener with Michigan State.
UA has since opted to announce before every news conference that Trier questions won't be addressed, while he has now missed two exhibition contests and three regular-season games.
Arizona AD Greg Byrne also has declined comment, and a number of people at UA and around Trier have declined to comment or respond to messages.
This sort of reaction is "certainly not normal," ESPN analyst Jay Bilas said earlier this month, while Arizona Republic columnist Paola Boivin wrote the following Sunday:
"Rumors are swirling, and it's frustrating for fans hungry for a little transparency. The challenge for athletic programs are laws that protect a student's privacy. And if it's a situation that involves an investigation and possible appeal, it could drag on.
"In those circumstances, the silence makes complete sense.
"But if Trier made a mistake, I hope the time comes when he says, 'This is what I did. I screwed up and I'm sorry.
"Sports fans are a forgiving bunch, especially when there is true remorse. And maybe it's not the case here, but there are so many circumstances when athletes could serve themselves well by getting in front of the story."
- Bruce Pascoe
- Updated
Lauri Markkanen and Parker Jackson-Cartwright had their first career double-doubles in Arizona's 71-55 win over Northern Colorado on Monday night, which makes perfect sense when you consider the math.
You know: Point guard (Jackson-Cartwright) passes to remarkably efficient big man (Markkanen). Two points, one assist, often. Repeat this a few times, and before you know it, double figures start to happen.
As it was, three of Jackson-Cartwright's 10 assists were a direct result of passes to Markkanen, while the Finnish big man also tipped in a miss from PJC at the end of the first half.
Markkanen finished with 17 points to go with 13 rebounds, while Jackson-Cartwright had 15 points and 11 rebounds.
"I just try to find him," Jackson-Cartwright said.
But Jackson-Cartwright added that he really "was trying to find everybody," and indeed, in Arizona's closer-than-it-looked win over surprisingly stubborn Northern Colorado, it was more than just his connection with Markkanen.
Jackson-Cartwright had to guide his teammates through the first full-time zone defense they'd seen yet this season - and the kind they likely will again many times - while helping defend an intricately spaced Bears offense on the other end of the court.
"Tonight was Parker's best game at Arizona," UA coach Sean Miller said. "Everything he did was important. And of the 15 points, he got lot against the zone by making some good decisions. It was good to see."
Markkanen, meanwhile, had to figure out when to move and when not to in that sort of congestion inside.
All the adjustments took a while. UA (4-0) shot just 36.7 percent in the first half and actually trailed at halftime, 31-30. The game stayed within two baskets until the final four minutes; the game, that is, between the No. 8 Wildcats and the team picked No. 11 — in the Big Sky Conference.
Told the Bears were indeed picked that low, Jackson-Cartwright shook his head.
"They had a good coach. They had good players. They're going to play every team tough," he said. "Eleventh? That's a stretch."
Big Sky coaches picked Northern Colorado to finish 11th of 12 teams in their conference, while the Bears have two of its best players redshirting while sitting out a season with the school's self-imposed postseason ban. Northern Colorado is still awaiting the NCAA to conclude an investigation that could add further sanctions.
But they still have one player Miller called "special" in point guard Jordan Davis, who had 20 points and five assists despite playing most of the second half in foul trouble. Long-range gunner Chaz Glotta had 15 points on 5 of 11 3-pointers.
While Miller said the Wildcats should have been able to limit a shooter such as Glotta to just five or six looks instead of the 15 overall shots he took, Miller was hardly faulting anyone for what Davis did.
Northern Colorado coach Jeff Linder said before the game that Davis was "like a miniature Russell Westbrook," and it didn't take long for the McKale crowd to see that. While Davis had to play the second half mostly in foul trouble, he engineered an offense that was often difficult for the Wildcats to keep up with.
Northern Colorado shot 41.4 percent in the first half but made 4 of 10 threes.
"Their coach is one of the best offensive coaches I've seen," Miller said. "He reminds me of FIBA, a lot of movement and pace. They move you around and around, and get to what they want to get to. And guess what? They have a great point guard.
"Jordan Davis can play at any place in the country. He's special. He's big, physical, makes the game easier for his teammates. He's a tough guy to defend. Then on top of it they put a zone defense up. That's the first time you realty rely on your older guys. So we had a deer in the headlight look. But I liked our execution against them in the second half. "
The Wildcats managed to finish the game shooting 43.6 percent but had trouble solving the Bears' zone for much of it. They shot just 36.7 percent at halftime and didn't really get going offensively until about 12 minutes remained.
As a result, what was a 1-point game at halftime stayed close early in the second half before Arizona appeared to gain some momentum midway through. Jackson-Cartwright made a 3-point play to give UA a 40-39 lead and Markkanen hit a 10-footer on UA's next possession, bringing out a wild chorus of cheers inside McKale Center.
But the Bears still hung within two baskets, with Glotta hitting his fifth 3-pointer with 8:33 to cut UA's lead to just 48-44, before the Wildcats gradually pulled away in the final minutes.
The Wildcats (4-0) will move on to the bracketed portion of the Las Vegas Invitational, facing Santa Clara on Thursday night in Las Vegas. Northern Colorado (1-3) will face Sacred Heart earlier Thursday.
While UA again was without the apparently ineligible Allonzo Trier, Allen was back in the starting lineup after spraining his knee on Nov. 11 against Michigan State and missing UA's Nov. 15 game against Cal State Bakersfield. Allen logged five minutes on Friday against Sacred Heart.
Although speculation continues to swirl around Trier, he did not participate in pregame warmups nor dress for the game. A UA spokesman declined to comment on Trier, as the school has consistently done since Miller was first asked about Trier on Oct. 14.
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
My wife comes home from work and asks "Is Trier going to play?"
She pronounces it TREE-are. She does not follow UA hoops.
But almost every day since Halloween she has returned from the medical center with the same question.
"Is Trier going to play?"
One of the internists wants to know. The trauma center nurse wants to know. The lady giving flu shots wants to know.
I shrug. "It's like Stonehenge," I say. "Nobody knows."
"It's your job to know," she says. "What should I tell them?"
And so before leaving for Wednesday's 85-63 victory over Texas Southern, I told her to expect Allonzo Trier to play in 2017.
"For Arizona?"
"Either Arizona," I say, "or somebody else."
Do you have a better answer?
In what has become the most baffling case since D.B. Cooper, Allonzo Trier sits on the Arizona bench in a sweatsuit. Wednesday was Day 50 of Trier's forced idleness. The formula for Coca-Cola has been kept secret for 131 years; Arizona guards the reason for Trier's lack of eligibility with similar intent.
The school continues to list Trier in its game-day notes package. He is included in the "off the bench" group of nine players, but that list is misleading because it includes Talbott Denny and Ray Smith, both out for the year with knee injuries.
Because of the Mystery of the Missing Trier, Arizona's basketball season has essentially been shifted into neutral. Do these home games really matter? Sacred Heart one night, Cal State Bakersfield the next.
The Zona Zoo answered in absentia Wednesday night. It might have been the fewest UA students at a home game since the Kevin O'Neill season. What is there to look forward to except an announcement of Trier's return or the latest bad news, the apparently serious ankle injury to point guard Parker Jackson-Cartwright?
This month's home schedule is dreadful; do you realize only UC Irvine, Grand Canyon and New Mexico play at McKale Center in December?
Arizona had a better December home schedule 60 years ago, in December of 1956, when it played Hamline, NAU, Murray State, New Mexico State and Colorado State. Yes, Hamline, the Pipers from Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Nothing against Texas Southern, which is on its annual Tour Across America, an almost unprecedented 13-game series of consecutive road games, but Tigers coach Mike Davis told the Star's Bruce Pascoe on Monday that "we won't win."
It was only two years ago that Texas Southern, playing 13 consecutive road games to open the season, stunned mighty Michigan State 71-64 in East Lansing. And yet Davis put into perspective Arizona's dismal home schedule by admitting defeat before he arrived in Tucson to collect a $90,000 fee as a sacrificial basketball lamb.
Texas Southern didn't even have a radio broadcast team at the game. As far as can be remembered, for maybe 30 years, maybe 40, every visiting team at McKale has broadcast the game to their faraway fans.
Games at McKale Center this season are like something out of an Allen Iverson press conference. They seem like practice, man.
On Wednesday, for example, Arizona inserted sophomore walk-on Tyler Trillo in the first half, when the game was still somewhat contested. It became necessary for Trillo to play after Jackson-Cartwright jammed his ankle into a TSU opponent and spent the entire second half undergoing medical treatment.
Tyler Trillo? Ring a bell?
It does if you are a fan of Roger Williams University, a Division III team from Southbury, Connecticut. Trillo played for RWU in 2014-15 before transferring to Arizona to concentrate on academics but ultimately being awarded a non-scholarship spot on Sean Miller's injury-scarred roster. Not only didn't Trillo start for RWU, against teams like Johnson & Wales and Fitchburg State, he averaged just 1.1 points per game.
What many thought would be the Season of Trier has, by a series of misfortunate personnel losses, become the Season of Trillo.
I've never seen Miller as somber as he was after Wednesday's game. Not even after season-ending losses to Bucknell and Wichita State. He was snippy and on edge, and he is rarely like that in a postgame media session.
Can you blame him?
Who will he lose next, Lauri Markkanen?
"Arguably our best player has never played," Miller said, referring to Ray Smith.
Asked who now becomes the UA's eighth man — Trillo perhaps? — Miller bit off three words: "I don't know."
No one outside of Tucson is feeling sorry for Arizona, and especially not Gonzaga, which, given Arizona's personnel situation, now comes off as Godzilla.
"This is big-boy basketball on Saturday," UA guard Kadeem Allen said.
You wonder if Tyler Trillo will be up to it.
- Bruce Pascoe
- Updated
There were Internet reports Friday saying Arizona guard Allonzo Trier joined the Wildcats for their flight to Los Angeles, but no indication if he'll play Saturday against Gonzaga.
A UA spokesman declined to comment via text message on Trier's status and did not respond when asked to confirm if Trier was on the team flight.
If Trier did make the flight, that likely suggests he either has been cleared and will play Saturday or is just paying his own way to travel along.
Trier has missed six regular-season games and two exhibition games while awaiting NCAA word on his status. He did not travel with the Wildcats to Honolulu or Las Vegas last month.
On his Instagram page, Trier posted a photo of himself sitting on the bench Wednesday in the UA-Texas Southern game, saying "still all smiles, can't break me."
The Wildcats will have seven healthy and eligible scholarship players Saturday, but eight if Trier is able to play. Trier is the Wildcats' top returning scorer, having averaged 14.8 points per game as a freshman last season.
- Bruce Pascoe
- Updated
Allonzo Trier traveled with the Wildcats for the first time this season, and walked into the Staples Center on Saturday like every UA player: with a matching set of blue UA sweats, and a pair of headphones.
But he never took those sweats off, sitting out Saturday's game as he has for every one of UA's eight regular-season and two exhibition games so far this season.
During warmups, Trier stood alongside three banged-up teammates — Ray Smith (ACL), Talbott Denny (ACL) and Parker Jackson-Cartwright (high ankle sprain). There's little doubt the Wildcats could have used any of those guys, especially Trier. He singlehandledly kept the UA alive during a dreadful first half a year ago in Spokane, scoring six points in the final 1:23 before halftime, paving the way for the Wildcats to pull out a 66-63 win after trailing by 10 at the half.
- Bruce Pascoe
- Updated
Allonzo Trier's elongated, opaque quest for eligibility may have made some progress last weekend when he traveled with the Wildcats to Los Angeles.
UA coach Sean Miller said Monday that the NCAA permitted Trier to travel for the game against Gonzaga, though he said the NCAA did not allow him to do so for road trips last month to Honolulu and Las Vegas.
However, when the Star asked if the change represented a good sign for the UA, Miller said it wasn't.
"No," Miller said. "The only good sign is when he walks out there and plays."
Normally, players ineligible under NCAA standards are unable to travel unless they pay their own way, but some situations are handled in a case-by-case manner. UA athletic director Greg Byrne also confirmed via text message Monday that Trier "is able to travel," but did not respond when asked if something changed with Trier's situation between the Las Vegas and Los Angeles trips.
Arizona's top returning scorer, Trier has missed all eight of UA's regular-season games while appealing for NCAA eligibility. The UA has consistently declined to comment on his eligibility status since the issue surfaced in mid-October.
- Bruce Pascoe
- Updated
Joining Jackson-Cartwright on the bench again was sophomore guard Allonzo Trier, who did not play for the 12th straight game because of his ongoing NCAA eligibility issue.
Even though the fall semester is now over at the UA, Miller said that has "nothing to do" with Trier's eligibility. Asked if Trier might be tempted to leave for pro ball since the semester is over, Miller said "no."
The only public sign of possible progress is that Trier was cleared by the NCAA to travel with the Wildcats, Miller said earlier this month. Trier was not cleared to travel for the UA's games in Honolulu and Las Vegas in November, but he has since been able to attend the UA's Dec. 3 game in Los Angeles against Gonzaga and Saturday's game at the Toyota Center.
Trier, Jackson-Cartwright and Talbott Denny (ACL) made up Saturday's "sweatsuit crew" on the bench. Ray Smith, who tore his ACL early last month, did not make the trip because he is still recovering from surgery and it was considered not worth the risk of taking him on the Wildcats' charter flight for the short trip.
- Bruce Pascoe
- Updated
Yet another speculated deadline passed Friday when the suspended Allonzo Trier did not return to the court for the Wildcats' first Pac-12 game.
While Jackson-Cartwright's return gave the Wildcats an eight-man rotation for the first time since the Texas Southern game, Trier sat on the bench in gray sweatpants and a white Arizona shirt.
The missed game total went to 14 for Trier, and neither UA nor the NCAA have been willing to comment on his absence.
Trier was cleared by the NCAA to travel with the Wildcats about a month ago, according to UA coach Sean Miller, and has traveled to Los Angeles, Houston and now the Bay Area with the Wildcats.
For those still in a speculating mood, the next popular prediction for Trier to return is Jan. 7 against Colorado. That game comes just beyond the halfway point of UA's regular season.
- Bruce Pascoe
- Updated
The UA has not commented on guard Allonzo Trier's status for nearly three months. But Miller responded Tuesday when asked at his news conference Tuesday about Trier's demonstrative body language on the bench.
Although he's suspended for games, Trier has practiced all season and was cleared by the NCAA to travel with the Wildcats about a month ago. He has been a consistent presence within the team.
"I wish I could talk more about Allonzo," Miller said. "Hopefully in time I can but, I mean, the only thing you have to do is just watch him during the games to see how much he cares about winning, how bad he feels about not being able to play, and I think how much he really cares about Arizona and his teammates.
"He's engaged and he's been that way in practice. He practices with great spirit and energy and competitiveness that's helped our team as well, and we'll see."
Halfway point nears
If the NCAA chooses to reinstate Trier at the halfway point of this season, then he would return this weekend.
Arizona's game Thursday with Utah will be its 16th of 32 scheduled games — if the Pac-12 Tournament is counted as one game, as it usually is.
Saturday's game against Colorado would be No. 17, or the Wildcats' first after the midway point of their season.
But even if Trier is somehow cleared in time to play Thursday, Utah coach Larry Krystkowiak says he isn't game-planning for the UA guard.
"He's a great player, but there's a lot of great players on their team," Krystkowiak told reporters in Utah on Tuesday, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. "We don't have any film we can watch of him this year. ... We wouldn't find out probably until we were warming up anyway. It's one of those things where you only have so much time in a week to try to get across to your guys, and that's one that doesn't make much sense to me."
- Zack Rosenblatt Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
In basketball, there is comfort in consistency. On any given night, you can pencil in Lauri Markkanen for at least 10 points.
There's not much comfort in the ongoing Allonzo Trier situation, even if the consistency has been like clockwork. The words come from a UA spokesman before every media availability. It's always some version of the following:
"We can't comment on Allonzo Trier's status."
"We still can't comment on Allonzo Trier's status."
"There will be no comment on Allonzo Trier's status."
The closest thing to a comment came earlier this week, when coach Sean Miller addressed Trier's enthusiasm on the bench amidst a tough time for the sophomore guard, who passed on an early entry into the NBA for this?
It's been a strange saga from the beginning. It could soon be ending.
The going theory — because that's all it really is at this point, speculation and conjecture and hypotheses and fodder for message boards — is that Trier may have been suspended for half the Wildcats' regular-season games.
Arizona's 66-56 win against Utah on Thursday was the halfway mark — 16 of 31 regular season games, plus Pac-12 Tournament game, which is usually counted as one game.
The second half of the season would start, in theory, Saturday against Colorado.
A Trier return — Saturday or any day, for that matter — would give Arizona something it hasn't had all season: depth.
Before the season, the biggest question mark related to Miller's embarrassment of riches — Trier returned, so did Kadeem Allen, Parker Jackson-Cartwright, Dusan Ristic and Chance Comanche. Ray Smith was to make his Arizona debut after a lost freshman campaign, and the Wildcats were adding a stellar freshman class led by the latest likely one-and-done, Markkanen, along with five-star prospects Kobi Simmons and Rawle Alkins and a junior college transfer Keanu Pinder.
It was a good problem to have. It didn't last.
Smith retired after another ACL tear, and Trier's season has consisted mostly of bench-warming jubilation and cryptic social media posts.
Arizona's wings — Allen, Alkins and Simmons — have picked up the slack. Alkins and Simmons average a combined 19.1 shots per game, and are each averaging more than 30 minutes per game.
After some rough patches — including Thursday night's win, where the two freshmen combined to shoot 5 of 17 with five turnovers — the two have established themselves as consistent performers.
Before Thursday, Alkins was second on the team in both points (12.7) and rebounds per game (5.7), while Simmons was third in scoring (12.5) and had only scored less than 10 points three times.
"We have a lot of new faces in big roles," Miller said. "When you get in conference play it's not just going to be easy."
It would help to have Trier.
"In 48 hours (from Thursday), four of our 18 (conference) games are over with," Miller said. "We have to be ready now. Conference play is different, especially if you're a freshman."
During Thursday's shootaround, Trier — donning sweatpants and a t-shirt bearing his No. 35 on the back — smiled and laughed with Markkanen.
It's a tantalizing pairing that nobody's seen outside of Arizona practice.
Wouldn't that be something to see in a game?
It might happen on Saturday.
If not, there will be no you know.
- Bruce Pascoe
- Updated
The McKale Center doors opened at 6:30 p.m. Thursday. As the Arizona Wildcats started firing some early practice shots, a pair of fans made a beeline down the stands facing center court.
They looked for Allonzo Trier, noticed he wasn't wearing game shorts, and turned to a couple of press row folks for confirmation.
Nope, he wasn't playing — for the 16th game this season.
Speculation suggests Trier's NCAA suspension might be lifted Saturday for the Arizona-Colorado game, since the Wildcats have reached the halfway point of the season.
Until it is, this is what life has become for some Arizona followers: seeing what kind of pants Trier is wearing before the game.
Are they game shorts? Sweats? Khakis? Or something else?
"THOSE ARE TEARAWAY PANTS" the Zero Facts Podcast tweeted Thursday in reply to a photo posted by the Star.
Maybe, but the fact was he didn't play.
So that's how it goes. Analyzing clothing, body language or parsing words along Trier's social media trails, whatever, anything, in the great vacuum created by Arizona, the NCAA and student-privacy laws.
Back on Nov. 21, Trier had a few folks going when he tweeted out scripture from Matthew 5:16: "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your father which is in heaven." He did not return to the spotlight of the court in the days that followed.
On Jan. 1, while staying with the Wildcats in Palo Alto in advance of a game at Stanford that night, he posted the words "Day One" on his Twitter page. It looked like a simple New Year's Day tweet that could have been interpreted as something else. But he didn't play against the Cardinal, either.
Though other "hints" have popped up via Instagram and Snapchat, the only thing known on the record is what the eye tells you: Trier has missed 16 games, half of UA's 32 regular-season games (counting the Pac-12 Tournament as one game).
Why? The NCAA has declined to comment on Trier, and UA has remained steadfastly quiet.
UA athletic director Greg Byrne responded to a series of Trier-related questions from the Star on Friday with an email saying he was "going to stay consistent and not comment on this subject."
Coach Sean Miller's press conferences have been prefaced by a spokesman telling all assembled media that questions about Trier won't be answered.
Trier has not been made available for comment since UA's Sept. 29 media day. Miller acknowledged rumors about Trier following the team's Oct. 14 Red-Blue Game, but would not comment further. Trier was swapped out of Arizona's appearance at the Oct. 21 Pac-12 media day for Kadeem Allen, with Miller declining to say why.
Multiple public-records requests filed by the Star with UA so far have given no indication about Trier's situation, because the school determined the information sought — including that of appeals — fell under student-privacy laws.
The school wrote to the Star saying, "Student records cannot be produced to protect the privacy interests of student-athletes, including under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which mandates the University to maintain student education records in confidence."
In that case, maybe some process-of-elimination thinking is in order:
Except for two minor traffic issues, Trier's name has not surfaced in any local court records. That likely indicates there's no off-campus concern.Miller said after the fall semester ended that Trier's situation has "nothing to do" with the school calendar, suggesting it is not an academic issue.The NCAA cleared Trier to travel with Arizona for its Dec. 3 game against Gonzaga, after Trier had not been cleared for November trips to Honolulu and Las Vegas. That suggested there was some element of progress, since ineligible players are usually not allowed to travel without paying their own way. Miller, however, said the NCAA's decision meant nothing.The NCAA hasn't announced an investigation, finding or penalty for extra benefits or other violations, as it often does in such cases. Those situations can be resolved quickly, especially if the violation occurs in-season. The NCAA's penalty for a failed drug test is suspension for up to a full year, though it can be reduced or eliminated on appeal.
Trier has enthusiastically supported his teammates at nearly every UA game and practice, plus all road trips since he was cleared to travel — except Dec. 10 at Missouri, when fall semester finals were finishing up. If Trier wasn't returning — or didn't think he might return — he might have considered signing a pro contract overseas instead of staying at Arizona.
Trier's general effort, in fact, is the one thing Miller has addressed recently.
"I wish I could talk more about Allonzo," Miller said on Tuesday. "Hopefully in time I can but, I mean, the only thing you have to do is just watch him during the games to see how much he cares about winning, how bad he feels about not being able to play, and I think how much he really cares about Arizona and his teammates. He practices with great spirit and energy and competitiveness that's helped our team as well, and we'll see."
- Bruce Pascoe
- Updated
This was supposed to be — maybe — the day. The Return.
Allonzo Trier warmed up two hours before the tipoff of Saturday's game wearing different shoes. An early arriving UA fan called them "game shoes," and Twitter ran with it.
He's back!
Spoiler alert: Trier wasn't back.
Saturday's date was always just speculation anyway, as neither the NCAA or Arizona has made any comment about why Trier has been sitting out or how long he might be sitting out.
Trier stayed in the locker room for warmups, emerging just before tipoff. He wore sweatpants, per usual.
- Zack Rosenblatt Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Arizona Wildcats fans may not be the only ones in the dark about whether Allonzo Trier will ever play for the Wildcats this season.
UA coach Sean Miller indicated he is, too.
During his weekly teleconference Monday, Miller said he doesn't know when the case might be resolved and appeared to back away slightly from a Pac-12 Networks report saying he believed Trier will play.
Pac-12 Networks sideline reporter Jill Savage said during UA's game with Colorado on Saturday that Miller "told me ... that he does believe (Allonzo) Trier will play sometime this season," but Miller wouldn't go that far Monday when asked about the report.
"Honestly, I've said so many things over the last three or four months, I would just say that I hope that Allonzo has an opportunity to play sometime this year," Miller said. "I'll leave it at that. If I knew more, l would say. If I would be able to, I would say.
"But this is far, far higher up the ladder than me. I'm just soldiering the army, following orders."
Trier has missed all 17 of UA's games this season with a suspension, but neither the UA nor the NCAA will comment on it. In fact, the Pac-12 Networks' report came despite the fact that reporters are routinely told at news conferences that no questions about Trier's status will be addressed.
While Trier hasn't played publicly since the Red-Blue intrasquad game on Oct. 14, Miller said he's been active and a helpful participant in other areas.
With "Allonzo, the one thing I can comment on is he practices with us every day," Miller said. "He's in school. He's doing a great job as always. Our practice environment has been really good this year. I'll knock on wood because I know it can change quickly, but I hope that continues to the finish line because if it does that bodes well.
"This is a team that loves the game. It stems from a lot of players. Allonzo is one of them. (Redshirting guard) Dylan Smith and Allonzo, they practice every time that we practice. Both are quality players and they make that daily grind a lot more efficient, more highly competitive, and when you watch us practice we're probably a deeper team than we would be in games."
- Bruce Pascoe
- Updated
In a midseason roundtable published among ESPN.com's "insider" content, three of four ESPN college basketball writers picked Arizona's Allonzo Trier as the "player who has been the biggest disappointment" so far this season.
Andy Katz chose Duke’s polarizing Grayson Allen but ESPN’s Eamonn Brennan, C.L Brown and Myron Medcalf said it was Trier.
“Obviously, it’s not because of what he’s done on the court,” Brown wrote. “With Trier, the Wildcats could contend with UCLA and Oregon for the Pac-12 crown. The problem is he hasn’t played in any of the Wildcats’ 17 games.
“It’s one of the most bizarre suspensions – if you can call it that, since the school has not announced exactly why he’s out – in recent memory.”
Medcalf also questioned UA’s lack of transparency on Trier.
“We’re still not sure why he’s still sitting, and Arizona officials continue to offer vague explanations for his absence,” Medcalf wrote. “It’s disappointing because we’re still not sure why a talented player has yet to play a minute this season.”
Trier's latest posts on Instagram are fodder for more word-parsing, if you still have an appetite for that.
Last week on Instagram he posted a picture of himself drinking water on the bench and said “Thirsty for the game.”
This week, Trier posted photos of himself with the words:
“Starting to feel a little too big for the cage I been trapped in.”
And, “faced with immeasurable odds, still I gave straight bets.”
- Bruce Pascoe
- Updated
Suspended Arizona Wildcats guard Allonzo Trier said Wednesday night he was "shocked" to have tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug, and remains unsure when he will play again because the drug must be completely out of his system.
Trier was responding via a UA statement to an ESPN.com story citing unnamed sources that said he tested positive for a PED in September and won an appeal, but that the NCAA hasn't allowed him to play until the drug is completely out of his system.
Trier, who has not been made available for comment since September, suffered an off-court injury last offseason and said the drug was administered as part of his recovery.
Trier's statement read:
"Earlier this season, I was notified that I tested positive for a trace amount of a banned performance-enhancing drug following an NCAA random test and I was shocked. I have never knowingly taken a banned substance. After finding out that I was given a banned substance by a well-intentioned, but misguided person not associated with the University after an injury, I presented this information to the NCAA. The NCAA agreed that I had no knowledge of receiving the substance and my eligibility was restored. Although I can practice and travel with the team, I am not allowed to resume playing in games until the substance completely leaves my body even at a trace amount. Unfortunately, I am unsure of when that time will be, but I hope it is soon.
"I want to thank my family, coaches, teammates, my attorney and the athletics department for their support during this difficult time. I will not have any further comment at this time. In addition, I have asked the athletics department to respect my privacy by not answering any questions or releasing any information beyond this statement."
While UA and the NCAA have declined comment on Trier since speculation first surfaced in the preseason about a positive drug test, UA coach Sean Miller has indicated public signs of frustration.
Miller told a college basketball podcast Monday that Trier's case is a "once in a lifetime" circumstance and later told local reporters he was "ambivalent" about Trier's chances of playing this season. Trier has missed all 18 of UA's regular-season games and also did not play in the Wildcats' two exhibition games, though he has practiced with the team.
Miller said Trier was cleared by the NCAA to begin traveling for the Wildcats' Dec. 3 game with Gonzaga in Los Angeles. However, when asked if that represented progress in the case, Miller said it meant nothing.
The Star's policy is generally not to run stories with unnamed sources, so the ESPN.com story wasn't scheduled to be in Thursday's edition until UA responded to it on the record with Trier's statement.
A positive PED test is consistent with the circumstances that have been publicly outlined for Trier's departure -- Trier is not in any local court records except for minor traffic offenses, Miller has said his timeline is not related to the academic calendar (meaning it wasn't likely academic related) and NCAA extra benefits violations are typically assigned a definitive number of games depending on the circumstances.
UA and the NCAA had declined comment about Trier's status to the Star since speculation about a positive drug test started in the preseason. The Star has also filed two public records requests, including one in October about the results of drug testing in the Arizona athletic program. But that request was largely unanswered, with the school citing student privacy laws (the responses are attached as PDF files).
A second, related public records request from the Star to UA sent on Dec. 20 has still not been answered. Two follow-up emails to the NCAA requesting comment about Trier and the categorization of penalties have also not been answered.
A positive drug test is rare in college sports. The NCAA told the Star in October that it tested 12,928 athletes in 2015-16 and had 149 sanctioned outcomes, the net result after subtracting positive results that were cleared through a medical exception review.
- Updated
LOS ANGELES — Arizona Wildcats guard Allonzo Trier will make his return from a PED-related suspension just in time for the Wildcats’ biggest game of the season Saturday at UCLA.
The NCAA notified the school Friday afternoon that Trier’s most recent drug test came back negative, meaning he is able to return to the court immediately.
The UA confirmed his return with an email statement to the Star. It read: "The NCAA notified us on Friday afternoon that Allonzo Trier’s most recent drug test was negative. Therefore, he is eligible to return to the court immediately and will be available for our game against UCLA."
Trier’s return means the Wildcats have nine active scholarship players — and an experienced go-to scorer — available for their game against the third-ranked Bruins and beyond. The Wildcats are 17-2 and ranked No. 14 in the Associated Press Top 25.
Trier missed a total of 19 games, totaling 61.3 percent of the Wildcats’ regular season, after testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug. Trier issued a statement Wednesday saying he was given the drug after suffering an injury. However, Trier did not name the drug or the circumstances in which he took it.
“I have never knowingly taken a banned substance,” Trier said in his statement. “After finding out that I was given a banned substance by a well-intentioned, but misguided person not associated with the University after an injury, I presented this information to the NCAA.
“The NCAA agreed that I had no knowledge of receiving the substance and my eligibility was restored.”
However, Trier’s statement added that he would not be allowed to resume playing in games until the substance completely left his body, and that he wasn’t sure when that would be. The Pac-12 Networks Lewis Johnson said on Thursday’s UA-USC broadcast that Trier was getting tested every 7-10 days but wouldn’t be tested again until next week.
While UA and the NCAA have declined comment since speculation first surfaced in early October that Trier had tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug, UA coach Sean Miller recently has publicly indicated signs of frustration.
Miller told the College Hoops Podcast on Monday that Trier’s case is a “once in a lifetime” circumstance and later told local reporters he was “ambivalent” about Trier’s chances of playing this season. Trier has missed all 18 of UA’s regular-season games and also did not play in the Wildcats’ two exhibition games, though he has practiced with the team.
“I don’t have control of the situation,” Miller said. “So when you’re dealing with a crisis or adversity, and we’ve had plenty here over the least nine months, you finally settle into what can you really control. …
“He does what he’s supposed to. He practices hard every day. He’s in great physical condition but he’s not allowed to play and it’s not my choice. And it’s just one of those situations that I wish was different but it’s not.”
Trier has been practicing all season, but Miller said Trier was cleared by the NCAA to begin traveling for the Wildcats’ Dec. 3 game with Gonzaga in Los Angeles. Miller said at the time that change in status represented nothing.
“The only good sign is when he walks out there and plays,” Miller said.
On Saturday, at Pauley Pavilion, Trier will be walking out there and playing.
- Greg Hansen
So much has changed, so little has changed.
When Miles Simon was about to play his junior season at Arizona, leading to the 1997 NCAA championship, he was academically ineligible for the fall semester. It was news THIS BIG in Tucson.
Whatever he wanted to say, Lute Olson was muted. While asked frequently about Simon's possible return, Olson would invariably say that federal "FERPA" laws prohibited him from talking about Simon. Olson would often apply the FERPA rules — which protect the privacy of a student's educational records — to any player eligibility situation, even when it didn't apply.
Now it's Sean Miller's turn. He is unable to speak publicly about whether sophomore forward Allonzo Trier is eligible to play in the regular season. UA athletic director Greg Byrne also declined to speak about Trier on Friday night. Obviously, something's up.
College athletes are now protected from prying eyes to the point of being in the Witness Protection Program. Access and insight is limited because of a proliferation of untrained website "media" people.
A year ago, it was Elliott Pitts. This year Allonzo Trier. If there is any good to this entanglement, it's that Trier plays on the wing, the most replaceable position in college basketball.
- Bruce Pascoe
SAN FRANCISCO — After Arizona sophomore Allonzo Trier was scratched from Friday's Pac-12 basketball media day, two replacements showed up instead.
One was Arizona guard Kadeem Allen. The other was an elephant.
Because Trier's eligibility status remains unclear this week — and Arizona continues to refuse comment in any form — his no-show at the league's annual preseason publicity event only added a higher profile to the question marks.
Trier had been long planned to represent UA at the event, and was listed on the Pac-12's official schedule earlier this week. But Allen's name surfaced on the online calendar Friday and the senior wing showed up instead of Trier.
While Miller spoke highly of Trier's recent on-court efforts during the Pac-12 Networks' televised media-day show, he was asked later on the interview podium if Trier's absence was related to his eligibility, and what that status is.
"I'm not going to comment on that," Miller said.
Miller's response was consistent with his podium interview after the Oct. 14 Red-Blue Game. Arizona athletic direct Greg Byrne has also declined to comment.
In a way, Trier's situation was fitting on a day when absences and question marks were arguably more newsworthy than the Pac-12's annual media poll, which picked Arizona to finish second behind Oregon as expected.
Not only were conference player of the year candidates such as Cal's Ivan Rabb, Oregon's Dillon Brooks and Washington's Markelle Fultz nowhere to be found, but Brooks' foot injury is yet another mystery that could affect the way the league plays out.
While Oregon is loaded with veteran talent, Brooks' ability to get a shot off nearly anywhere on the court — in addition to his rebounding and passing — are vital needs if the Ducks are to become the conference favorite and a Final Four contender.
Yet it isn't clear if Brooks will be at 100 percent from his summertime injury by the time the conference season rolls around New Year's weekend. Oregon coach Dana Altman said Brooks is "on schedule" but said the Ducks might have to go with a three-guard front if he's not available any time soon.
"If it were up to him, he'd be practicing right now but we'll listen to the doctors," Altman said. "If he's not available early, it will be difficult for our team because we have a very challenging November. But (if he's missing) I think our guys will look at it as a challenge to pick up the areas that Dillon would generally do."
While Brooks' status was unclear, the Ducks still received 23 of 27 first-place votes among media members who regularly cover the conference, while Arizona picked up the other four.
UCLA was picked third, followed by California and Colorado. It is the Buffaloes, who lost low-post mainstay Josh Scott but return nearly everyone else, that Miller said could be better than expected.
"In a quiet way they're gonna be as good as they've been," Miller said. "They have experience, talent and Tad (Boyle, CU coach) obviously does a great job. Then I think you have a heavyweight at the top with Oregon, a one seed (in the NCAA tournament) last year. When you have a team that good in the conference it kind of pulls everybody up."
It was the first time since the Pac-12 poll went to media voting in 1992 that the Ducks have been picked first, giving the Ducks the kind of target that has both Altman and Oregon guard Tyler Dorsey on the alert.
"Every night it doesn't matter who we're playing, they're gonna want to beat us," Dorsey said. "It's gonna be very competitive and teams are going to want to beat us and we're going to have to be ready and mentally prepared. We can't look past anybody."
Oregon's emergence in this year's Pac-12 poll marked the first time in five seasons that the Wildcats have not been picked to win the league, though UCLA wound up winning the Pac-12 in 2012-13 and Oregon did it last season.
Maybe that was just as well for the Wildcats, who now have the hype of unprecedented recruiting success this fall on top of a highly rated freshman class featuring Lauri Markkanen, Rawle Alkins and Kobi Simmons.
"I think the thing we try to guard against is you think you're better than you really are," Miller said on the Pac-12 Networks show. "That's one of the problems we have at Arizona."
After the TV show and podium interviews were finished, Miller noted that how the race plays out is all subject to some uncertainty anyway.
The Wildcats were picked to finish first last season, but suffered a number of preseason injuries, went without starters Kaleb Tarczewski and Trier for about a month each during the regular season, and lost key reserve Elliott Pitts as part of what was eventually revealed to be a university finding of sexual misconduct.
"First or second — it's not like we got picked sixth. That would be different," Miller said. "We're near the top, and a lot of it is health and things that sometimes happen within your own team that derail you.
"Oregon's already facing something right now with Dillon Brooks having an injury. I'm sure if you talk to them, they wish he was healthy, you know."
Arizona may be hoping it isn't facing the loss of a key player, too.
- Bruce Pascoe
The eligibility status of sophomore Allonzo Trier, the Wildcats' other returning starter, continues to remain unclear.
Miller declined to comment during his Monday news conference when asked if Trier has been practicing or would play Tuesday. Miller initially declined to comment on Trier after the Oct. 14 Red-Blue Game and again when Trier did not show up as scheduled for the Oct. 21 Pac-12 media day in San Francisco.
- Greg Hansen
If you are aching to know why Allonzo Trier isn't in uniform, here's the best available answer:
The UA athletic department no longer lists birthdates of players in its media guides. It no longer includes a brief bio about a player's parents and their occupations.
That's now considered sensitive and potentially compromising information, and so schools like Arizona play it safe.
Why isn't Trier allowed to play?
The UA's only answer has been "no comment," and that's because multiple agencies protect students' privacy — including their birthdates — and those agencies are known by the initials FERPA, HIPAA, PPRA and HUSHUP.
OK, I'm kidding about HUSHUP, but the others are legit agencies that make it mostly illegal for someone like Arizona basketball coach Sean Miller to divulge what keeps Trier on the bench.
It's a good thing, too, because what if Miller — or some other coach at another college — said that Joe Schmoe isn't playing because he violated a rule.
That allegation would follow Joe Schmoe for years, even if he appealed the ruling and won. You can't do that. If nothing else, it's not fair.
Miller's program motto is "honor the process," and it's ironic that the legal process has become such a conspicuous part of Arizona basketball the last 11 months, starting with ex-Wildcat Elliott Pitts and rolling over to Trier.
As Arizona rolled to an 86-35 victory over College of Idaho in Tuesday's season-opening exhibition game, Trier sat in a position usually occupied by walk-ons, deep on the UA bench, past the baseline, almost in basketball oblivion.
He sat next to sophomore center Chance Comanche, also in civilian clothes.
The UA released a statement about Comanche's availability on Tuesday, saying he is indefinitely suspended "due to his own lack of academic responsibility."
So why describe Comanche's situation and not Trier's? Although no one's willing to talk on the record, it's probably because Comanche's classroom work has been determined to be lacking, while there has been no final determination on Trier's situation.
The most important thing is to protect Trier's rights.
Arizona's basketball players are more visible in this community than the mayor and the chief of police, and even a fringe player like Pitts became the hottest topic of conversation in Tucson last winter.
This isn't new at McKale Center.
In November 2000, a season Arizona would reach the national championship game, two key Wildcats were sitting next to Lute Olson in their civvies. It was as intensely observable, and quiet, as it is now with Trier.
Senior center Loren Woods was suspended for six season-opening games by the NCAA. His error? Accepting illegal benefits from his old high school coach. How much of an error was it? The NCAA said the benefits were between $300 and $499.
Arizona appealed, asking for a three-game sentence. The NCAA insisted on six. Only after the sentence was announced did Olson and the school comment publicly. The Tucson basketball community could finally breathe again.
At the same time, junior forward Richard Jefferson was suspended two games for accepting a plane ticket and an NBA Finals ticket from Bill Walton, the father of UA forward Luke Walton.
Jefferson faced a potentially longer suspension but was reinstated when Arizona agreed to have Jefferson repay the estimated $281 in benefits to a charity.
Arizona insisted on a "no comment" policy until Jefferson had gone through the NCAA's legal process. Trier is getting the same treatment that Woods and Jefferson did 15 years ago.
Some schools aren't as strict with interpretations.
Last spring, Florida football coach Jim McElwain suspended two of the Gators' leading players and, anticipating the public's thirst for information, disarmed the entire situation by saying: "We're without a couple of guys who haven't been with our team since January. They're still doing some schoolwork and that kind of stuff. You won't see those guys out there at practice. This will be the last that we talk about that."
End of conversation. The Florida football community moved on.
It's not that easy in Tucson, where deep-dish worry accompanies all basketball things that don't flow downstream.
Thirty minutes after Tuesday's game, Matt Ensor, Arizona basketball communications chief, said, "We still can't comment on Allonzo Trier's status right now."
Not that there isn't enough news to fill your computer screen.
Miller's rotation has been shot to smithereens before the first official game. Trier and Comanche are out, Ray Smith left the game with a leg injury, and suddenly junior Keanu Pinder, who once seemed like a recruiting afterthought, appears to be the sixth man.
"He's a powerful, powerful piece of this team," said freshman guard Kobi Simmons.
Pinder has to be a powerful piece because, as Miller said 30 minutes after the game, "We don't have any depth."
No team, not even Duke, can afford the loss of Trier, Comanche and Smith at any time in any season.
"It's heartbreaking, it really is," said Miller, referencing Smith's injury. "I don't have any words to couch it and make it better than it really is. It's awful."
In a stunning turn of events, the Wildcats have been humbled, and it is only Nov. 2. This is one time "awful" might be an understatement.
- Bruce Pascoe
Four scholarship Arizona basketball players dressed in street clothes Tuesday, and the Wildcats' hearts ached over the distinct possibility that a fifth might now be joining them.
In the second half of Arizona's 86-35 exhibition win against the College of Idaho at McKale Center, redshirt freshman Ray Smith was helped off the court with an apparent knee injury after he has already suffered ACL tears in both knees over the past 27 months.
With 12:39 left in the game, Smith went up awkwardly for a layup and then crumpled next to the basket. He signaled for help, at one point using a throat-cutting gesture, and was then helped off the floor with neither leg touching the ground.
UA coach Sean Miller said he didn't know exactly what the injury was, but that "certainly it didn't look good."
"It's heartbreaking," Miller said later. "It really is. It's awful."
Smith's injury came on a night when the Wildcats were already missing guard Allonzo Trier, who was out for unspecified reasons, and center Chance Comanche, who has been suspended indefinitely for academic reasons. Those two joined the redshirting Dylan Smith and the injured Talbott Denny in street clothes on the bench.
While UA was blitzing the undersized and undermanned Yotes in the first half, holding them to just 9.7 percent shooting before halftime, Smith briefly left the game in the first half which turned out to be a false alarm in his knees.
His first fall to the floor drew a collective groan from the crowd of 13,844 at McKale, but he walked to the locker room on his own power and returned quickly.
"He seemed fine" then, Miller said. "I don't know if what happened the first time had anything to do with the second time."
In any case, Miller said, Smith has run and jumped and landed repeatedly during preseason practices and the Wildcats have given him occasional days off practice while he eased his way back in.
"Obviously, it was a tough night for us watching Ray go down," Miller said. "It's not about our team when you see somebody like him that we've been involved for couple of years now, watching him fight, going through surgeries and rehabbing even harder, being so talented, then watching it happen."
It probably wasn't any fun for anyone in the building to see, and a postgame news conference with UA players Parker Jackson-Cartwright and Kobi Simmons was understandably subdued.
"Obviously, it's a scary moment," Jackson-Cartwright said. "We just hope for the best, especially for a guy like him."
Things were so muted during their press conference that Simmons' demonstrative alley-oop dunk, on a pass from Kadeem Allen, never even came up. Simmons quietly said his teammates have given him confidence and that the Wildcats would "stick as a family" no matter what happened next.
Smith's departure left the Wildcats with just seven active scholarship players. That meant instead of getting a chance to start sorting out a rotation, Miller was simply handed the only one he may have for a while.
"We don't have any depth," Miller said.
Since Trier's status has been unclear for nearly three weeks, his non-appearance Tuesday was not a surprise. But then Comanche showed up in a polo shirt for warmups and, five minutes before game time, UA issued a statement with Miller saying Comanche was out "due to his own lack of academic responsibility."
"As a member of our basketball program, you are a student and an athlete, and you are expected to do the best of your ability in both areas," Miller said in his statement. "It is not an option to compete and be held accountable on the court but not in the classroom."
With Trier, Miller has repeatedly declined to comment and a UA spokesman said before Tuesday's postgame press conference that he could not comment again.
Tuesday's game itself was never an issue for the Wildcats. While the College of Idaho is ranked No. 7 in the NAIA Division II poll, the Yotes faced a considerable size and talent deficit that was obvious early. UA 7-foot forward Lauri Markkanen scored UA's first two baskets inside, overpowering a team that had nobody over 6-foot-7.
The Wildcats led 50-9 at halftime and began inserting walk-ons with 8:30 to go.
By the time both walk-ons Jake DesJardins and Tyler Trillo made their debuts on the McKale Center floor with eight minutes left in the second half, the Wildcats were ahead 74-23 and had outshot the Yotes 56 percent to 17 percent.
The seven UA players who remained after Smith departed Tuesday's game all made up a remarkably balanced offense.
Dusan Ristic led the Wildcats with 14 points and nine rebounds, while Keanu Pinder had a double-double off the bench with 10 points and 11 rebounds.
Simmons led UA in scoring with 17 points, while Jackson-Cartwright, Allen and Rawle Alkins each had 11 points.
The Wildcats were only 1 of 13 from 3-point range, however, with Alkins and Simmons each missing three. They also allowed the undersized Yotes to collect 16 offensive rebounds.
Miller started Jackson-Cartwright, Allen, Alkins, Markkanen and Ristic. Pinder was the first player off the bench, while Smith and Simmons were later inserted.
That was an eight-man rotation. Now there's probably seven.
During a pregame news conference Monday, Miller may have unknowingly foreshadowed that.
"Every year at this time, we have depth," he said, "and inevitably injuries and other things can take it away."
- Bruce Pascoe
HONOLULU — Sophomore guard Allonzo Trier did not accompany the Arizona Wildcats to Hawaii on Tuesday, suggesting he probably won't play in the team's regular-season opener Friday against Michigan State.
Arizona has steadfastly refused to comment on Trier or characterize what might be the issue with his eligibility and would not say earlier this week if Trier would make the trip. But the team's American Airlines flight from Phoenix deplaned Tuesday at Honolulu International Airport, and Trier did not appear to be on it.
All of the Wildcats' other scholarship players exited the plane with two exceptions: Guard Dylan Smith is not allowed to travel as a redshirting transfer, and Ray Smith remained in Tucson as he awaits knee surgery.
Trier did not show as scheduled for the Pac-12 media day in San Francisco last month and did not play in either of UA's two exhibition games.
ESPN analyst Jay Bilas, who is also an attorney, said a school's reluctance to comment in any form in a situation like Trier's is either an indication that the coach wants to keep it internal or a sign of a student-privacy issue.
"It's certainly not normal," Bilas said. "I can't think of a lot of other instances where you were not told anything when there's been a player who hasn't played. I'm not sure what his practice situation is either, but I know he didn't play in their exhibition game.
"There are a lot of rumors flying around."
UA went over two months last season without saying why forward Elliott Pitts did not suit up for games. Pitts was eventually suspended after a university finding of sexual misconduct and other infractions of student behavioral rules, and he has since transferred to a junior college.
Arizona will have only seven active scholarship players if Trier is out Friday, but Miller said on an ESPN podcast Monday that a "lot of things could clear up here over the next couple of weeks."
Center Chance Comanche will probably play Friday, Miller said, after he was suspended for academic reasons in UA's two exhibition games.
"We've certainly been hit here early on, but a lot of things could clear up here over the next couple of weeks," Miller said on the podcast. "Things are never as bad as they seem and certainly a month ago they probably weren't as good as they seemed. It's right in the middle and we have a long, long way to go."
Signing period begins
Arizona will start formally reeling in its top-rated 2017 recruiting class on Wednesday, with forward Ira Lee of Los Angeles, guard Brandon Randolph of Yonkers, New York, and Alex Barcello of Tempe planning signing day events at their high schools.
Lee tweeted that he will sign at 3:30 p.m. Pacific Time at Crossroads School in Santa Monica, California. Barcello said he would sign at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at Tempe's Corona del Sol High School. Randolph's mother, Robin, said via text message that he would sign at his Westtown School in Pennsylvania.
Lee posted a photoshopped picture of him standing in an Arizona uniform, with the McKale Center crowd behind him. Barcello posted a picture of all four UA commits — Lee, Randolph and DeAndre Ayton and himself — in separate poses.
Good news, bad news for injured Smith
Miller also told ESPN that forward Ray Smith's third ACL tear on Nov. 1 was "worse than the other two times combined," and that the redshirt freshman forward was never eligible to secure catastrophic injury insurance because he first tore the knee during the summer before his senior year of high school.
However, Miller said Smith's UA scholarship will be honored until he graduates, and UA athletic director Greg Byrne confirmed that it would remain an athletic scholarship. NCAA rules allow schools to pay for scholarships to injured athletes, and it won't count against the 13-player limit in basketball.
"Ray doesn't even have to do anything associated with the program, but in my initial talks with him, he really wants to," Miller said. "He wants to be a broadcaster, and when you meet him, talk to him, you'll see. I think that could really be in the cards for somebody like him. Not just his story, but he's really an engaging and charismatic guy.
"He has thought about coaching. So we're gonna keep him involved in what we do. I think it's great for our team in many ways because those guys really look up to him. It's a reminder to everybody to not take things for granted. You're the guy who misses class, or you're the guy who comes to practice and really doesn't want to be there just because you've had a long day — and there's a guy on the sidelines who would do anything to play college basketball, but he can't."
Miller said after UA's exhibition game with Chico State on Sunday that he would talk with Smith more upon returning from Hawaii to discuss "concrete" things he can do with the team this season.
Senior Allen's leadership emerging
Although UA entered the season with question marks over its potential leadership, with its most experienced players on the quieter side, fifth-year senior Kadeem Allen may be answering them.
Allen had 15 points with two rebounds and four assists to one turnover against Chico State, added a block and hit 7 of 8 free throws. He played 33 minutes while appearing vocal on the floor.
"Kadeem's awesome," Miller said. "At a time when everybody cares about leaving Arizona as fast as you can, leaving college basketball as fast as you can, he's the example of the young guy who has just bought in, has worked, has sacrificed and become a really good player.
"He's our heart and soul in many ways and certainly the leader of the team, and he's earned it. He's a guard that any college coach would love to have. His experience, his leadership, his toughness, those are all things that are going to help his teammates through our long journey."
- Bruce Pascoe
HONOLULU — If there was one thing Arizona figured to miss the most without Allonzo Trier in the lineup, it was pure scoring.
Outside jumpers that he often created on his own, drives to the basket, and tons and tons of free throws, which Trier made at a 79.3-percent rate last season.
There wasn't supposed to be anybody else on the roster with that exact same skillset. But then, in UA's season-opening 65-63 win over Michigan State on Friday, Kobi Simmons scooped a lot of it all up.
The slender, athletic freshman guard from Atlanta had 15 points on 4-for-6 shooting, plus 5 of 6 free throws — in just 13 minutes of the first half in UA's win, pulling UA almost singlehandedly out of an early 17-2 deficit.
So maybe there was a silver lining in Trier's situation? That a guy like Simmons had a chance to grow quickly with all that opportunity?
"There is no silver lining without Allonzo Trier," UA coach Sean Miller said.
Maybe not. But as the length of Trier's ineligibility remains uncertain — UA hasn't even categorized his status for nearly a month now — the Wildcats at least have another scoring threat they can look to.
"Kobi Simmons, for a freshman, showed a lot of confidence and a lot of ability," Miller said. "He had 15 of our 34 (points) at halftime and that's a big reason we got back in the game. He was outstanding.
"He has a lot of talent. We watch him every day and I think the best is yet to come for him, too."
The only current UA player to have participated in a McDonalds All-American Game, Simmons said he feels like he has to enter a game with confidence. The difference was Simmons did it off the bench, a different role for just about any UA freshmen, especially a high-profile one.
Simmons says he's OK with that.
"I just want to win," Simmons said. "At the end of the day, if coach thinks this was best, well that's what's best and that's what I want to do."
Miller said it's too early to determine if Simmons fits a sixth-man role in part because he may not always be a sixth man.
"Who starts two weeks from now and who starts today could be different," Miller said. "But whether he starts or not he's certainly one of our biggest players, one of our most important players. We're only playing eight guys so all of our guys are very important."
Miller said the Wildcats learned plenty from playing Michigan State, and Simmons' emergence on a big stage was one of them.
What else UA learned:
They have a go-to guy in the clutch. Miller has shown a penchant to give the ball to his top veteran when the game comes down to a final bucket, and Friday was no exception.
Kadeem Allen, already drawing Miller's praise for his vocal leadership of the team, was the first option off an inbounds pass with seven seconds left. He delivered by racing confidently coast-to-coast for a game-winning layup.
Miller "put faith and trust in me," Allen said.
Their bulldog is in training. Freshman wing Rawle Alkins struggled to play his power guard game Friday, being called twice for offensive fouls while driving to the basket, and going only 1 for 4 from the field.
But Miller didn't sound too worried about it, having seen Stanley Johnson pick up similar fouls early in his brief UA career, too.
"Rawle's gonna be fine," Miller said. "He's that guy you've seen time and time again where you watch him a month from now, a couple weeks from now, and he's going to be a completely different player than he is now.
"And he did some really great things in (Friday's) game. It's just he's used to scoring. It'll come. He just has to find out how it works for him."
Their frontline is adaptable. Arizona struggled early on defense and had trouble matching up with Michigan State star freshman Miles Bridges throughout Friday's game.
But UA eventually found ways to minimize Bridges' damage, with Miller reducing Dusan Ristic's role (18 minutes) while going with a still big but more athletic frontline of Chance Comanche, Lauri Markkanen and Keanu Pinder at times.
"That's who we have," Miller said. "It's not like we have a lot of choices. We have a group of eight and we have to try to bring out the best in that group of eight.
"Any coach in his first game, (you) don't necessarily know completely what to expect or what to get better at. You learn through game experience. I think this is obviously an experience where we know a lot more about our team than when we came here."
They don't have to be all-business. On a typical Arizona road trip, players barely have time to walk around town, with meetings, study sessions and most meals held in team hotels on top of daily practices.
But last week, the Wildcats spent parts of three straight days at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, learning about history and military life, while preparing to win a Top 25 showdown.
Turned out to be a pretty good way to spend the week.
"It was great all around," Miller said. "First of all, this has been an incredible learning experience for our team. If you ever want to know what our Armed Forces do, veterans, come to Pearl Harbor.
"That in and of itself made this trip worth it. And we knew we were playing against a quality team and program.
"Whether we won or lost we were going to grown and get better from this. The fact that we were able to win makes the trip even nicer."
- Bruce Pascoe
Another week has gone by in the Arizona Wildcats' season, which meant another week of speculation swirled around UA guard Allonzo Trier, with the current trend suggesting his pending eligibility issue will be resolved soon.
It was on Oct. 14 that UA coach Sean Miller first said he wouldn't discuss "rumors" about Trier, and Miller declined to comment when Trier didn't show up as expected at the Oct. 21 Pac-12 MediaDday and when he didn't make UA's trip to Hawaii for its season opener with Michigan State.
UA has since opted to announce before every news conference that Trier questions won't be addressed, while he has now missed two exhibition contests and three regular-season games.
Arizona AD Greg Byrne also has declined comment, and a number of people at UA and around Trier have declined to comment or respond to messages.
This sort of reaction is "certainly not normal," ESPN analyst Jay Bilas said earlier this month, while Arizona Republic columnist Paola Boivin wrote the following Sunday:
"Rumors are swirling, and it's frustrating for fans hungry for a little transparency. The challenge for athletic programs are laws that protect a student's privacy. And if it's a situation that involves an investigation and possible appeal, it could drag on.
"In those circumstances, the silence makes complete sense.
"But if Trier made a mistake, I hope the time comes when he says, 'This is what I did. I screwed up and I'm sorry.
"Sports fans are a forgiving bunch, especially when there is true remorse. And maybe it's not the case here, but there are so many circumstances when athletes could serve themselves well by getting in front of the story."
- Bruce Pascoe
Lauri Markkanen and Parker Jackson-Cartwright had their first career double-doubles in Arizona's 71-55 win over Northern Colorado on Monday night, which makes perfect sense when you consider the math.
You know: Point guard (Jackson-Cartwright) passes to remarkably efficient big man (Markkanen). Two points, one assist, often. Repeat this a few times, and before you know it, double figures start to happen.
As it was, three of Jackson-Cartwright's 10 assists were a direct result of passes to Markkanen, while the Finnish big man also tipped in a miss from PJC at the end of the first half.
Markkanen finished with 17 points to go with 13 rebounds, while Jackson-Cartwright had 15 points and 11 rebounds.
"I just try to find him," Jackson-Cartwright said.
But Jackson-Cartwright added that he really "was trying to find everybody," and indeed, in Arizona's closer-than-it-looked win over surprisingly stubborn Northern Colorado, it was more than just his connection with Markkanen.
Jackson-Cartwright had to guide his teammates through the first full-time zone defense they'd seen yet this season - and the kind they likely will again many times - while helping defend an intricately spaced Bears offense on the other end of the court.
"Tonight was Parker's best game at Arizona," UA coach Sean Miller said. "Everything he did was important. And of the 15 points, he got lot against the zone by making some good decisions. It was good to see."
Markkanen, meanwhile, had to figure out when to move and when not to in that sort of congestion inside.
All the adjustments took a while. UA (4-0) shot just 36.7 percent in the first half and actually trailed at halftime, 31-30. The game stayed within two baskets until the final four minutes; the game, that is, between the No. 8 Wildcats and the team picked No. 11 — in the Big Sky Conference.
Told the Bears were indeed picked that low, Jackson-Cartwright shook his head.
"They had a good coach. They had good players. They're going to play every team tough," he said. "Eleventh? That's a stretch."
Big Sky coaches picked Northern Colorado to finish 11th of 12 teams in their conference, while the Bears have two of its best players redshirting while sitting out a season with the school's self-imposed postseason ban. Northern Colorado is still awaiting the NCAA to conclude an investigation that could add further sanctions.
But they still have one player Miller called "special" in point guard Jordan Davis, who had 20 points and five assists despite playing most of the second half in foul trouble. Long-range gunner Chaz Glotta had 15 points on 5 of 11 3-pointers.
While Miller said the Wildcats should have been able to limit a shooter such as Glotta to just five or six looks instead of the 15 overall shots he took, Miller was hardly faulting anyone for what Davis did.
Northern Colorado coach Jeff Linder said before the game that Davis was "like a miniature Russell Westbrook," and it didn't take long for the McKale crowd to see that. While Davis had to play the second half mostly in foul trouble, he engineered an offense that was often difficult for the Wildcats to keep up with.
Northern Colorado shot 41.4 percent in the first half but made 4 of 10 threes.
"Their coach is one of the best offensive coaches I've seen," Miller said. "He reminds me of FIBA, a lot of movement and pace. They move you around and around, and get to what they want to get to. And guess what? They have a great point guard.
"Jordan Davis can play at any place in the country. He's special. He's big, physical, makes the game easier for his teammates. He's a tough guy to defend. Then on top of it they put a zone defense up. That's the first time you realty rely on your older guys. So we had a deer in the headlight look. But I liked our execution against them in the second half. "
The Wildcats managed to finish the game shooting 43.6 percent but had trouble solving the Bears' zone for much of it. They shot just 36.7 percent at halftime and didn't really get going offensively until about 12 minutes remained.
As a result, what was a 1-point game at halftime stayed close early in the second half before Arizona appeared to gain some momentum midway through. Jackson-Cartwright made a 3-point play to give UA a 40-39 lead and Markkanen hit a 10-footer on UA's next possession, bringing out a wild chorus of cheers inside McKale Center.
But the Bears still hung within two baskets, with Glotta hitting his fifth 3-pointer with 8:33 to cut UA's lead to just 48-44, before the Wildcats gradually pulled away in the final minutes.
The Wildcats (4-0) will move on to the bracketed portion of the Las Vegas Invitational, facing Santa Clara on Thursday night in Las Vegas. Northern Colorado (1-3) will face Sacred Heart earlier Thursday.
While UA again was without the apparently ineligible Allonzo Trier, Allen was back in the starting lineup after spraining his knee on Nov. 11 against Michigan State and missing UA's Nov. 15 game against Cal State Bakersfield. Allen logged five minutes on Friday against Sacred Heart.
Although speculation continues to swirl around Trier, he did not participate in pregame warmups nor dress for the game. A UA spokesman declined to comment on Trier, as the school has consistently done since Miller was first asked about Trier on Oct. 14.
- Greg Hansen
My wife comes home from work and asks "Is Trier going to play?"
She pronounces it TREE-are. She does not follow UA hoops.
But almost every day since Halloween she has returned from the medical center with the same question.
"Is Trier going to play?"
One of the internists wants to know. The trauma center nurse wants to know. The lady giving flu shots wants to know.
I shrug. "It's like Stonehenge," I say. "Nobody knows."
"It's your job to know," she says. "What should I tell them?"
And so before leaving for Wednesday's 85-63 victory over Texas Southern, I told her to expect Allonzo Trier to play in 2017.
"For Arizona?"
"Either Arizona," I say, "or somebody else."
Do you have a better answer?
In what has become the most baffling case since D.B. Cooper, Allonzo Trier sits on the Arizona bench in a sweatsuit. Wednesday was Day 50 of Trier's forced idleness. The formula for Coca-Cola has been kept secret for 131 years; Arizona guards the reason for Trier's lack of eligibility with similar intent.
The school continues to list Trier in its game-day notes package. He is included in the "off the bench" group of nine players, but that list is misleading because it includes Talbott Denny and Ray Smith, both out for the year with knee injuries.
Because of the Mystery of the Missing Trier, Arizona's basketball season has essentially been shifted into neutral. Do these home games really matter? Sacred Heart one night, Cal State Bakersfield the next.
The Zona Zoo answered in absentia Wednesday night. It might have been the fewest UA students at a home game since the Kevin O'Neill season. What is there to look forward to except an announcement of Trier's return or the latest bad news, the apparently serious ankle injury to point guard Parker Jackson-Cartwright?
This month's home schedule is dreadful; do you realize only UC Irvine, Grand Canyon and New Mexico play at McKale Center in December?
Arizona had a better December home schedule 60 years ago, in December of 1956, when it played Hamline, NAU, Murray State, New Mexico State and Colorado State. Yes, Hamline, the Pipers from Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Nothing against Texas Southern, which is on its annual Tour Across America, an almost unprecedented 13-game series of consecutive road games, but Tigers coach Mike Davis told the Star's Bruce Pascoe on Monday that "we won't win."
It was only two years ago that Texas Southern, playing 13 consecutive road games to open the season, stunned mighty Michigan State 71-64 in East Lansing. And yet Davis put into perspective Arizona's dismal home schedule by admitting defeat before he arrived in Tucson to collect a $90,000 fee as a sacrificial basketball lamb.
Texas Southern didn't even have a radio broadcast team at the game. As far as can be remembered, for maybe 30 years, maybe 40, every visiting team at McKale has broadcast the game to their faraway fans.
Games at McKale Center this season are like something out of an Allen Iverson press conference. They seem like practice, man.
On Wednesday, for example, Arizona inserted sophomore walk-on Tyler Trillo in the first half, when the game was still somewhat contested. It became necessary for Trillo to play after Jackson-Cartwright jammed his ankle into a TSU opponent and spent the entire second half undergoing medical treatment.
Tyler Trillo? Ring a bell?
It does if you are a fan of Roger Williams University, a Division III team from Southbury, Connecticut. Trillo played for RWU in 2014-15 before transferring to Arizona to concentrate on academics but ultimately being awarded a non-scholarship spot on Sean Miller's injury-scarred roster. Not only didn't Trillo start for RWU, against teams like Johnson & Wales and Fitchburg State, he averaged just 1.1 points per game.
What many thought would be the Season of Trier has, by a series of misfortunate personnel losses, become the Season of Trillo.
I've never seen Miller as somber as he was after Wednesday's game. Not even after season-ending losses to Bucknell and Wichita State. He was snippy and on edge, and he is rarely like that in a postgame media session.
Can you blame him?
Who will he lose next, Lauri Markkanen?
"Arguably our best player has never played," Miller said, referring to Ray Smith.
Asked who now becomes the UA's eighth man — Trillo perhaps? — Miller bit off three words: "I don't know."
No one outside of Tucson is feeling sorry for Arizona, and especially not Gonzaga, which, given Arizona's personnel situation, now comes off as Godzilla.
"This is big-boy basketball on Saturday," UA guard Kadeem Allen said.
You wonder if Tyler Trillo will be up to it.
- Bruce Pascoe
There were Internet reports Friday saying Arizona guard Allonzo Trier joined the Wildcats for their flight to Los Angeles, but no indication if he'll play Saturday against Gonzaga.
A UA spokesman declined to comment via text message on Trier's status and did not respond when asked to confirm if Trier was on the team flight.
If Trier did make the flight, that likely suggests he either has been cleared and will play Saturday or is just paying his own way to travel along.
Trier has missed six regular-season games and two exhibition games while awaiting NCAA word on his status. He did not travel with the Wildcats to Honolulu or Las Vegas last month.
On his Instagram page, Trier posted a photo of himself sitting on the bench Wednesday in the UA-Texas Southern game, saying "still all smiles, can't break me."
The Wildcats will have seven healthy and eligible scholarship players Saturday, but eight if Trier is able to play. Trier is the Wildcats' top returning scorer, having averaged 14.8 points per game as a freshman last season.
- Bruce Pascoe
Allonzo Trier traveled with the Wildcats for the first time this season, and walked into the Staples Center on Saturday like every UA player: with a matching set of blue UA sweats, and a pair of headphones.
But he never took those sweats off, sitting out Saturday's game as he has for every one of UA's eight regular-season and two exhibition games so far this season.
During warmups, Trier stood alongside three banged-up teammates — Ray Smith (ACL), Talbott Denny (ACL) and Parker Jackson-Cartwright (high ankle sprain). There's little doubt the Wildcats could have used any of those guys, especially Trier. He singlehandledly kept the UA alive during a dreadful first half a year ago in Spokane, scoring six points in the final 1:23 before halftime, paving the way for the Wildcats to pull out a 66-63 win after trailing by 10 at the half.
- Bruce Pascoe
Allonzo Trier's elongated, opaque quest for eligibility may have made some progress last weekend when he traveled with the Wildcats to Los Angeles.
UA coach Sean Miller said Monday that the NCAA permitted Trier to travel for the game against Gonzaga, though he said the NCAA did not allow him to do so for road trips last month to Honolulu and Las Vegas.
However, when the Star asked if the change represented a good sign for the UA, Miller said it wasn't.
"No," Miller said. "The only good sign is when he walks out there and plays."
Normally, players ineligible under NCAA standards are unable to travel unless they pay their own way, but some situations are handled in a case-by-case manner. UA athletic director Greg Byrne also confirmed via text message Monday that Trier "is able to travel," but did not respond when asked if something changed with Trier's situation between the Las Vegas and Los Angeles trips.
Arizona's top returning scorer, Trier has missed all eight of UA's regular-season games while appealing for NCAA eligibility. The UA has consistently declined to comment on his eligibility status since the issue surfaced in mid-October.
- Bruce Pascoe
Joining Jackson-Cartwright on the bench again was sophomore guard Allonzo Trier, who did not play for the 12th straight game because of his ongoing NCAA eligibility issue.
Even though the fall semester is now over at the UA, Miller said that has "nothing to do" with Trier's eligibility. Asked if Trier might be tempted to leave for pro ball since the semester is over, Miller said "no."
The only public sign of possible progress is that Trier was cleared by the NCAA to travel with the Wildcats, Miller said earlier this month. Trier was not cleared to travel for the UA's games in Honolulu and Las Vegas in November, but he has since been able to attend the UA's Dec. 3 game in Los Angeles against Gonzaga and Saturday's game at the Toyota Center.
Trier, Jackson-Cartwright and Talbott Denny (ACL) made up Saturday's "sweatsuit crew" on the bench. Ray Smith, who tore his ACL early last month, did not make the trip because he is still recovering from surgery and it was considered not worth the risk of taking him on the Wildcats' charter flight for the short trip.
- Bruce Pascoe
Yet another speculated deadline passed Friday when the suspended Allonzo Trier did not return to the court for the Wildcats' first Pac-12 game.
While Jackson-Cartwright's return gave the Wildcats an eight-man rotation for the first time since the Texas Southern game, Trier sat on the bench in gray sweatpants and a white Arizona shirt.
The missed game total went to 14 for Trier, and neither UA nor the NCAA have been willing to comment on his absence.
Trier was cleared by the NCAA to travel with the Wildcats about a month ago, according to UA coach Sean Miller, and has traveled to Los Angeles, Houston and now the Bay Area with the Wildcats.
For those still in a speculating mood, the next popular prediction for Trier to return is Jan. 7 against Colorado. That game comes just beyond the halfway point of UA's regular season.
- Bruce Pascoe
The UA has not commented on guard Allonzo Trier's status for nearly three months. But Miller responded Tuesday when asked at his news conference Tuesday about Trier's demonstrative body language on the bench.
Although he's suspended for games, Trier has practiced all season and was cleared by the NCAA to travel with the Wildcats about a month ago. He has been a consistent presence within the team.
"I wish I could talk more about Allonzo," Miller said. "Hopefully in time I can but, I mean, the only thing you have to do is just watch him during the games to see how much he cares about winning, how bad he feels about not being able to play, and I think how much he really cares about Arizona and his teammates.
"He's engaged and he's been that way in practice. He practices with great spirit and energy and competitiveness that's helped our team as well, and we'll see."
Halfway point nears
If the NCAA chooses to reinstate Trier at the halfway point of this season, then he would return this weekend.
Arizona's game Thursday with Utah will be its 16th of 32 scheduled games — if the Pac-12 Tournament is counted as one game, as it usually is.
Saturday's game against Colorado would be No. 17, or the Wildcats' first after the midway point of their season.
But even if Trier is somehow cleared in time to play Thursday, Utah coach Larry Krystkowiak says he isn't game-planning for the UA guard.
"He's a great player, but there's a lot of great players on their team," Krystkowiak told reporters in Utah on Tuesday, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. "We don't have any film we can watch of him this year. ... We wouldn't find out probably until we were warming up anyway. It's one of those things where you only have so much time in a week to try to get across to your guys, and that's one that doesn't make much sense to me."
- Zack Rosenblatt Arizona Daily Star
In basketball, there is comfort in consistency. On any given night, you can pencil in Lauri Markkanen for at least 10 points.
There's not much comfort in the ongoing Allonzo Trier situation, even if the consistency has been like clockwork. The words come from a UA spokesman before every media availability. It's always some version of the following:
"We can't comment on Allonzo Trier's status."
"We still can't comment on Allonzo Trier's status."
"There will be no comment on Allonzo Trier's status."
The closest thing to a comment came earlier this week, when coach Sean Miller addressed Trier's enthusiasm on the bench amidst a tough time for the sophomore guard, who passed on an early entry into the NBA for this?
It's been a strange saga from the beginning. It could soon be ending.
The going theory — because that's all it really is at this point, speculation and conjecture and hypotheses and fodder for message boards — is that Trier may have been suspended for half the Wildcats' regular-season games.
Arizona's 66-56 win against Utah on Thursday was the halfway mark — 16 of 31 regular season games, plus Pac-12 Tournament game, which is usually counted as one game.
The second half of the season would start, in theory, Saturday against Colorado.
A Trier return — Saturday or any day, for that matter — would give Arizona something it hasn't had all season: depth.
Before the season, the biggest question mark related to Miller's embarrassment of riches — Trier returned, so did Kadeem Allen, Parker Jackson-Cartwright, Dusan Ristic and Chance Comanche. Ray Smith was to make his Arizona debut after a lost freshman campaign, and the Wildcats were adding a stellar freshman class led by the latest likely one-and-done, Markkanen, along with five-star prospects Kobi Simmons and Rawle Alkins and a junior college transfer Keanu Pinder.
It was a good problem to have. It didn't last.
Smith retired after another ACL tear, and Trier's season has consisted mostly of bench-warming jubilation and cryptic social media posts.
Arizona's wings — Allen, Alkins and Simmons — have picked up the slack. Alkins and Simmons average a combined 19.1 shots per game, and are each averaging more than 30 minutes per game.
After some rough patches — including Thursday night's win, where the two freshmen combined to shoot 5 of 17 with five turnovers — the two have established themselves as consistent performers.
Before Thursday, Alkins was second on the team in both points (12.7) and rebounds per game (5.7), while Simmons was third in scoring (12.5) and had only scored less than 10 points three times.
"We have a lot of new faces in big roles," Miller said. "When you get in conference play it's not just going to be easy."
It would help to have Trier.
"In 48 hours (from Thursday), four of our 18 (conference) games are over with," Miller said. "We have to be ready now. Conference play is different, especially if you're a freshman."
During Thursday's shootaround, Trier — donning sweatpants and a t-shirt bearing his No. 35 on the back — smiled and laughed with Markkanen.
It's a tantalizing pairing that nobody's seen outside of Arizona practice.
Wouldn't that be something to see in a game?
It might happen on Saturday.
If not, there will be no you know.
- Bruce Pascoe
The McKale Center doors opened at 6:30 p.m. Thursday. As the Arizona Wildcats started firing some early practice shots, a pair of fans made a beeline down the stands facing center court.
They looked for Allonzo Trier, noticed he wasn't wearing game shorts, and turned to a couple of press row folks for confirmation.
Nope, he wasn't playing — for the 16th game this season.
Speculation suggests Trier's NCAA suspension might be lifted Saturday for the Arizona-Colorado game, since the Wildcats have reached the halfway point of the season.
Until it is, this is what life has become for some Arizona followers: seeing what kind of pants Trier is wearing before the game.
Are they game shorts? Sweats? Khakis? Or something else?
"THOSE ARE TEARAWAY PANTS" the Zero Facts Podcast tweeted Thursday in reply to a photo posted by the Star.
Maybe, but the fact was he didn't play.
So that's how it goes. Analyzing clothing, body language or parsing words along Trier's social media trails, whatever, anything, in the great vacuum created by Arizona, the NCAA and student-privacy laws.
Back on Nov. 21, Trier had a few folks going when he tweeted out scripture from Matthew 5:16: "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your father which is in heaven." He did not return to the spotlight of the court in the days that followed.
On Jan. 1, while staying with the Wildcats in Palo Alto in advance of a game at Stanford that night, he posted the words "Day One" on his Twitter page. It looked like a simple New Year's Day tweet that could have been interpreted as something else. But he didn't play against the Cardinal, either.
Though other "hints" have popped up via Instagram and Snapchat, the only thing known on the record is what the eye tells you: Trier has missed 16 games, half of UA's 32 regular-season games (counting the Pac-12 Tournament as one game).
Why? The NCAA has declined to comment on Trier, and UA has remained steadfastly quiet.
UA athletic director Greg Byrne responded to a series of Trier-related questions from the Star on Friday with an email saying he was "going to stay consistent and not comment on this subject."
Coach Sean Miller's press conferences have been prefaced by a spokesman telling all assembled media that questions about Trier won't be answered.
Trier has not been made available for comment since UA's Sept. 29 media day. Miller acknowledged rumors about Trier following the team's Oct. 14 Red-Blue Game, but would not comment further. Trier was swapped out of Arizona's appearance at the Oct. 21 Pac-12 media day for Kadeem Allen, with Miller declining to say why.
Multiple public-records requests filed by the Star with UA so far have given no indication about Trier's situation, because the school determined the information sought — including that of appeals — fell under student-privacy laws.
The school wrote to the Star saying, "Student records cannot be produced to protect the privacy interests of student-athletes, including under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which mandates the University to maintain student education records in confidence."
In that case, maybe some process-of-elimination thinking is in order:
Except for two minor traffic issues, Trier's name has not surfaced in any local court records. That likely indicates there's no off-campus concern.Miller said after the fall semester ended that Trier's situation has "nothing to do" with the school calendar, suggesting it is not an academic issue.The NCAA cleared Trier to travel with Arizona for its Dec. 3 game against Gonzaga, after Trier had not been cleared for November trips to Honolulu and Las Vegas. That suggested there was some element of progress, since ineligible players are usually not allowed to travel without paying their own way. Miller, however, said the NCAA's decision meant nothing.The NCAA hasn't announced an investigation, finding or penalty for extra benefits or other violations, as it often does in such cases. Those situations can be resolved quickly, especially if the violation occurs in-season. The NCAA's penalty for a failed drug test is suspension for up to a full year, though it can be reduced or eliminated on appeal.
Trier has enthusiastically supported his teammates at nearly every UA game and practice, plus all road trips since he was cleared to travel — except Dec. 10 at Missouri, when fall semester finals were finishing up. If Trier wasn't returning — or didn't think he might return — he might have considered signing a pro contract overseas instead of staying at Arizona.
Trier's general effort, in fact, is the one thing Miller has addressed recently.
"I wish I could talk more about Allonzo," Miller said on Tuesday. "Hopefully in time I can but, I mean, the only thing you have to do is just watch him during the games to see how much he cares about winning, how bad he feels about not being able to play, and I think how much he really cares about Arizona and his teammates. He practices with great spirit and energy and competitiveness that's helped our team as well, and we'll see."
- Bruce Pascoe
This was supposed to be — maybe — the day. The Return.
Allonzo Trier warmed up two hours before the tipoff of Saturday's game wearing different shoes. An early arriving UA fan called them "game shoes," and Twitter ran with it.
He's back!
Spoiler alert: Trier wasn't back.
Saturday's date was always just speculation anyway, as neither the NCAA or Arizona has made any comment about why Trier has been sitting out or how long he might be sitting out.
Trier stayed in the locker room for warmups, emerging just before tipoff. He wore sweatpants, per usual.
- Zack Rosenblatt Arizona Daily Star
Arizona Wildcats fans may not be the only ones in the dark about whether Allonzo Trier will ever play for the Wildcats this season.
UA coach Sean Miller indicated he is, too.
During his weekly teleconference Monday, Miller said he doesn't know when the case might be resolved and appeared to back away slightly from a Pac-12 Networks report saying he believed Trier will play.
Pac-12 Networks sideline reporter Jill Savage said during UA's game with Colorado on Saturday that Miller "told me ... that he does believe (Allonzo) Trier will play sometime this season," but Miller wouldn't go that far Monday when asked about the report.
"Honestly, I've said so many things over the last three or four months, I would just say that I hope that Allonzo has an opportunity to play sometime this year," Miller said. "I'll leave it at that. If I knew more, l would say. If I would be able to, I would say.
"But this is far, far higher up the ladder than me. I'm just soldiering the army, following orders."
Trier has missed all 17 of UA's games this season with a suspension, but neither the UA nor the NCAA will comment on it. In fact, the Pac-12 Networks' report came despite the fact that reporters are routinely told at news conferences that no questions about Trier's status will be addressed.
While Trier hasn't played publicly since the Red-Blue intrasquad game on Oct. 14, Miller said he's been active and a helpful participant in other areas.
With "Allonzo, the one thing I can comment on is he practices with us every day," Miller said. "He's in school. He's doing a great job as always. Our practice environment has been really good this year. I'll knock on wood because I know it can change quickly, but I hope that continues to the finish line because if it does that bodes well.
"This is a team that loves the game. It stems from a lot of players. Allonzo is one of them. (Redshirting guard) Dylan Smith and Allonzo, they practice every time that we practice. Both are quality players and they make that daily grind a lot more efficient, more highly competitive, and when you watch us practice we're probably a deeper team than we would be in games."
- Bruce Pascoe
In a midseason roundtable published among ESPN.com's "insider" content, three of four ESPN college basketball writers picked Arizona's Allonzo Trier as the "player who has been the biggest disappointment" so far this season.
Andy Katz chose Duke’s polarizing Grayson Allen but ESPN’s Eamonn Brennan, C.L Brown and Myron Medcalf said it was Trier.
“Obviously, it’s not because of what he’s done on the court,” Brown wrote. “With Trier, the Wildcats could contend with UCLA and Oregon for the Pac-12 crown. The problem is he hasn’t played in any of the Wildcats’ 17 games.
“It’s one of the most bizarre suspensions – if you can call it that, since the school has not announced exactly why he’s out – in recent memory.”
Medcalf also questioned UA’s lack of transparency on Trier.
“We’re still not sure why he’s still sitting, and Arizona officials continue to offer vague explanations for his absence,” Medcalf wrote. “It’s disappointing because we’re still not sure why a talented player has yet to play a minute this season.”
Trier's latest posts on Instagram are fodder for more word-parsing, if you still have an appetite for that.
Last week on Instagram he posted a picture of himself drinking water on the bench and said “Thirsty for the game.”
This week, Trier posted photos of himself with the words:
“Starting to feel a little too big for the cage I been trapped in.”
And, “faced with immeasurable odds, still I gave straight bets.”
- Bruce Pascoe
Suspended Arizona Wildcats guard Allonzo Trier said Wednesday night he was "shocked" to have tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug, and remains unsure when he will play again because the drug must be completely out of his system.
Trier was responding via a UA statement to an ESPN.com story citing unnamed sources that said he tested positive for a PED in September and won an appeal, but that the NCAA hasn't allowed him to play until the drug is completely out of his system.
Trier, who has not been made available for comment since September, suffered an off-court injury last offseason and said the drug was administered as part of his recovery.
Trier's statement read:
"Earlier this season, I was notified that I tested positive for a trace amount of a banned performance-enhancing drug following an NCAA random test and I was shocked. I have never knowingly taken a banned substance. After finding out that I was given a banned substance by a well-intentioned, but misguided person not associated with the University after an injury, I presented this information to the NCAA. The NCAA agreed that I had no knowledge of receiving the substance and my eligibility was restored. Although I can practice and travel with the team, I am not allowed to resume playing in games until the substance completely leaves my body even at a trace amount. Unfortunately, I am unsure of when that time will be, but I hope it is soon.
"I want to thank my family, coaches, teammates, my attorney and the athletics department for their support during this difficult time. I will not have any further comment at this time. In addition, I have asked the athletics department to respect my privacy by not answering any questions or releasing any information beyond this statement."
While UA and the NCAA have declined comment on Trier since speculation first surfaced in the preseason about a positive drug test, UA coach Sean Miller has indicated public signs of frustration.
Miller told a college basketball podcast Monday that Trier's case is a "once in a lifetime" circumstance and later told local reporters he was "ambivalent" about Trier's chances of playing this season. Trier has missed all 18 of UA's regular-season games and also did not play in the Wildcats' two exhibition games, though he has practiced with the team.
Miller said Trier was cleared by the NCAA to begin traveling for the Wildcats' Dec. 3 game with Gonzaga in Los Angeles. However, when asked if that represented progress in the case, Miller said it meant nothing.
The Star's policy is generally not to run stories with unnamed sources, so the ESPN.com story wasn't scheduled to be in Thursday's edition until UA responded to it on the record with Trier's statement.
A positive PED test is consistent with the circumstances that have been publicly outlined for Trier's departure -- Trier is not in any local court records except for minor traffic offenses, Miller has said his timeline is not related to the academic calendar (meaning it wasn't likely academic related) and NCAA extra benefits violations are typically assigned a definitive number of games depending on the circumstances.
UA and the NCAA had declined comment about Trier's status to the Star since speculation about a positive drug test started in the preseason. The Star has also filed two public records requests, including one in October about the results of drug testing in the Arizona athletic program. But that request was largely unanswered, with the school citing student privacy laws (the responses are attached as PDF files).
A second, related public records request from the Star to UA sent on Dec. 20 has still not been answered. Two follow-up emails to the NCAA requesting comment about Trier and the categorization of penalties have also not been answered.
A positive drug test is rare in college sports. The NCAA told the Star in October that it tested 12,928 athletes in 2015-16 and had 149 sanctioned outcomes, the net result after subtracting positive results that were cleared through a medical exception review.
LOS ANGELES — Arizona Wildcats guard Allonzo Trier will make his return from a PED-related suspension just in time for the Wildcats’ biggest game of the season Saturday at UCLA.
The NCAA notified the school Friday afternoon that Trier’s most recent drug test came back negative, meaning he is able to return to the court immediately.
The UA confirmed his return with an email statement to the Star. It read: "The NCAA notified us on Friday afternoon that Allonzo Trier’s most recent drug test was negative. Therefore, he is eligible to return to the court immediately and will be available for our game against UCLA."
Trier’s return means the Wildcats have nine active scholarship players — and an experienced go-to scorer — available for their game against the third-ranked Bruins and beyond. The Wildcats are 17-2 and ranked No. 14 in the Associated Press Top 25.
Trier missed a total of 19 games, totaling 61.3 percent of the Wildcats’ regular season, after testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug. Trier issued a statement Wednesday saying he was given the drug after suffering an injury. However, Trier did not name the drug or the circumstances in which he took it.
“I have never knowingly taken a banned substance,” Trier said in his statement. “After finding out that I was given a banned substance by a well-intentioned, but misguided person not associated with the University after an injury, I presented this information to the NCAA.
“The NCAA agreed that I had no knowledge of receiving the substance and my eligibility was restored.”
However, Trier’s statement added that he would not be allowed to resume playing in games until the substance completely left his body, and that he wasn’t sure when that would be. The Pac-12 Networks Lewis Johnson said on Thursday’s UA-USC broadcast that Trier was getting tested every 7-10 days but wouldn’t be tested again until next week.
While UA and the NCAA have declined comment since speculation first surfaced in early October that Trier had tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug, UA coach Sean Miller recently has publicly indicated signs of frustration.
Miller told the College Hoops Podcast on Monday that Trier’s case is a “once in a lifetime” circumstance and later told local reporters he was “ambivalent” about Trier’s chances of playing this season. Trier has missed all 18 of UA’s regular-season games and also did not play in the Wildcats’ two exhibition games, though he has practiced with the team.
“I don’t have control of the situation,” Miller said. “So when you’re dealing with a crisis or adversity, and we’ve had plenty here over the least nine months, you finally settle into what can you really control. …
“He does what he’s supposed to. He practices hard every day. He’s in great physical condition but he’s not allowed to play and it’s not my choice. And it’s just one of those situations that I wish was different but it’s not.”
Trier has been practicing all season, but Miller said Trier was cleared by the NCAA to begin traveling for the Wildcats’ Dec. 3 game with Gonzaga in Los Angeles. Miller said at the time that change in status represented nothing.
“The only good sign is when he walks out there and plays,” Miller said.
On Saturday, at Pauley Pavilion, Trier will be walking out there and playing.
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