The Arizona Wildcats wonβt play a game this weekend, and hereβs one guess on how theyβll spend that extra time:
Working on defense. The kind of defense that was among the nationβs top 10 earlier this month β before the UA allowed ASU to score 50 points and shoot 56.7 percent in the second half Thursday.
The kind of defense needed to survive a potentially treacherous trip to Los Angeles next week.
βWhen you give up 50 in the second half and you gave up only 25 in the first half, that has to be addressed because a lot of time it bleeds into the next game,β UA coach Sean Miller said after the UA beat the Sun Devils 91-75. βAnd the place weβre going next, we have to be at our best to have any chance at all, both at SC and UCLA.β
Miller doesnβt have to turn far back in the record book to prove that point. A year ago, Arizona opened the Pac-12 season with a 94-82 win at ASU that had a few troubling defensive signs for the Wildcats.
Although the UA outscored ASU in both halves of that game, the Wildcats allowed the Sun Devils to shoot 55 percent from two-point range in the second half.
As a result, despite shooting 55.6 percent themselves, outrebounding ASU by seven and taking 17 more free throws than ASU, the Wildcats couldnβt extend their lead past 16 points.
βThere were times against ASU that we played well, but in the second half we didnβt,β Miller said after the next game β¦ when Arizona allowed UCLA to shoot 51.6 percent in the first half and couldnβt fully overcome it in an 87-84 loss at Pauley Pavilion.
The slippage continued. Two days after the UAβs loss at UCLA, the Wildcats allowed USC to shoot 64.3 percent in the first half, putting itself in an eight-point halftime hole that led to a historic four-overtime loss.
Miller saw that coming, too.
βItβs falling out of the sky right now,β Miller said of UAβs defense before the loss at USC. βWe have to be on it defensively. We donβt have maybe the overall length that we had the last couple years, but weβre plenty good enough to do a better job than we didβ at UCLA.
Of course, this is a different season, with a much different team, one with more talent and better defensive focus that is led by senior guard Kadeem Allen.
Allen was so effective on both sides of the ball Thursday, with 18 points and eight assists plus some key defense against Arizona Stateβs Torian Graham, that Miller said he asked his team if he βcan have more than one Kadeemβ during a timeout when UAβs defense started to crumble in the second half.
βKadeem does it every night,β Miller said. βI think heβs one of the best defenders in our conference, if not the nation. One of the many attributes that he has defensively is heβs versatile. He doesnβt guard just one player. He can guard two or three in the same game.β
Allen is also beginning to brim with confidence, after saying for weeks now that coaches and players prod him to have some.
βI think Iβm at a peak right now,β Allen said after Thursdayβs game. βIβm playing great defense.β
He just needs more of his younger teammates to follow. While Miller has said this yearβs Wildcats have more of a willingness to play hard-nosed defense, heβs also frequently cited their inexperience and lack of depth that may have played a role Thursday.
βWe have three freshmen in our lineup,β Miller said. βThey donβt understand a team that shoots the way they do (like ASU), how quickly the game can change. I bet if you follow ASU closely you would see that because they rely on the 3-point shot so much, there are stretches where it doesnβt go in and then there are stretches where they can get back in the same game.
βYou have to get back to really defending the 3-point shot. There were times when we did defend it, and it went in anyway. But weβre moving on and excited to go to L.A. We know we have a big, big challenge ahead of us.β
