If it wasnโt for the cotton plugs stuffed into both of Dylan Smithโs nostrils, Arizona trainer Justin Kokoskie says, blood would have drained all over the McKale Center floor Saturday night.
Instead, Smith left his heart there.
In his last game at McKale Center, the Wildcatsโ senior wing scored all of his team-high 19 points โ on six 3-pointers and a free throw โ after suffering a broken nose in the first half of Arizonaโs 69-63 loss to Washington.
An elbow from 250-pound Husky center Isaiah Stewart hit Smith on the side of his face under the basket as the big man descended from a layup. Officials reviewed the play but found it inadvertent, issuing no foul.
It was unintentional, yet still painful.
Smith missed nearly seven minutes in the first half because of the blow, the first few in the locker room while UA staffers tested him for a concussion, stuffed his nosebleed and gave him an icebag to soothe his sore head.
All the while Smith begged everyone to just let him go.
โWe had to slow him down,โ Kokoskie said. โHe wanted to come back sooner.โ
Not after a collision like that. After all, this is a team that lost forward Stone Gettings for a month after he took a hit to the face against Penn on Nov. 29, suffering a concussion, a broken facial bone and a long-lasting black eye.
โIโm not in any way saying Isaiah Stewart did that on purpose but other than Stone getting his face broken, I donโt think Iโve ever seen a harder blow to the face than what Dylan took,โ UA coach Sean Miller said. โWhat a testament to him to play and make six 3s. Iโm really proud of him.
โDylanโs had his ups and downs but no one will ever question his effort level. Heโs a guy who really tries hard.โ
Miller wasnโt exactly in the mood to say that about too many other guys Saturday. Not only did he call the Wildcatsโ performance โpoorโ in their loss to the last-place Huskies โ especially in reference to their 20% shooting and 10 turnovers in the first half โ but he alluded to the delicate nature of injuries to some players.
During his weekly news conference before the Washington teams arrived, Miller said that after an injured player receives clearance from Kokoskie and UA doctors, the decision to play often falls on the athlete, since each is different.
โSome guys like to fight through,โ Miller said. โOther guys want to be closer to 100 percent.โ
It wasnโt difficult to tell which kind of player Smith is.
Miller made that clear again after Saturdayโs game.
โThese days, if you get hit in the eyebrow, you could be out for two to four weeks,โ Miller said. โYou know, the kid broke his nose. Just got his nose smashed. He played, and in the second half, heโs the reason we stayed in the game. Heโs the reason we had a chance.โ
Smith, who was not available for comment after the game, just didnโt have enough help.
With Arizona trailing by 15 at halftime, thanks to poor shooting and the 16 points the Huskies scored on those 10 UA turnovers, Smith hit three 3s within 66 seconds โ all from the right corner and wing โ to singlehandedly cut Washingtonโs lead to 42-32.
Then, after Stewart scored inside, Smith fired in a 25-footer from above the top of the key to cut the Huskiesโ lead to 44-35.
UA guard Nico Mannion later hit a 3-pointer and made a three-point play to help pull UA within 53-48 with 8:46 left. But after UA cut it to 55-51 on Smithโs fifth 3-pointer, Christian Koloko was called for an over-the-back foul and a technical for complaining about it.
โChristian may be one of the nicest kids that Iโve ever met,โ Miller said. โWeโre actually on him to communicate more. Itโs just hard for me to believe, but I guess thatโs the way the world right now.โ
Washington hit all four free throws resulting from Kolokoโs fouls, and Arizona never cut it closer than four points the rest of the way, unable to overcome its dreadful opening 20 minutes.
โThe first half kind of killed us,โ Gettings said.
But in that sense, maybe itโs a good thing for the Wildcats that theyโll play Washington again on Wednesday in the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament.
In both games against the Huskies this season, the Wildcats had trouble early adjusting to Washingtonโs zone, managing to overcome it for a 75-72 win in Seattle but falling too far behind Saturday at McKale Center.
On Wednesday, in a 2:30 p.m. first-round game, the Wildcats will have a fresh memory of exactly what theyโll be facing โ and, maybe, some motivation from that memory.
โThatโs our only choice,โ Miller said.
