During their Bay Area sweep over the weekend, Sean Miller and his Arizona Wildcats talked a lot about avoiding complacency going forward.
A few things could help.
For one, as Miller pointed out Saturday after the Wildcats beat Stanford 69-60, their opponents this week have both already beaten them: Oregon edged UA in overtime on Jan. 9 and Oregon State beat them by 17 three days later in Corvallis, presumably giving them automatic motivation.
“That’s one thing that’s a little different,” Miller said.
Of course, there are always Pac-12 and NCAA seeding implications: Arizona remains in a loss-column tie with Oregon, ASU and Colorado atop the Pac-12 and isn’t terribly far above the dreaded 8-9 seed line in NCAA Tournament projections these days.
Then there’s the issue of acting consistently like a ranked team: Arizona rejoined the AP college basketball poll at No. 24 on Monday, continuing a peek-a-boo trend that has seen the Wildcats cycle out and then back in the following week ever since their Oregon trip first knocked them out on Jan. 13.
Finally, it might be of some secondary motivation that the Wildcats have still never received a Pac-12 Player of the Week award despite sitting near first place.
Not once in 15 weeks.
Arizona's Zeke Nnaji (22) falls onto Stanford's James Keefe during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game Saturday, Feb. 15, 2020, in Stanford, Calif. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
Forward Zeke Nnaji picked up his fourth Freshman of the Week award on Monday after leading the Wildcats to wins over Cal and Stanford, but ASU’s Remy Martin beat him out for Player of the Week after doing the same thing for the Sun Devils.
Nnaji averaged 21.0 points, 8.0 rebounds and shot 60.9% while Martin averaged 23.0 points, 3.5 assists (but 3.5 turnovers) in the Sun Devils’ wins over Stanford and Cal, shooting a combined 67% while making 5 of 6 3-pointers.
Then again, it’s been difficult for any freshman to win the Pac-12’s top weekly award, despite the fact that many of the conference’s most talented players are freshmen.
Only one Pac-12 freshman has earned the Player of the Week award so far: USC’s Onyeka Okwongu, on Nov. 25 after averaging 25.0 points in the Trojans’ wins over Pepperdine and Temple.
It’s difficult to tell if having both a Player and a Freshman of the Week award are keeping freshmen from winning the overall award, though, and the vote results between Martin and Nnaji was not close this week.
In any case, the Wildcats were celebrating Nnaji all weekend.
First, he had 21 points on 8-for-13 shooting with five rebounds at Cal, with the Wildcats taking advantage of the Bears’ limited size inside.
“When we get the ball to Zeke, good things happen,” guard Dylan Smith said after that game. “Zeke’s a great player. He’s willing to pass out of the post and does a good job for being so young. He’s a special talent. So the more we give him the ball, the better we’ll be.”
Nnaji was only able to take 10 shots from the field on Saturday at Stanford but drew nine fouls that put him at the line 12 times.
He hit 9 of 12 free throws, ultimately collecting the same 21 points he had at Cal despite Stanford’s effort at trapping him every time he touched the ball.
Josh Green scores against Stanford on Saturday in a win that moved Arizona just a half-game out of first place.
After the Cal game, Nnaji said he’s become increasingly comfortable facing double-teams, working every day on moving within them and passing out of the post when necessary.
“I think all that work is starting to pay off,” Nnaji said.
Two days later, his coach agreed.
Because it’s February now, and Nnaji has more skills than he did when the double-teams started arriving two months ago.
No matter what kind of awards he’s winning, or not, along the way.
“He scores in a lot of ways,” Miller said. “He’s a moving target. He’s obviously a great offensive rebounder. He can shoot the ball from 17 feet and he’s a very good free-throw shooter. So he’s not just depending on a low block shot.”
