STANFORD, Calif. — During his month-long recovery from a high ankle sprain, Parker Jackson-Cartwright sometimes found a pattern.
One good day, maybe two good days, then a bad one on the third day.
Arizona’s 91-52 victory over Stanford came on his third day back.
A bad day.
Jackson-Cartwright had six assists to three turnovers over 22 minutes against the Cardinal but missed all four shots he took.
“Obviously (Sunday) I didn’t play as good,” Jackson-Cartwright said. During rehabilitation “one day it felt good and two days it felt good and then kind of the next day after that is really sore. It’s just sore.
“I can play through the pain, but some things I can’t control. I dove for the ball and kind of tweaked it. Other than that I felt good but getting back in the flow was kind of tough.”
UA coach Sean Miller said his point guard’s confidence has sunk during his early efforts to get back on the floor, too.
“The thing that he’s most uncomfortable with right now is shooting, and he’ll get that back,” Miller said. “I think it was missing four weeks and prior to that he wasn’t shooting real well, so his percentage is really low.
“He’s a far better shooter than he’s showing in the games, and that’s going to come. Now that he’s regularly back practicing, I would like to think he could make a lot of shots. He’s not on balance when he shoots. You can tell he doesn’t have a lot of confidence. But it only takes one to go in and he’ll never look back.”
Jackson-Cartwright is shooting just 35.2 percent overall this season and 23.8 percent from three-point range. But Miller said he’s “doing really well” overall and has reason to think those numbers will rise.
Last season, after all, Jackson-Cartwright led the Pac-12 in three-point percentage (48.6) in league games .
In any case, shooting is hardly the main reason the Wildcats need Jackson-Cartwright back. They needed playmaking and another capable body that could give their three other perimeter players a rest.
With Jackson-Cartwright logging 20 minutes in UA’s 67-62 win at Cal on Friday, the Wildcats were able to play their three freshmen for only 31 minutes each while senior Kadeem Allen went for 34.
“You can’t discount the rest that he gave a number of these guys,” Miller said. “Playing 30 minutes versus 36 or 37 is a big deal.”
While nobody had to play even as many as 30 minutes on Sunday at Stanford, there’s little doubt that having an eighth man in the rotation with Jackson-Cartwright — and nine if the suspended Allonzo Trier returns — will help over the rest of the conference season.
“Sometimes I call for a sub myself, so it’s good to have more depth on our team,” guard Rawle Alkins said. “Parker’s a great point guard and he’s a great addition to our team.”
Offensively, Jackson-Cartwright’s contributions to UA’s offensive ball movement was pretty clear over the weekend. Even while in pain Sunday at Stanford, he drove under the basket through traffic and left a drop-off pass to Chance Comanche late in the first half.
Comanche dunked it, and the Wildcats took their biggest lead to that point, 49-28.
Two days earlier at Cal, Jackson-Cartwright’s four assists came without a single turnover, too.
“Huge difference,” guard Kobi Simmons said after the Cal game. “Having another guard, but not just another guard — it’s Parker – was a huge difference.”
He did “everything — spacing the floor, attacking, his ability to find players at a high level, and that’s something a lot of point guards don’t have.”
Jackson-Cartwright wasn’t quite as bullish on himself, not in the short run at least. He said on Sunday he wasn’t jumping well off his sore right foot and has trouble bending down.
He’s on the court but, in a sense, his rehabilitation is still continuing.
“It’s a long recovery,” he said. “I’ve had ankle injuries and I know which ones are bad, which ones I can play through, and I heal quickly. But I’ve still got a ways to go.”
Rim shots
• Arizona moved up one spot to No. 17 in the AP Top 25 poll, while Oregon leapfrogged the Wildcats from 21st to 15th after sweeping UCLA and USC.
• Oregon’s Dillon Brooks was named the Pac-12 Player of the Week after averaging 25.5 points on 60 percent shooting in the games against UCLA and USC. Arizona had nominated Dusan Ristic, who averaged 16 points and four rebounds against Cal and Stanford.
