Sean Miller looked the other way over the weekend, and it didn’t turn out too badly for the Arizona Wildcats.
Over nearly a decade at Arizona, Miller has preached a defense-first philosophy, reasoning in part that a good defensive effort can keep you competitive during the inevitable days when shots don’t fall.
But, as the Wildcats also found in their 84-81 overtime win over Utah on Saturday, there’s also games where, well, you’d just better get some shots to fall.
On Saturday, Utah guard Sedrick Barefield and the Utes’ pair of 7-footers were bookending a ruthless offense that led the Wildcats by up to 10 points early. Utah shot 55.6 percent in the first half and 45.5 percent in the second.
Arizona had to answer somehow, and its defense wasn’t cutting it.
“We had a number of missed assignments early in the game … but I also want to tell you that Sedrick Barefield is really hard to deal with,” Miller said. “Most of the time our breakdowns occurred when he is scoring. He’s shooting off the dribble shots, 20 feet, 22 feet, going left and right, and shooting a high percentage.
“He gets inside the foul line, and he can score on a big guy. Very few guards can do both of those things.”
Dealing with somebody like Barefield is something Miller said the Wildcats can “grow and continue to be better at,” but there wasn’t time for that sort of thing on Saturday.
So UA kicked in offensively, winding up with 84 points in just 73 possessions, a highly efficient rate that correlates to 115 points per 100 possessions.
That overcame Utah’s 111 points-per-possession rate and blew away the 64 points the UA scored on 67 possessions in a slug-it-out affair against Colorado on Thursday.
All that led to the kind of postgame statement you don’t hear from Miller all that often.
“I’m thrilled we were able to score, because if we weren’t able to score (against Utah), we wouldn’t have been able to beat them because they’re very difficult to defend,” Miller said. Utah coach Larry Krystkowiak, “after timeouts, getting his best players shots — (defending that) takes amazing concentration, and we had a stretch in the second half where we blew four or five assignments, and every time that we missed our assignments, it resulted in a basket or a three.”
What’s more, the Wildcats did it with point guard Justin Coleman at only about 80 percent health, according to Miller, after suffering a dislocated shoulder on New Year’s Eve.
Coleman was only 1 for 8 from the field and had three turnovers to his three assists Saturday, while missing two would-be shots in the final minute that might have avoided overtime. But Miller commended him for several plays, including a feed he gave Chase Jeter for a dunk that cut Utah’s lead to 68-66 with 4:26 left in regulation.
“He really gave us everything this weekend when he didn’t have to,” Miller said.
“The safe move would have been ‘Coach, I can’t play this weekend.’ ... I think he deserves a lot of credit.”
Here’s three other reasons the Wildcats survived with offense Saturday:
1. Jeter kept up as one of the most-efficient scorers.
Jeter was 8 for 12 from the field on Saturday, moving him into a tie with UCLA’s Moses Brown with the 14th-best field-goal percentage in Division I at 65.7 percent.
That’s so effective of a rate around the basket that Jeter still ranks 44th overall nationally in effective field-goal percentage, a Kenpom number that awards 50 percent more to 3-pointers, even though he has never taken a 3-pointer this season.
Jeter is also 69th among Division I players in “true shooting percentage,” which also factors in free throws, even though he makes only 62.9 percent of those shots.
Jeter made 5 of 7 free throws Saturday to finish with 21 points and 13 rebounds, his fourth double-double of the season.
“Chase Jeter was terrific,” Miller said. “Twenty-one and 13, and he played 39 minutes, which is hard to do.”
2. Brandon Randolph stuck with it.
At the end of regulation, the Wildcats’ leading scorer had 15 points while making only 1 of 8 3-pointers, with only one rebound and a turnover.
But he scored half of the UA’s 12 overtime points, stepping back for a 15-footer early in overtime, driving inside for a go-ahead bucket that made it 82-81 with 54 seconds left and then hitting two free throws with a second left for the final margin.
“I just think the team needs to be more aggressive and stay aggressive,” Randolph said. “I think Chase definitely brought that and I wanted to back that up.
“My teammates told me to keep my confidence up and don’t worry about my struggles from the 3. They told me it would come, to just stay confident and not get down on myself.”
3. X-factors came through.
While the Brandons (Williams and Randolph) have taken nearly half of Arizona’s 3-pointers, it was the team’s X-factors behind the line who made the difference Saturday.
Dylan Smith, having hit only 30 percent of his 3s entering Saturday’s game, was 3 for 3. And Ryan Luther, whose 38.2 percent long-range rate entering the game belied what Miller has called a lack of confidence since Maui, was 2 for 2.
Together, Luther and Smith helped the UA offset the fact that Utah’s Donnie Tillman hit all three 3-pointers he took in the second half.
One sequence was particularly noteworthy: Luther hit a 3 to give the UA a 54-48 lead, Tillman answered with his own 3, and then Smith returned for another 3 to make it 57-51.
Without that cushion, the UA might have sank for good when Tillman hit two more 3s over the next three minutes.
“Dylan went 3 for 3 and a lot of different players made plays,” Miller said. “Ryan has struggled with his confidence, but his 3-pointers in the second half came at a great time.
“So we’re gonna win as a team and lose as a team. I don’t think we’re ever going to be a product of a great individual performance.
“And that’s the challenge: Can we continue to grow and improve and stay cohesive? If that’s the case, we’ll have many, many good moments here over the next couple of months.”
