One reason Sean Miller’s Arizona teams rarely get too high or too low might be the way he approaches every game evenhandedly.
Like, this week.
When asked how big Saturday’s Pac-12 opener against Arizona State really is, Miller answered by stringing together the following remarks:
“If we had lost to Northern Arizona in our season opener, it would have been a crushing defeat.”
(Arizona won by 39).
“You name the game: Stanford at Stanford this year, it’s going to be a really, really important game. It’s a road game and we don’t play them at home. It’s going to be a must-win.”
(Miller’s Wildcats have never lost to Stanford).
“I think you look at the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament. It’s going to be March Madness, whether it’s on Wednesday or Thursday.”
(The Wildcats are 8-2 in their first Pac-12 Tournament games under Miller).
“Every game we play at Arizona is all put in that same category. I felt like that when we played Nebraska-Omaha. That would have been a tough defeat for us. But we found a way to win.”
(Arizona won by 50).
And so on.
You get his point — and maybe the Wildcats do, too.
“The game on Saturday, I put in that same category,” Miller said. “Of the 600 or whatever games I’ve coached, I think every one of them, at the tip, I’ve felt like you have to win.”
Truth be told, the Wildcats do probably have a little more on the line here than in most of their other games this season — and not really because the game is against their in-state rival, which means much less to those involved in basketball than it does in football.
Here’s why:
1. They don’t want to carry a loss to Oregon next week. Every Arizona trip to Oregon under Miller has resulted in one loss, and the Wildcats were particularly smacked by the Ducks in 2016-17 (85-58) and last season (73-47). They won at OSU last season only after Devonaire Doutrive put back a missed shot just before the buzzer to give UA a 74-72 victory in Corvallis.
Moreover, the Wildcats might have no better opportunity to pick up a win over the rest of January. After heading to Oregon, they’ll host a surprisingly good Utah team and a veteran Colorado bunch that just knocked off the Ducks in Boulder. Then they have to play at ASU and at Washington before facing WSU in Pullman on Feb. 1.
In other words, a first-game loss has the potential to snowball into a losing conference record over the first half of the season.
The UA has turned the ball over on just 16.2% of its possessions. ASU’s aggressive man-to-man defense will test that strength.
2. Nobody can take anything for granted in the Pac-12. Entering Pac-12 play at just 7-6 after a home-court loss to Cal State Fullerton, UCLA was so embarrassing to new coach Mike Cronin that he made his players wear practice shorts and jerseys without team logos on them.
“You have to honor who you are and the guys who played before you,” Cronin said — after the Bruins went out and beat defending league champ Washington in Seattle. That game alone sends a message of how the conference could unfold, though Miller was already well aware of the potential dangers ahead.
“I really believe that the Pac-12 is a strong conference,” he said. “We’ve had a very good nonconference season, got plenty of teams that I’m sure have their visions and goals set on March Madness, and those goals are very realistic. So it should be a lot of fun, the next again 10-plus weeks here, competing in our conference.”
3. ASU will test their strong point. One of the best things the Sun Devils have done this season is play an aggressive, man-to-man defense that prompts opponents to turn the ball over on 23% of their possessions, the 40th-best defensive turnover percentage in Division I, according to KenPom.com.
But the Wildcats have turned the ball over just 16.2% of their possessions, the 20th-lowest such mark. They’ve had only single-digit turnovers in five of 13 games and are averaging 11.8 turnovers overall, though they have been prone to fits of wobbly ballhandling.
“It’s kind of a head-scratching team with that,” Miller said. “We could play four-minute segments and almost have four or five turnovers. We’ve had 10- turnover halves that have really hurt us. But in the second half of those games we can play the entire 20 minutes with three, which we did against St John’s.
“I think that’s one of the keys to us playing well against ASU. Can we play a 40-minute game and take care of the ball? That’s really important against them.”
UA’s Zeke Nnaji dunks in a win over Long Beach State that helped Arizona to a 9-0 start. Since then, UA has lost three of its last four games.
4. The Wildcats are at a crossroads. Arizona essentially split its nonconference season into two parts: An undefeated, free-flowing November that finished with injuries to Nico Mannion (back) and Stone Gettings (concussion, facial fracture), and a disappointing December that featured three losses.
The 25th-ranked Wildcats are barely hanging on in the Associated Press poll, finishing up nonconference play with an upset loss against St. John’s in San Francisco, and it isn’t quite clear where they will head next.
Led on the perimeter by Mannion and Josh Green, and anchored inside by surprisingly efficient big man Zeke Nnaji, the Wildcats have hit a conflict between moving fast and — for Miller — sometimes too fast.
Miller has expressed considerable concern that the Wildcats are taking too many ill-advised shots — Mannion was 3 for 20 from 3 in the UA’s losses and Green is just 32.5% from beyond the arc all season — while he’s also complained that the UA fouls too often and gives up too many offensive rebounds to opponents.
“It’s not like I have a magic wand to just say, ‘Well, all of a sudden we’re good at all three of those areas,’” Miller said. “We have to improve and be better. That’s the job of a coaching staff. That’s my job, to make sure that (in) those areas we can clearly improve.
“If we can improve in all three of those areas, I think we’ll be very successful as we move forward in the next couple of months. If those three areas don’t change, we’re going to win a few, we’re going to lose a few.”
