Despite Chase Jeter's hard fall Saturday, the Arizona Wildcats have had pretty good luck with injuries so far this season.
The Wildcats still have yet to lose a single player for an entire game because of injury, though Justin Coleman (playing against Colorado with a dislocated shoulder) and Chase Jeter (on Saturday) missed the vast majority of one game each. Coleman also returned at Cal after taking a hard hit to his shoulder at Stanford on Jan. 9.
Arizona isn’t expected to discuss Jeter’s injury until at least Tuesday, though it was not initially considered serious. Miller said Jeter had back spasms and thought he’d be OK, though wasn’t ready to say for sure if he’d be available Thursday at USC.
“Without Chase, we’re grateful to win,” Miller said. “Two of our home wins have come (largely) without Justin Coleman and Chase Jeter. Both of those games were really tough. Our team has a great heart. We don’t always play well. But as long as we continue to play hard and work we’ll keep improving and we’ll be a tough team for teams to beat.”
Just fifteen seconds into Arizona’s game with Oregon on Thursday, Coleman popped in a 3-pointer and needed only two more points to reach 1,000 for his college career.
He did not score again… until Saturday, when Coleman had 14 points and five assists to help UA beat Oregon State 82-71.
Partly that’s because of what the Ducks did to him defensively, making it difficult for him to penetrate and get quick starts to the UA offense, and partly because Coleman didn’t adjust right away.
But he said he spent Friday going over the game video repeatedly.
“I made a lot of mistakes the Oregon game so I watched the film three or four times,” Coleman said. “I just learned from my mistakes and tried to be ready. I had four turnovers and I just tried to be better this game.”
Coleman finished with 14 points on 5-for-10 shooting, hitting 3-of-6 3-pointers, and collecting five steals in perhaps his most overall inspired and productive effort since he made the Maui Invitational all-tournament team.
He not only penetrated the Beaver defense much more effectively than against Oregon but also found open shots and didn’t hesitate to take them.
“Our team needs a little bit of a scoring punch from him and you can’t always be the unselfish distributor on the perimeter,” UA coach Sean Miller said. “This year’s team needs him to take the open three and we need him to be a penetrator because that’s his gift. He does that as well as or better than anybody on our team and I think our guys really feed off his energy.
“I credit Oregon (on Thursday) – they limited his penetration and they limited his ability to score and you could see it just didn’t feel right.”
Not surprisingly, Coleman and Ryan Luther were the two players UA brought to the postgame interview room and, also not surprisingly, they also each complimented each other.
While Coleman’s drives opened up shots for his teammates, Coleman said Ryan Luther’s shooting also opened up drives.
“I want to give credit to my guy RyLu,” Coleman said. “I give him a hard time every day because he’s my roommate. But today he played big at the four. (He had) 16 and 10, shot the ball really well. He opened a lot of drives for myself, Brandon Williams and Brandon Randolph.”
Luther, meanwhile, ended his interview session by reminding everyone that Coleman had passed the 1,000-point mark as a collegian.
Coleman scored 406 over two seasons at Alabama, 432 at Samford last season, and now has 173 so far this season for a total of 1,011.
“Everyone on our team knows what type of guy he is and what type of person he is,” Luther said. “And with all that he’s been through he’s really deserving. A thousand points in college is pretty special.”
Miller thought so, too.
“He took a hard road to get there but I know it means a lot to him; he had the ball in his hands at the end of the game,” Miller said. “Scoring 1,000 points if you’re him -- I’m sure he dreamed of doing that as a little guy at Alabama. He worked his whole life to be a college player and he doesn’t do it because of his great athleticism or his great size. More than any guy on our team he loves the game. He really does. He works at the game.
“He’s always in the gym and I think a big reason he wanted to finish his career here is he wanted to play on that big stage again and see what he can do. As you know he’s very, very important to our team not only on the court but his leadership and who he is as a person. Our guys really feed off of him.”
UCLA floated the idea of a players-only meeting after being drubbed at USC. Arizona will play at USC on Thursday at 7 p.m. on FS1 and at UCLA at 8 p.m. on ESPN2.
ICYMI, our full coverage is attached along with the box score and updated stats.
