Arizona-Cal postgame: On Miller's 200th, Comanche's move and PJC's impact

BERKELEY, Calif. – After the Wildcats beat Cal 67-62 Friday to give Sean Miller his 200th win at Arizona, a Bay area reporter asked the UA coach if hitting 200 was just a number.

He could have easily agreed, booting the question away.

But he didn’t.

“Anytime as a coach, when you hit one of those it” means something, Miller said. “I know a lot of guys answer the question like it doesn’t, but being a college basketball coach isn’t easy, especially in this his day and age when one season to the next so many things can change.”

Miller has perspective on this. After rebuilding the Wildcats for several seasons following his 2009 hiring, he's had to keep reloading in recent years as his best players usually left early for the pros.

So 200 meant something to him.

“I thought about Cal a year ago, a year later they have a very good team – but they had to lose a lottery pick (Jaylen Brown) and those guys don’t grow on trees,” Miller said, in continuing his answer. “So Arizona is a fantastic place to coach and I’m lucky to be their coach.”

Miller not only credited veterans Parker Jackson-Cartwright and Dusan Ristic for guiding the Wildcats during a rough early stretch in their first Pac-12 game, but also the schedule.

UA had played only one true road game before Friday – if you can call the sparse Missouri crowd on Dec. 10 a road environment – but had played five other games at neutral sites.

"In our nonconference schedule, we’ve played 13 games and I would say maybe 9 or 10 them were like that,” Miller said of Friday’s game (UA has now played seven games decided by 10 or fewer points, including its two losses). “I would also say we probably don't get enough credit for playing as many games away from McKale as we did in nonconference.

“We went to Hawaii for the season opener against Michigan State, to Los Angeles against a great Gonzaga team, we’ve been in Las Vegas against Butler and Santa Clara and went to Houston against Texas A&M. … so tonight really wasn’t that first time for us."

Chance Comanche had only three points and two rebounds over his 20 minutes, but added two blocks and a steal … while drawing a fourth foul on Cal standout Ivan Rabb when he scored from the left block with 10:33 left.

Rabb sat out the next four and a half minutes while UA expanded its lead from three to six.

“That changed the dynamic of the game, because (Rabb) is a terrific player,” Miller said. “He’s an All-American. Cal depends on him not only on offense but on defense. You think about it -- for us to have a reserve, somebody like Chance, to be able to do that was an important play.”

Miller and the two players UA selected to be interviewed, Dusan Ristic and Kobi Simmons, all said the return of Jackson-Cartwright from a high ankle sprain was a significant factor.

“Huge difference,” Simmons said. “Having another guard, but not just another guard – it’s Parker – was a huge difference. He came out and got the job done for us.”

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.”

Miller said Jackson-Cartwright also helped simply by being on the floor for 20 minutes, meaning Simmons, Rawle Alkins and Kadeem Allen didn’t have to log as many minutes as they often did over the past month. Allen played 34 while Alkins and Simmons each logged 31.

“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 Miller said Simmons and Alkins were adjusting their way through a shaky first half, he credited them for some aggressive play in the second half.

Simmons scored eight points over a two-minute span in the second half when UA turned a two-point deficit into a two-point lead. The Wildcats lost that lead one more time but led mostly the rest of the way.

“Kobi’s a really, really talented player,” Miller said. “In the second half, he gave our team confidence. His spurt there got us the lead and from that point on it was a different game.

“I thought in the first half both him and Rawle were feeling their way -- what’s this about, first Pac-12 game. We’ve talked a lot about the Pac-12 and how it feels. We warned them: Hey, when you get into conference play, you’ve gotta do this, and all of a sudden, here we are. But even Rawle, you saw some of the plays he made in the second half down the stretch were really big for us.”

Our full game coverage is attached to this post -- though the late start limited the amount of postgame reaction that was included in those stories -- as are PDFs of the box score and UA's updated stats.