The WAC's leading scorer last season, Terrell Brown already proved he can handle a reduced role off the bench at the start of this season, playing behind Jemarl Baker and James Akinjo.
Now he may have to do it again. In UA's 70-61 win over Oregon State on Thursday, UA coach Sean Miller started freshman Kerr Kriisa over Brown, though both wound up playing comparable minutes -- the way Brown did earlier this season.
Kriisa had eight points and an assist in 20 minutes while Brown had seven points, seven rebounds and six assists.
"I'm glad we have Kerr but I thought Terrell Brown did a really good job tonight," Miller said. "He made some key plays. He had seven defensive rebounds, which is certainly not easy for a guard, but we needed every one of those tonight."
While it's unusual for Miller to change his starting lineup in February without an injury or other issue out of his control forcing the issue, Miller said he's got a different team on his hands this season.
"It has a lot to do with we have so many new faces," Miller said. "There are times when you looked out there tonight and Kerr, Benn (Mathurin), Dalen (Terry) and Azuolas (Tubelis) in the game -- those are four freshmen and I know we've played quite a few freshmen over the years but the other guys, it's not like they've been three year starters on the court with them.
"So I think just because of that, it's kind of like a puzzle, trying to keep our energy up, trying to keep hungry, playing our best here in the month of February. That's our task so we're really trying everything to get there."
While Arizona's 34-10 advantage in free throws taken over OSU helped the Wildcats win the game, Miller acknowledged that it didn't exactly make for riveting television.
"You shoot 34 free throws, and tonight we earned our way there," Miller said. "For the first time in a while, especially in the second half, we played much better defense without fouling and I think playing man to man, playing our defense without fouling and them fouling us, was really the big difference in the game.
"It wasn't always pretty. I told our guys in the locker room there were some plays that you put in the category of just things you don't often see in sports, and we might have had four of five of those. Taking the ball out of bounds and throwing it to the other team, having a steal in our hands, literally, two points waiting and somehow it bounced off our hands and they scored it.Β
"We missed maybe five layups, not inside shots, not contested shots, just layups. When you do that it doesn't feel good. But to our team's credit we kept playing, played all the way to the end."
After going 3 for 6 from 3-point range, Bennedict Mathurin is now shooting 48.1% from 3 in Pac-12 games.
Miller said Mathurin has been Arizona's most improved player, being much more sure of himself ... while it is also clear he has some natural talent.
"Benn has the gift of size -- he's 6-foot-5 -- and he has a really compact shot," Miller said. "It doesn't take a lot of time for him to catch and shoot. And he just seems to take good ones. He can really see over the defense. Like a lot of really good shooters... the ones that seem to be in their own category, they could just kind of rise up over the defense and shoot."
The word on Mathurin as a recruit out of the NBA Academy was that he was mostly an athlete with work to do on his shot... and that's exactly what Mathurin said he's been doing.
"My shot was really not as good as it is right now," Mathurin said. "But I've just been in the gym, before practice and after practice, working on my shot. I just keep getting reps."
Miller called Ira Lee a "pretty tough kid" but said he wasn't sure if he'd be able to play Saturday against Oregon with his ankle injury.
"He couldn't really do much on it today so it's making sure he's rested so he can recover and not doing anything today maybe gives him that chance" to play Saturday, Miller said. "But I don't know his status yet."
