LOS ANGELES – Once it became clear both Josh Green and Max Hazzard would miss Thursday’s game at USC, Arizona coach Sean Miller essentially had two choices:
-- Go with a big starting lineup featuring Stone Gettings at small forward, with Ira Lee and Zeke Nnaji at the two post spots.
-- Keep the look the same with Jemarl Baker taking Green’s spot on the perimeter.
“If he got in foul trouble,” Miller said of Baker, "we’d be down to no guards.”
So Miller went big. Besides, USC has some size in its frontline, too, though it’s different size with 6-6, 225-pound Daniel Utomi at small forward along with 6-9 Onyeka Okwongu and 6-11 Nick Rakocevic.
Miller also used Christian Koloko for six minutes and Chase Jeter for seven while Gettings and Nnaji each logged 32, and Nico Mannion played 37 in Arizona's 57-48 loss.
“Stone’s been practicing at the three all year so it wasn't new,” Lee said. “I don't think it was it was it was a bad move, it's just like I said earlier, shots weren't falling.”
Yes, the shots weren’t falling. Our game story has some more detail about that, while Miller expounded on it.
“Clearly we had a number of good opportunities and to win a game like this, you’ve got to shoot better than 25%, and score more than 48,” Miller said, slightly overstating UA’s 28.1% mark from the field.
“Our defense was intact, and even in the first half -- the shot at the end (Onyeka Okwongu’s 70-footer) was a big one. You think about it, I think we had them to 23 points, and wasn't like we were holding the ball.
“We just played some really good defense. Rebounding was a was a real key for us in this game and we did a great job but our turnovers -- 15. And then the just shooting. We just couldn't, we couldn't make a basket. So we’ve got to bounce back and head over to UCLA.”
Arizona outrebounded USC 38-32, getting 14 offensive rebounds from 41 missed shots. The Wildcats also held USC to 42.6% shooting and 6 of 20 from 3.
The Wildcats did commit 15 turnovers but so did USC, and there was only a one-point difference in points scored off turnovers (USC had 10 and UA nine).
Miller will likely have the same choice on Saturday. Green didn’t make the trip and is all but certain not to play against UCLA, even though his injury is not expected to prevent him from playing next week against WSU and Washington.
Meanwhile, Miller didn’t budge on Hazzard's status. Hazzard made the trip but participated in only some pregame warmups and UA officials didn’t say he was out until 10 minutes before the game.
“I don't know,” Miller said of Hazzard. “Personal. I can't really say much beyond that.”
Miller did have one solution he would have liked to have seen play out more often, and it's the same one you’ve probably heard before: Get the ball to Zeke.
Nnaji had 13 field goal attempts and took six free throws, just shy of the total of 20 combined free throw and field goal attempts Miller said he wants Nnaji to average. But in game where UA couldn’t hit nearly anything from six feet out, Nnaji offered a higher potential payoff even though he was only 5 for 13 against USC’s swarming interior defense.
“They trapped and double teamed him,” Miller said. “So a number of his catches are going to result in not a shot but a pass out, which creates good opportunities for the other guys. But I'll tell you in the last eight minutes when it was a single possession game, a six-point game, we had an action that we were specifically running -- the ball’s got to get in there and it didn't.
“It's not like the passer isn't throwing it on purpose. He just isn't good at being able to get it in, and some of it might be a poor decision in that we're taking shots -- our way of winning that was to really be able to get the ball to him down the stretch -- and we weren't able to do it at the highest level. No doubt about it.”
Our full game coverage and PDFs of the boxscore and UA stats are attached.
