Some of the biggest opportunities of Christian Koloko’s freshman season came after Stone Gettings suffered a facial fracture and concussion on Nov. 29. But Gettings’ return does not necessarily mean those days are over.
In fact, Gettings may keep getting the sort of opportunities he had Saturday, when he had eight points and six rebounds against ASU over 11 minutes, including a pair of dunks.
“Our strategy with Christian is to play him every game,” UA coach Sean Miller said Sunday, after the Wildcats beat ASU 75-47. “In some games I think he'll have a bigger window than others but we want to make him a part of every game so he gets comfortable. In the St John's game, and in this game, he really helped us.”
It’s pretty obvious by looking at the 7-foot Cameroonian that he has some unique abilities and Miller said he keeps getting better.
“You just don't realize how long, tall (he is) … and he switched a couple of their pick-and-rolls, and man, there’s not a lot of 7-footers who can switch onto a guard and not fall down, let alone be adept to challenging the shot and stopping and turning but he's very well coordinated,” Miller said. “He's a hard worker.
"I know I've said this since he's come here but the best is yet to come, regardless of what he does now. I think he's future’s incredibly bright, but he helped us tonight, made some really big plays when he was in and like Stone, Christian gives you a little bit of a different look and he's a shot blocker. Our other guys aren't really shot blockers.”
With Miller continuing to praise Gettings for the unique skills and work ethic he brings, Koloko's minutes may actually keep coming out of Ira Lee’s playing time more than anything. Lee didn’t play in the second half against St. John’s and played only seven minutes on Saturday after missing all four free throws he took and committing two fouls.
Not everything went perfectly for the Wildcats in Miller’s mind on Saturday. He had spoken of three primary goals: Taking smarter shots, fouling less and rebounding better defensively.
UA shot 47.6% and limited ASU to just nine offensive rebounds despite the Sun Devils’ 41 missed shots… but committed 10 of 18 fouls in the second half and sent ASU to the line 19 times (inexplicably, the Sun Devils made just eight of those free throws).
“We had several fouls in the second half that hurt our team,” Miller said. “Sometimes fouling is just weakness. But the fouls that I'm really talking about is just not reaching in at the end of the clock and I think one time maybe Dylan (Smith) had an Arizona State player pinned on the sideline and (fouled). It’s just showing your hands and not reaching in.
“It’s those three or four plays I think can really help our defense because we fouled a lot during our nonconference season and we fouled probably too much tonight, but our rebounding was good. I thought our shot selection and trying to be a more balanced team around the basket was in place and that helped us.”
Josh Green hasn’t lived in Australia for five years but the fires that are devastating his home country (including his Sydney home area) are still foremost on his mind these days.
“It’s very unfortunate right now,” Green said. “I'm trying to do as much as I can from where I'm at right now but it's sad. It's been going on for a while now and in Australia, there's still about three more months of summer so who knows what it can do.”
Green said he still has a lot of friends and family living in New South Wales and it’s been tough on them.
“The fire is about 20 minutes from where I lived, so I know a lot of my friends and my family have the hoses ready and sandbags ready, and are just ready to evacuate whenever they need to do,” Green said. “Hopefully it doesn’t come to that point but it's just unfortunate.”
Having begun to adjust to the increased defensive attention he’s receiving, Zeke Nnaji put together his third straight double-double with 17 points and 11 rebounds.
Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but Nnaji has done so while wearing a headband to keep hair out of his face, after tying his hair up with less successful results before that (Nnaji also went free-flow early in the season, which resulted in restricted vision).
"I put in the ponytail on but I wasn't feeling that,” Nnaji said. “So I got the headband and the headband is, uh, working."
