Over the past two months, UA coach Sean Miller has repeatedly praised his team for its attitude and chemistry.
But after the Wildcats edged UC Davis 70-68 on Saturday, he issued a qualifier, or a warning at least, that that sort of thing doesn't necessarily last.
“We’ve been a team that’s had a great attitude,” he said. “It’s worked really hard. It’s almost like all of us recognize that you have to do that to have a chance to be the best team we can be.
“But my experience is like you can go for a while like that. But it’s really, really difficult to go the entirety. Usually, there’s a crack in the armor. And when that crack comes, we have to fix it and the attitude and the effort level, which has been outstanding, can never waiver.
“If it does, we’re gonna lose a few win a couple, lose a few more, win a couple, and if we want to be better than that, what we love about this team, we can’t lose that.”
Miller then spoke about defense, which he said has improved since the Wildcats’ first game but dropped off in the second half Saturday.
Earlier in his postgame news conference, Miller praised UC Davis and noted how unusual it is for anybody to return a conference player of the year as the Aggies did with TJ Shorts this season.
Then he went into his first warning about the Wildcats’ season ahead, saying it “didn’t feel like we were up 11” at half Saturday, before the Aggies completely erased what was a 15-point UA lead.
“That’s something we’re going to address. Already have,” Miller said. “But moving forward, playing in our program, on this team, it’s non negotiable. Great effort. Playing unbelievably as hard as you can, concentrating, taking good shots, playing a team game and knowing not that we rely just on our starting five but the players who don’t start and if you watch us you should get that sense that we’re a real team. If you ever get that sense that we’re not, we could lose at any moment, which I think we’ve proved.
“I’m thrilled we were able to win the game and learn a few lessons.
Miller credited Justin Coleman for hitting the clutch shot that wound up winning the game for Arizona, saying he’s had a “very important role in our nonconference season.”
Coleman has varied offensively, however. He averaged 20.7 points over three Maui Invitational games, but has averaged just 7.3 points over seven games since then – when Coleman has taken an average of 5.4 shots from the field and hit them at an average of 42.1 percent.
“We want him to be aggressive,” Miller said. “We want him to shoot when he has the opportunity and he does such a great job of getting in the lane and making people better that I think some of it is taking his own one shot and mixing that in, that could help him. I think it could help our team because he’s certainly one of our team’s best shooters.”
Coleman indicated that his job isn't so much to shoot as it is to facilitate for the players around him.
"I have a lot of great players I play alongside like Chase Jeter, who’s been playing extremely well," Coleman said. "Brandon Randolph, whose been averaging 12 points every game. Brandon Williams also is a good player. I’m playing alongside a lot of great players so every time I penetrate I get those guys shots and I let them do what they're best at.
"My job is to penetrates and creates for others as a point guard."
But Coleman also recognized that, well, sometimes you have to shoot. Like when UA's initial play failed and just four seconds remained on the shot clock when Coleman fired up the go-ahead 3.
“He had no choice. It wasn’t like the play worked," Miller said. "It’s hard on those scramble plays. Are they going to be in a zone or a man? You execute, the ball gets in, you just don’t want your guys to panic at that point and one of the things we talked about is if we get it in and the shot doesn’t present itself we still have nine seconds. Just make sure we get the ball back to Justin, and he can make a play and obviously, thank goodness he did.”
The one-possession nature of the second half Saturday made an unusual block-and-charge call (or “blarge”) stand out even more.
Coleman was called for a charge as he drove with just over 15 minutes left Saturday, and the Wildcats leading 48-42 – but another official called a block against UC Davis’ Damion Squire.
Both calls stood as they are supposed to, weird as that may seem, and UA retained possession because Coleman had not yet taken a shot and UA thus had team control. (If Coleman had taken a shot and missed, the possession arrow would have dictated which team gained the ball).
“That was the right call if both officials have a block and a charge,” Miller said. “But I have never seen that call and I never will again in the next however many years.”
Our coverage from Saturday's game, plus the box score and final UA nonconference stats, are attached to this post.
