Except for a head-scratching loss against St. John’s at San Francisco last month, the Arizona Wildcats could figure that there really hasn’t been all that much to worry about.
They’ve lost three games to Top 10 teams since Dec. 7, and stayed close in all of them, so no real shame there. Then, on Sunday, they lost at an experienced Oregon State team that may be coach Wayne Tinkle’s best one yet.
But … the Wildcats are still 2-5 in their last seven games, and something doesn’t sound right about that.
Even coach Sean Miller acknowledged that much.
“When you sign up to play at Arizona, part of the lure is to be able to play in front of our amazing crowd and the biggest and brightest stage that you can have in college basketball,” Miller said Wednesday. “With that, there’s high expectations on our players and our coaching staff, and on me and deservedly so. Very few programs have the support that we have, the long-standing tradition of success goes beyond 30 years at this point.”
So with Utah coming to McKale Center on Thursday night, followed by a showdown with No. 20-ranked Colorado on Saturday, it’s a big weekend for the Wildcats.
But so are all weekends to Miller.
“Every game that we play, there’s pressure, and that’s part of why you want to come to Arizona — to be a part of that pressure,” Miller said. “It brings out the best in talented young players and talented teams and coaches.
“Embracing that is really what we try to do, but losing is not the answer. And people are held accountable when you lose. I’m held accountable when we lose and right now, that’s what we’re doing.”
But if there’s outside noise about all that losing, the Wildcats may not be listening.
The way senior forward Stone Gettings described it Wednesday, their focus has been on their close losses and how they can change those outcomes in the future.
“Honestly, we try to keep ourselves pretty insulated,” Gettings said. “Those games we lost — on the road against Baylor, the game against Gonzaga, the game against Oregon, they all were really close and could have gone either way if we had gotten one more 50-50 ball or whatever. So that gives us confidence that we’re capable of beating anyone.”
Gettings said the team’s freshmen are continuing to improve, too.
“You know, I don’t think anybody would say that Zeke (Nnaji) was playing better in October than he is right now,” Gettings said. “Give him another month, I think we’re just going to be even better and the chemistry is just continuing to build.”
But of course, Nnaji is something of an anomaly. The freshman forward nearly had his fifth straight double-double at Oregon State, with 21 points and nine rebounds, having figured out not only how to solve the additional defensive coverage he’s attracted since late November but also taking better care of the ball and improving dramatically as a rebounder.
Nnaji averaged 6.7 rebounds a game through Dec. 11, when he had seven against Omaha. He has averaged 12.4 over his past five games.
“Right now, his rebounding is skyrocketing and he’s playing really good basketball,” Miller said. “He gets fouled a lot, he’s shooting a good percentage from the line and in the last five games, you can look this up, but I don’t know if he has five turnovers (he has four). For a young big guy who is playing against different defenses, that’s a statistic that’s really impressive as well.”
But, that’s Nnaji. Where’s everyone else on the glass? Overall, the Wildcats are still a mediocre rebounding team on both ends of the floor as viewed by percentage of opportunities to rebound.
Freshman Zeke Nnaji has continued to develop and improve. He has averaged 12.4 rebounds over the past five games, but the UA needs more players to step up on the rebounding front.
Miller said he’s “challenged” all of his players to rebound better, but Nnaji’s the only guy who’s really answering the call. Only three players had any rebounds in the first half at OSU on Sunday, while only Nnaji and Josh Green (three rebounds) had more than two rebounds total against the Beavers.
“It’s really up to me and our staff to bring it out in our group,” Miller said. “We haven’t really experienced a lot of improvement with any of the other nine players (in rebounding) . Each of them may have had their moments”
Miller said the Wildcats’ lack of defensive rebounding has hurt one of their best offensive attributes— getting out on fast-break opportunities — because they aren’t getting the ball as often as they could.
The Wildcats also haven’t been able to benefit from a guard such as T.J McConnell or Kadeem Allen having a big rebounding game, Miller said, or just getting a supreme individual effort to spark things.
“You just really appreciate a guy like Kevin Parrom running down a breakaway to block a shot off the glass, a guy to rotate across the lane and give up his body and draw a charge,” Miller said, “to chase a really good player off of a screen like Tres Tinkle so that when he receives the pass, he’s not open.”
It’s “are you locked in or are you the guy that is going to break down and let his man receive the pass?”
Then, to illustrate the point about rebounding breakdowns, Miller turned again to a football analogy.
“If you have a weak defensive line in football or maybe you get some injuries on the offensive line, the spectators are still watching the game but to the coaches and the players that are on the field, you start to feel that wearing down effect,” Miller said.
“It’s difficult. You can be doing some really good things, but if the offensive or defensive line isn’t intact, man, it just makes it hard to win. Especially, I’m sure, on the road in football.”
The Wildcats will be at home this weekend playing basketball. But they are facing a 10-5 Utah team that beat Kentucky and a veteran Colorado team that has beaten Utah and Oregon already.
Plus, Arizona is 1-2 in the Pac-12. So losing, maybe more than ever, isn’t really much of an option at this point.
Not for them, anyway.
“We’re hard at work and trying to hold everybody accountable,” Miller said. “I believe this weekend will be a revealing weekend in many ways, just to see how we rebound, how we perform, how we’re able to bounce back off of the Oregon swing.”
