The Arizona Wildcats played Saturday’s game without their head coach.
Their best player hit the court under a growing cloud of suspicion, while their other star remained ineligible for a second game after testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug.
And one of the team’s top recruits — the son of one of the NBA’s most famous stars — announced hours before tipoff that he’s going to play elsewhere.
Arizona’s 98-93 overtime loss to Oregon at Matthew Knight Arena was unlike any game in the UA program’s history.
And what happens next to a team experts and fans agreed had a shot at a national title remains an ominous mystery.
Sean Miller has vowed to fight the claim, first reported by ESPN.com Friday night, that he and an agent discussed paying Deandre Ayton $100,000 to become a Wildcat.
Miller and the UA announced Saturday that he would not coach the team against the Ducks. He did not travel home with the team Saturday.
Ayton, the player ESPN says was discussed on an FBI wiretap, said he talked to the FBI and denied taking any money. He scored 28 points Saturday for acting Wildcats coach Lorenzo Romar.
But Romar’s Wildcats were far from full strength. The UA played its second consecutive game without guard Allonzo Trier, who was suspended after a second positive test for the drug Ostarine. Forward Ira Lee missed his second straight game with a concussion.
Meanwhile, Shareef O’Neal — one of just two players who had committed to the UA for the 2018 season — declared that he’s looking for a new school “due to the current events with the U of A Bball team.”
Miller, 49, is the nation’s 13th-highest paid coach. In addition to his base salary, Miller receives a series of lucrative retention bonuses set forth years ago by a prominent UA booster to the three pillars of the athletic department.
The first, athletic director Greg Byrne, was hired at Alabama a year ago and has watched from afar as the Wildcats’ football, men’s basketball, track and field, swimming and diving teams made headlines following cheating, bullying and sex scandals.
The second, football coach Rich Rodriguez, was fired Jan. 2 after a $7.5 million notice of claim alleged that he ran a hostile workplace. Rodriguez has since been added to a federal lawsuit that alleges, among other things, that he fostered a permissive culture that led to repeated sexual harassment and assaults.
Miller, the highest-paid UA coach, is the third. Miller must be paid $10 million even if the school decides to fire him for cause, according to a clause in his contract.
Arizona could opt to suspend Miller with pay. That’s what it did to then-assistant coach Emanuel “Book” Richardson after federal agents arrested him in September.
Richardson, who was eventually fired, faces felony charges in a federal indictment that says he took money from agent Christian Dawkins and used it to bribe a recruit, believed to be Jahvon Quinerly, to come to Arizona. Dawkins is the agent ESPN says was recorded talking to Miller about a payment to Ayton.
What happens next is anyone’s guess. The Arizona Board of Regents held an emergency executive session on Saturday, where they received legal advice. Board chair Bill Ridenour said the board will hold more meetings in further days.
“Leadership, integrity and honor are core values to advance success and to support our student athletes,” he said. “These premiums must not be compromised.”
