'This isn't Thanksgiving anymore': Sean Miller says it's now or never for Arizona Wildcats this year

After the Arizona Wildcats let the biggest game of the season literally slip through their hands and bounce off the rim Saturday, senior forward Stone Gettings tried to be positive.

“You learn a lot from these close games,” Gettings said after Oregon beat Arizona 73-72 in overtime Saturday. “It’s the adversity that really helps us grow.”

His coach did not share that view.

Not when UA’s Sean Miller will lose four seniors and likely three freshmen next month, having a roster with only a short window for success, and a correspondingly shorter window for lessons to sink in.

In other words, freshmen Nico Mannion, Josh Green and Zeke Nnaji will long be in the professional game as 22-year-olds, instead of being in college and destroying teams as Oregon senior guard Payton Pritchard did Saturday.

Pritchard dropped 38 points to lead the Ducks, while Miller declared him not only the Pac-12 Player of the Year but also an NBA player despite the low draft stock that has kept him in college.

“Does he not get drafted?” Miller said bewilderingly. “Is he just too old? Is that how it works? I don’t know. I watch these guys and I’d like to think he can play in the NBA. He’s pretty good, man.”

During a 10-minute postgame media session that he ended by crumpling up a stat sheet, Miller was asked if he thought his guys might have at least grown up a bit Saturday, having played Pritchard and the Ducks closely for a second straight time before losing in overtime.

“I don’t,” Miller said. “I don’t know. We have a lot of guys that are gonna leave and play in the professional ranks and we have guys that have started for 27 games, right? Everybody knows their role. This is what we signed up for. We gotta deliver. Gotta deliver. This isn’t Thanksgiving anymore.”

Except for their 93-91 win over Pepperdine on Thanksgiving night, when Nico Mannion hit a tricky hook-runner before the buzzer, and their 75-72 win at Washington on Jan. 30, when Jemarl Baker hit a go-ahead 3-pointer with 44 seconds left, the Wildcats haven’t really delivered in the clutch all season.

They lost a five-point game at Baylor when they failed to rebound well early and hit just 2 of 18 3-pointers. They lost by three to St. John’s in San Francisco when Mannion missed a pair of shots he often makes within the last 30 seconds. They lost an overtime game to Oregon at Eugene in much the same manner as they did Saturday.

They also kicked away a 22-point lead and lost by one at ASU, which is now alone in first place in the Pac-12 in part for that reason.

Arizona is 3-6 in games decided by five points or less, counting a near-meltdown against USC that became a five-point win (UA also lost by four at Gonzaga on Dec. 14, but the Zags led that game by 12 with just over two minutes to go).

Against Oregon on Saturday, the Wildcats particularly struggled down the stretch of regulation, failing to score and turning the ball over four times in the final three minutes. But there were two issues that bothered Miller the most.

The first was that the Wildcats didn’t secure some late defensive rebound opportunities, particularly when Nnaji knocked the ball from Pritchard on a layup attempt with 18 seconds left in overtime — but failed to grab the ball as it flew past him on its way out of bounds.

“When they’re in your hands, you can’t get nervous and the ball goes out,” Miller said. “You gotta squeeze it.”

Then, on the Ducks’ final possession, Arizona couldn’t come down with a rebound in a crowd after Pritchard missed a 3-pointer.

Instead, Oregon’s Shakur Juiston reached past UA’s Christian Koloko to tap the ball out to the right corner, where Will Richardson picked it up.

The Ducks’ wing then drove inside and to the left of the hoop, then passed it under the basket to Juiston, who made what became the game-winning bucket.

Arizona had also allowed Oregon to get two straight offensive rebounds on a possession earlier in overtime, leading to two free throws from Juiston that gave the Ducks a 69-67 lead with 2:29 left.

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Cumulatively, all those would-be boards left Miller exasperated.

“When you have the ball in your hands on a defensive rebound, or a shot hits the rim, and you’re up four, you’re up two, there’s a minute-30 left, there’s 45 seconds left … you go up above the rim, you get it, you land and then they foul you,” Miller said.

“The ball doesn’t go off your hands, the guy doesn’t run around you, you don’t forget to block out, you don’t let the guy run and get it.

“Those are the plays that I think really drive you crazy because that’s just absolute toughness and effort. I wish we were better in that area. We’re not. And that’s why we have the number of losses that we do.”

Then there was the issue that requires more mental toughness than the physical kind: Missed free throws.

Josh Green (near the end of regulation) and Christian Koloko (near the end of overtime) each missed a pair of potential game-winners from the line, but the Wildcats missed another seven free throws throughout the game, missing 11 of 21 free throws collectively.

Pritchard didn’t miss any. He went 8 for 8 from the line while the rest of his teammates went 3 for 6.

“Pressure free throws, I’ll go back to Allonzo Trier,” Miller said of the former UA standout wing. “He was like the executioner. When you have a guy like Payton Pritchard or Allonzo, you almost take it for granted. ...

“Free throws are a big deal in college basketball. That’s never changed and tonight we were 10 for 21 and they were 11 for 14. Big difference in the game.”

Miller said the loss wasn’t Koloko’s fault, saying the freshman was in the game to defend the Ducks’ previous possession and couldn’t be taken out because the clock did not stop after Juiston’s last bucket (Miller said he would have put Nnaji in that spot, but he had taken Nnaji out after he failed to get the rebound with 18 seconds left and couldn’t get him back in for the same reason).

As it turned out, both Green and Koloko received their free-throw opportunities as a result of wildly successful plays.

First, Green took an inbounds pass from Mannion, then faked a handoff back to Mannion before driving to the left side of the basket with 5.6 seconds left.

“Thought it was a great play,” Miller said. “Got to the line, and missed it.”

Before Green went to the line, however, he fell hard after a foul from Francis Okoro and also appeared to receive an inadvertent kick to the head from Chris Duarte on the ground. Green appeared shaken up but UA said he showed no immediate signs of concussion and stayed in the game.

“All he had to say was his head hurt and we would have taken him out,” Miller said. “I think he felt like he was fine. Didn’t work out.”

In overtime, Koloko went to the line after catching a full-court inbound heave from Baker on a play Miller fittingly calls the “home run.”

Koloko was grabbed above the waist by Pritchard as he fell back with the ball and attempted to shoot. But Koloko went to the line as a 40% free-throw shooter — and left as a 35.3% free-throw shooter.

While Miller defended Koloko – and forward Ira Lee even tweeted Sunday that “If I hear any Josh and Christian slander...come see me” – the fact was that the Wildcats, for a number of reasons, couldn’t close out a winnable game.

That probably doesn’t bode well for them considering the postseason pressure ahead.

Unless they can start absorbing some lessons. Quickly.

“People made good plays, and there were definitely some 50-50 balls, some bad plays, some missed rebounds that we had,” Gettings said. “We have to learn how to really fight through those long, arduous games, especially as March Madness comes up.”