The computers still love them. The bracketologists still say they’re nowhere near the bubble.
And Arizona’s past history in the Pac-12 Tournament doesn’t always correlate with NCAA Tournament success.
Consider 2014-15, when the Wildcats lost to UCLA in the Pac-12 Tournament championship … but nearly made the Final Four, losing 64-63 in overtime to Wisconsin. Or 2017-18, when confetti rained over the Wildcats and dominating center Deandre Ayton … but they lost to Buffalo in the first round of the NCAA Tournament five days later.
So what is there, really, for Arizona to play for this week?
“You want to play with your sense of urgency,” coach Sean Miller said. “You want to play to win. If you don’t win, it’s not because you didn’t care as much. It’s that they beat you.”
Except just about every other team in the Pac-12 Tournament might have even more motivation than the Wildcats do this week.
There’s Oregon, with a proud history of strong play in the event, and a conference player of the year in Payton Pritchard who appears to live for clutch moments.
There’s the LA teams, both on a roll to end the season: UCLA surged to a surprising second-place finish after buying into new coach Mick Cronin’s system and USC shrugged off a crippling virus in the Rockies to win its last three, including a buzzer-beater over UCLA last Saturday.
There’s Stanford, perhaps the bubbliest team of them all, probably needing to at least beat Cal on Wednesday in order to breathe easily on Selection Sunday.
There’s Colorado, widely considered the No. 1 or No. 2 team entering the season before falling out of the race with a four-game losing streak to end conference play. Colorado also has a history of playing well in Las Vegas, including a four-game run to win it all in 2011-12, so there’s a chance for redemption, to a degree.
ASU, likewise, has another chance at a title after letting the regular-season one slip away by losing three of its final four games.
Then there’s the group of five at the bottom: Washington, Oregon State, Cal, Utah and Washington State, all of whom need to win the entire thing to get in the NCAA Tournament field. Two of them – Washington and OSU – could make up for their particular underachievement during the season by getting hot in Las Vegas.
And, by the way, Utah is the same team that just happened to beat No. 8 Kentucky on the same floor that the Pac-12 Tournament will be played on, Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena. This time the Utes won’t have to deal with Big Blue Nation, the legions of Kentucky fans who showed up for that Dec. 18 game.
Arizona forward Zeke Nnaji (22) gets tangled up with Washington State forward Tony Miller (32) in the first half of their Pac12 game at McKale Center, March 5, 2020, Tucson, Ariz.
But what about the Wildcats?
They don’t need to win the Pac-12 Tournament to get into the NCAA Tournament field and, even if they did, they still probably wouldn’t have a good enough résumé to get into the 1-4 seed lines, where placement is prioritized.
And, arguably, Arizona might not even want to reach the championship game, considering the wear and tear that playing four days in four games could bring.
But there is one issue that could help. Anyone who has seen them over the past three weeks can probably guess what that is.
The Wildcats just need to feel better. Have that sense of urgency Miller is talking about. Some passion. Confidence down the stretch.
Momentum.
While losing four of their past five games, the Wildcats have not held possession of any of those things for too long. They were unable to close at home against Oregon and on the road at UCLA, while being done in by dismal shooting at USC and against Washington at McKale Center.
Miller says the Wildcats played with a sense of urgency in the second half Saturday at Washington, but it was too late for a team that shot 20% in the first half and committed 10 turnovers before halftime.
The teams that make strong postseason runs, he said, have that urgency all of the time.
“They play with desperation in a positive way,” Miller said. “They don’t make the game bigger than it needs to be made, but they play with a tremendous effort. Almost as if they can’t comprehend not being able to play the next day, and that comes from within the locker room.
“You want to have some kind of that good desperation, you want to have that fight inside of you that you’re willing to do whatever is necessary for your team to win.”
Forward Zeke Nnaji said the Wildcats will bring that sort of mentality to Las Vegas.
“I definitely think that our mindset right now is we’re really hungry,” Nnaji said. “I mean, we didn’t get the win against Washington and we felt like we played really bad.
“And right now we’re just trying to bounce back and be the most aggressive team we can be.”
The Wildcats can count on Nnaji to be part of that. The 6-foot-11-inch forward/center won the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year award on Monday after leading the Wildcats in scoring (16.1) and rebounds (9.2) while shooting 50.3% from the field in conference games this season.
Miller says the other part about going on a roll in March is riding really good play from quality players — no doubt guys like Nnaji and UA point guard Nico Mannion — but also getting more help from somebody else you might not expect.
“You ride the wave of a hot hand, somebody that you know just cannot miss and plays even better than he has all year long,” Miller said. “That’s always the storyline in March.”
But who would that be?
Arizona’s third-leading scorer, Josh Green, has been inconsistent and missed two games with a lower back issue over the past month. Wing Dylan Smith broke his nose against Washington and might have to wear a mask this week. Guard Jemarl Baker has been held scoreless in three of his last five games, while making just 3 of 19 3-pointers over that period.
Meanwhile, Max Hazzard, recruited as a grad transfer from UC Irvine for his sharpshooting, isn’t even playing, still in limbo with what Arizona is calling a “personal” issue that appears to be out of his control at this point.
And while center Chase Jeter is back from a two-game suspension, he’s only been a limited factor in five games played since he was removed from the starting lineup in mid-January.
Somehow, maybe some of them — maybe all of them — can turn it up a notch starting this week.
Even if, on paper, there isn’t much to play for.
“We’ve always approached the Pac-12 Tournament with a sense of urgency,” Miller said. “You’re playing college basketball. You’re playing in a world-class arena, in front of amazing fans.
“This is March Madness, what everybody really loves about college basketball.”
