Wildcats look for second wind entering difficult stretch, starting with No. 14 UCLA

The college basketball season is long. It spans two semesters, and right about now — the beginning of February — is when it takes its toll.

It’s when the Wildcats have to find a way to push through the fatigue and find that second wind for the most important stretch of the season.

Just when you think No. 22 Arizona has endured the toughest part of its season — starting out Pac-12 playing three games in five days before coming back to Tucson to face the Oregon schools — another gauntlet awaits.

This weekend, Arizona heads to Los Angeles to play No. 14 UCLA on Friday. The Wildcats follow that up with a Sunday matchup against USC, which recently took down Stanford and Colorado.

Four days later Arizona hosts No. 2 Stanford at McKale Center in a game that will be televised on ESPN.

Former UA standout Aari McDonald remembers what those brutal Pac-12 stretches were like.

“It’s tough. It’s a long stretch,” McDonald said. “Because I played a lot of minutes, I was doing less reps in practice. (Arizona) Coach Adia (Barnes) did a good job of cutting practice down, especially when it came to conference. Practice was never three hours, probably an hour and a half, if that. I did some skill work; I always did those. Take extra shots.

“But really, I tried to stay off my feet and just watch as much as film as possible. “

Ups and downs

McDonald is now on Arizona’s staff as director of recruiting operations. She remembers the ebbs and flows of her three seasons on the court as a Wildcat. She remembers players like Cate Reese, Sam Thomas and herself stepping up to give teammates a message that even though they were tired, this was the time to “push through and give it all we got to play for each other.”

Her teams were not perfect. Like most teams, the Wildcats had winning and losing streaks. They didn’t always beat the teams they were supposed to beat. And they never finished those Pac-12 regular seasons on a high note.

In 2019, when they eventually won the WNIT champions, they lost six games in February, including the last four.

The following year, they upset No. 4 Stanford 73-72 in overtime on a Friday — and lost to Cal on a Sunday, the final day of the regular season.

Even in 2021, when they played in the national championship game, the Wildcats dropped the last two games to Stanford and ASU.

“That was deflating. I couldn’t even be happy about the Stanford win, we just lost to Cal (in 2020). That was frustrating. We did stuff like that,” McDonald said with a chuckle. “It’s just tough. I’m not going to say, ‘It’s the girls.’ Nah, it’s a long stretch.

“Especially for freshman. It’s different for them. Freshman usually hit a wall. It’s hard for them. But it comes with experience; it comes with learning. They’ll be fine. They have to learn how to take care of their bodies, get their mental right and always be a student of the game — just (be) willing to get better, do the extra work.”

Matt Muehlebach, who played for Arizona coach Lute Olson from 1988-91, said the season “wears on you.”

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“To me, it’s just (a) process,” said Muehlebach, who calls games for Pac-12 Networks. “You have to continue your process and really not get caught up in all the outside noise, the ups and downs. That’s hard to do when you’re in it.

“I remember being in it. And it was hard because for us. Like Adia’s teams, we were really good. And the expectations were really high. I remember losing took its toll. One loss felt like five losses.”

McDonald takes losing similarly.

“As a competitor, I want to win at all costs,” she said. “Of course, I’m going to take my losses harder. But, like Coach Adia always says, ‘You got to be able to take losing how you take winning.’ ”

Arizona lost at home to Washington State on Sunday and is 2-3 in its past five games.

Muehlebach said it isn’t only the length of the season and the expectations that are draining. The travel also wears on the student-athletes. For him, flying home to Tucson on Sunday nights in the pre-cell-phone days “was melancholy.”

“That road trip took a toll — a lot of effort and mental preparation, physical preparation,” Muehlebach said. “(I was thinking), ‘How’s my family doing? I haven’t been able to talk to people.’

“This is a very cool life. I was living my dreams. But at the same time, I was feeling isolated with sort of the pressure cooker you are in.”

‘Fixable things’

For the Wildcats this season, most of their losses have resulted from defensive letdowns, missed assignments, not getting back in transition and not playing disciplined.

It actually sounds pretty similar to what McDonald’s Wildcats went through.

“It was all fixable things. It was just people not executing their roles,” McDonald said. “Whether that was help side, taking pride in your one-on-one matchup, rebounding (or) boxing out. It was simple things.“

Muehlebach likes to think that there is a rhythm on defense, just like on offense. Sometimes you can do everything right on offense, but the ball just doesn’t go in the basket. On defense, sometimes you can feel super connected, other times not.

“It’s hard to say why this happens,” Muehlebach said. “I nmy junior year, we won the Pac-10 Tournament, and we probably played our best defense we played all year. It was incredible. We just stormed through the tournament. We beat USC, who was really good. We beat Stanford, who was better, and we beat UCLA, who was even better than both of them. We just we rolled all three teams, and it was hard to explain.

“And then one week later, we went to the NCAA Tournament and we were terrible. I don’t even know what happened. It’s really hard to put your finger on it sometimes.

“Sometimes things just click and sometimes they don’t, despite everything you’re trying to do. That’s why for me, you just keep putting in the work every day. And the more you do, it’s going to hopefully click at the right time.”