Cover 5: Bruce Pascoe's most memorable games on the Arizona beat (No. 4)

This summer, each member of the Star’s sports team will assemble a list of the five most memorable Arizona games they’ve covered since joining the beat. This week, Bruce Pascoe will reflect on five UA basketball games.

Pascoe’s No. 4:

‘Superman Bunnies’ come to save the day (... Christmas Day, that is)

What went down: Mark Lyons picked up a foul and hit two free throws to give Arizona a 68-67 lead over San Diego State with 13 seconds left in the championship game of the 2012-23 Diamond Head Classic. Then Nick Johnson rose high to block Chase Tapley’s layup and Kevin Parrom secured the rebound as time expired at the Stan Sheriff Center in Honolulu on Christmas Day 2012. The win sent UA into the New Year undefeated at 12-0, its best start in 25 years.

What we wrote at the time: Leave it to Nick “Bunnies” Johnson to put new meaning into the term “help defense.”

Johnson’s monstrous leap to block Chase Tapley’s layup along the left baseline Tuesday may go down as memorable as any of his high-flying dunks he’s already thrown down in a season-and-a-half with the Wildcats.

Johnson’s improbable block saved UA’s 68-67 win over San Diego State in the Diamond Head Classic championship game and kept the Wildcats undefeated heading into Pac-12 play.

“Nick, obviously, came out of nowhere,” UA coach Sean Miller said.

Johnson said the block compared to his denial of Justin Cobbs’ layup at the end of UA’s 78-74 win at California last season, but this one was with a one-point differential and with three seconds left on the clock.

As the final seconds wore down, San Diego State’s Skylar Spencer set a screen that prompted Johnson and Brandon Ashley to switch the men they were guarding. Then Tapley raced past Ashley for what appeared to be a near-certain, game-winning layup.

“I came around a screen, and the Red Sea parted,” Tapley told the San Diego Union-Tribune. “I was thinking the game was over, and the next thing you know, he banged my stuff off the backboard.”

Everyone thought it was over.

“It was scary,” UA forward Solomon Hill said. “I’m not going to lie.”

UA point guard Mark Lyons didn’t feel any better. He gave UA a one-point lead on the previous possession by hitting two free throws after he drove inside for a layup, only to see it about to be erased.

Or so he thought.

“Honestly, I was nervous once Tapley turned the corner on Brandon,” Lyons said. “I was like, ‘Man, it’s game over.’”

Then, as Lyons spoke in the Stan Sheriff Center hallway following the game, he motioned toward Johnson. “But Superman Bunnies over there came in and denied the shot,” he said.

Bunnies himself described it a bit more modestly.

“Coach ran a pretty good play to get my guy and Brandon’s guy switched,” Johnson said. “I was on Tapley, but they set a little rub screen, and Tapley got the ball and went around him. So I just decided to help.”

— Bruce Pascoe

Player of the game: UA forward Solomon Hill had 21 points and six rebounds against the Aztecs while being named the Diamond Head Classic MVP, another step in a steadily ascendant career that put him in the first round of the 2013 NBA Draft. Miller said of Hill that ”through years of hard work and especially this offseason, he’s been in fantastic condition and his defensive effort not only in this game but throughout the 12 games is one of the reasons we’re 12-0.”

By the numbers: Arizona won the game despite shooting only 37.3% overall from the field and making just 5 of 20 3-pointers but had only eight turnovers and held up well in a physical contest to pull out the sort of win that Miller became known for.

The aftermath: The immense and largely unexpected skills of Derrick Williams, who morphed into the No. 2 pick in the 2011 NBA Draft after two seasons with the Wildcats, built a facade over what was still a major rebuilding job during Miller’s first two seasons of 2009-10 and 2010-11. That much became apparent without Williams the next season, when they didn’t even make the NCAA Tournament, then lost in the first round of the NIT to Bucknell.

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But Arizona’s 2012-13 Diamond Head Classic title and its dramatic one-point home win over Florida a week earlier were the first signs that the Wildcats had taken a more sustainable turn to national relevancy after years of instability in coaching staffs.

With higher-level recruiting that included three five-star freshmen that season — Kaleb Tarczewski, Grant Jerrett and Brandon Ashley — the Wildcats went on to reach 14-0 before suffering a loss at Oregon. They finished 12-8 in the newly expanded Pac-12, tying for second, and reached the Sweet 16 before losing to Ohio State in Los Angeles.

It was a disappointing loss for the Wildcats, foreshadowing more NCAA Tournament heartbreak in Southern California during the next two seasons, but the 2012-13 season pointed to more overall success ahead.

Personal reflections: Aside from the 2017-18 season that was played in the wake of the FBI’s investigation into college basketball, Arizona’s 2012-13 season might have been the most interesting of the Miller years because of the trajectory the program was suddenly on and how the team began reflecting many of his philosophies.

The Wildcats turned into a top 5 defensive team that reached the Elite Eights in both of the next two seasons.

Miller’s personality also emerged clearly in 2012-13. Even though the Wildcats won the Diamond Head Classic, he made it clear he didn’t like playing on Christmas and never again scheduled games over that holiday. He also made it clear he didn’t like playing nonconference games between Christmas and the start of Pac-12 play, which back then was typically around New Year’s Day.

The long tradition of UA’s post-Christmas Fiesta Bowl Classic, once a two-day event that served to warm the Wildcats up for Pac-10 play, came to an end, too. The Fiesta Bowl Classic had been reduced to just one game by the time BYU’s Jimmer Fredette dumped a still-valid McKale Center record of 49 points on UA in the Cougars’ 99-69 win on Dec. 28. 2009, during Miller’s first season. The “Fiesta Bowl Classic” designation was then moved to a pre-Christmas game over the next four seasons before going away for good in 2013-14.

The 2012-13 season also featured Miller’s epic “he touched the ball” postgame address. Late in Arizona’s 66-64 loss to UCLA in the Pac-12 Tournament semifinals, Lyons was called for a double-dribble and Miller picked up a technical while arguing against the call.

In the postgame news conference, Miller made it clear he believed — without directly criticizing the officiating — that UCLA guard Jordan Adams put his hand on the ball and interrupted Lyons’ dribble, and Miller said he argued with the officials without using foul language.

“The reason I got a technical foul was I said `He touched the ball,’ Miller said, beginning to gesticulate wildly. “He touched the ball. They touched the ball. He touched the ball. He touched the ball. He touched the ball. That’s a hard one now, when you work August. September. October. November. January. February. And here we are.”

Miller then pointed to Hill, who was sitting at the end of the interview podium with his head down following his fourth and final Pac-12 Tournament appearance.

“My man over here? He’s never coming back here again. His coach gets a technical foul. Didn’t cuss. Didn’t challenge them. By the way it’s my first technical foul of the year. That’s what this is about?”

Cover 5: Bruce Pascoe's most memorable games on the Arizona beat (No. 5)

This summer, each member of the Star’s sports team will count down the five most memorable Arizona games they’ve covered since joining the beat. This week's participant: Bruce Pascoe. Here's No. 5 — Late foul costs Wildcats in NIT Season Tip-Off loss to UAB at home (in game two, officially speaking, of the post-Lute Olson era)

 

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