Just in case having their biggest meltdown of this century wasn’t enough Saturday, the Arizona Wildcats also had more fun to look forward to this week.
That is, games at Washington and Washington State. Two more games on the road, where the Wildcats are 0-4 so far this season.
“You can paint a bad picture,” UA coach Sean Miller said. “We’re going to the Pacific Northwest. We haven’t won on the road and we’ve got two more. I don’t have anything positive to say to that.”
The stats say it well enough. Not only has Arizona lost true road games at Baylor, Oregon, Oregon State and now ASU, but the Wildcats have been a drastically different team in those games than at home.
Arizona is averaging 13 fewer points per game on the road than at McKale Center during Pac-12 play, while its shooting, rebounding and assists-turnover ratio also drop off considerably.
Moreover, the Wildcats have appeared to play without confidence down the stretch during close road losses at Baylor, Oregon and ASU.
They missed two of their final 19 field goals at Baylor, including a 3-pointer from Josh Green in the final seconds, while their overtime loss at Oregon included turnovers from point guard Nico Mannion in the final seconds of both regulation and overtime.
On Saturday at ASU, the Mannion-to-Green connection also failed to produce a game-winning score over the final nine seconds.
“We were not a confident group,” Miller said after Saturday’s game.
But Washington has its share of issues, too. The Huskies’ loss of point guard Quade Green to academics accelerated a slide that has resulted in seven losses over its past nine games.
Picked to finish third in the conference and starting the season at 10-2 overall, the defending conference champs are tied for last place at 2-6, two games behind the Wildcats. Last week, they blew a 12-point second half lead at Utah and lost 67-66 before losing 76-62 at Colorado.
Things are so rough for the Huskies that Marcus Tsohonis left a redshirt season to help offset the loss of Green, and coach Mike Hopkins even played five-star freshman Jaden McDaniels off the bench in Washington’s 76-62 loss at Colorado on Saturday.
“Emotions are all over the place,” Washington freshman guard RaeQuan Battle told the Seattle Times after the Colorado game.
Washington State, however, is going the other direction. Although the Cougars were also swept in the mountains last weekend, they are 9-2 overall and 3-1 in Pac-12 games at home, including a 72-61 win over Oregon on Jan. 16.
The Cougars also will have a decided rest advantage Saturday: While UA will have to fly from Seattle to Spokane late Thursday night and then bus to Pullman, the Cougars will have two full days at home to prepare after facing ASU on Wednesday at 9 p.m.
Biggest blown lead
Arizona confirmed on Monday that the UA’s 22-point lead Saturday at ASU was the largest to turn into a Wildcats loss since at least 2001-02.
Computer programming UA used to confirm the fact dated back only to the 2001-02 season, however, though the Wildcats also didn’t lose after taking a lead that large in at least the seasons prior to that.
Wildcats out of Top 25
The Wildcats’ loss at ASU resulted in another drop out of the Associated Press Top 25 poll.
The Wildcats previously had been ranked all of this season except the week of Jan. 13, after they were swept in Oregon, but they reappeared at No. 22 last Monday after sweeping Utah and Colorado at home.
In the latest poll, Oregon was ranked No. 11 and Colorado No. 20, with Arizona receiving the 27th-most voting points overall.
Pac-12 honors Duarte, Jones
Oregon’s Chris Duarte was named Pac-12 Player of the Week on Monday after leading the Ducks to a sweep of USC and UCLA.
He averaged 27.0 points on 50% shooting along with 8.0 rebounds, 7.0 steals, 2.5 assists and 2.0 blocks over the two games.
Utah guard Rylan Jones, meanwhile, was named the conference freshman of the week after he averaged 18.5 points, 6.0 assists, 5.0 rebounds and 2.5 steals in the Utes’ homecourt sweep of the Washington schools.
