Before Allonzo Trier returned on Jan. 21 at UCLA, Keanu Pinder was averaging 14.9 minutes overall and 9.8 in Pac-12 games.
Since then, Pinder has played a total of 21 minutes over five games, an average of 4.2 if you factor in the zero from his DNP against Washington.
But UA coach Sean Miller, having seen the Wildcats’ defense smoked against Oregon on Saturday, said today that he would look into reinserting the athletic junior forward from Australia more often into his rotation.
“Watching us not play and utilize him as much in the past couple of games, we’re gonna go back to mixing him in because he give us a quickness and a defensive player that’s much different than the three other post players,” Miller said. “I think he gives us more rebounding and effort that we really like, so this week I think you’ll see Keanu getting in the game earlier and being more a part of the game than he has been recently.”
Part of Pinder’s playing time reduction wasn’t just Trier’s return, which Miller said has affected everybody. It’s also because Chance Comanche has generally played well off the bench since Trier came back, so his minutes have largely remained the same.
But keeping Pinder out has meant that UA typically has had two big post players at nearly all times and opponents are figuring out how to deal with that (Exhibit A: The Dillon Brooks Mismatch at the four).
“Teams are starting to go small against us and it fueled a number of comebacks so if you look at ‘SC, when their comeback happened they went really small and it’s amazing that each team -- UCLA, ‘SC, Oregon, they have the ability to play four guards with one guy so we have to be able to adjust.
“That’s something that was hard for us to do without Allonzo because we didn’t have a lot of depth at the guard position but now that we do we’ve sprinkled that in and utilized that. But there are times that doesn’t make as much sense as playing Keanu because Keanu has great quickness on defense.”
Miller’s weekly news conference was held before the Wildcats had formally met since returning from Eugene, so it was unclear how they have reacted to what was the biggest blowout loss any of them have experienced at Arizona.
Miller talked a little of the travel and crummy weather in Oregon but otherwise made no excuse.
“Our team’s fresh right now,” he said. “It wasn’t like we were beat up or we didn’t have energy or we were travel-weary, and that’s why Oregon put it on us. They put it on us because they were the far, far superior team on Saturday. And there’s no reason to even bother to make an excuse because we don't’have one. They beat us like we stole something, as they say.”
The player UA chose to be interviewed today, Parker Jackson-Cartwright, said the Wildcats are looking at it as a learning experience.
“I think we’ve all been pretty positive in trying to move forward,” Jackson-Cartwright said. “Every team has their peaks and their lows. We’re thinking big picture and we want to continue to get better each day, to continue to the top prize, as coach says. … With the quick turnaround we have to watch the film and put it behind us and focus on Stanford.”
PJC, meanwhile, said he still has some residual pain in his right ankle, more than a month after first returning from his high ankle sprain.
“It lingers from day to day,” he said. “It feels better some days than others but I’m trying to not think about it too much and just get as much treatment as I can. … I’m approaching it like a game and really working hard at it. I get it warm and work with Justin (Kokoskie, UA athletic trainer) to try to strengthen the area around the ankle.”
UA’s newly announced 6:15 p.m. tipoff time on Feb. 25 against UCLA leaves open the possibility of an ESPN GameDay appearance, though ESPN isn’t expected to announce a decision until next week.
