Ryan Anderson will probably be fine to play in the Wooden Legacy tournament over Thanksgiving weekend and a major reason why might be the fact that he didn’t play Sunday against Northwestern State.
UA coach Sean Miller said if Arizona was playing a key late-season game that Anderson may have played but that he felt it was much more important to get Anderson rest.
“I don’t know how effective he would have been and it would have damaged him significantly moving forward,” Miller said. “He’s making progress every day. He came back in the (Boise) game after he was injured, and was able to help us win that game. But when you do that it takes a toll.”
Miller said Anderson has “made tremendous progress” since the Boise State game last Thursday and that he’s very optimistic Anderson will be able to play by the middle of the week.
“But he’s also getting ready to play three games in four days, and not just one,” Miller said.
Not having Anderson gave the Wildcats a chance to further test the twin tower look of Dusan Ristic and Kaleb Tarczewski – a subject of Jon Gold’s sidebar – and give the Wildcats a warning about what needs to be done if he’s not around in a bigger game.
“It was a little eye opening,” guard Gabe York said. “There’s so many different things he brings. So losing a guy who had 15 defensive rebounds in the last game, it made it a little different out there today. That gives a lot of credit to Ryan and how much this team needs him to get back and produce at a high level.”
Although Arizona and Northwestern State each pulled down 17 rebounds in the second half, Miller said he liked the Wildcats’ efforts on the glass. Arizona outrebounded the Demons 39-30 overall, and had 16 offensive boards to Northwestern State’s four, but Miller acknowledged that stat is partially misleading.
“Some of it is when you miss as many shots as we did, there are a lot to get,” Miller said. “But I thought we blocked out and did a good job rebounding, and that was without Ryan. Through four games, we’ve rebounded well and this well test us immensely here this week when we go into this tournament.”
So far, Arizona has outrebounded its four opponents by an average of 17.0 while collecting an average of 13.0 offensive rebounds a game.
Miller says he still thinks the Wildcats are both a good shooting team from the field and the free-throw line. It just doesn’t always look that way.
So he brought back that “popcorn” analogy, which refers to a player who shoots well in practice but not once the popcorn smell on game day comes out.
“Guys go int a gym and it's '95 of 100, coach,' ” Miller said. “Shoot another 100. (Make) 94. Awesome. Let’s see how many we can make a in a row. Thirty five. Great. Game? 0 for 2. 2 for 4. It’s like you get that popcorn in the air …. guys have to settle into their ritual.”
Ristic was 3 for 6 on Sunday, but Miller noted he wasn't the only one struggling. Kaleb Tarczewski was 1 for 4, Parker Jackson-Cartwright was 0 for 1 and Chance Comanche was 1 for 2.
“I would have said a month ago one of the differences in this year’s team and the last couple is overall we’re a better shooting team and also a dynamic free throw shooting team,” Miller said. “We really can make them but neither in my opinion has really shown up in four games.”
Arizona’s 12-for-24 effort from the line Sunday brought it down to 68.8 percent overall so far this season.
Fortunately for Arizona, at least one guy shot well Sunday. York was 6 of 12 from the field, 4 for 9 from three-point range and 2 of 2 from the line.
“I would have liked to see him give the ball up a couple of times tonight, but nobody else at crucial times in the second half was capable of making a perimeter shot,” Miller said. “We were in a drought where it’s `I don’t want to shoot. (Another player says) Neither do I. You pass to another guy (it’s) I don’t reluctantly, either.
“When it goes to Gabe, I think everyone feels good that he wants to shoot it and can make it. He has great confidence and he’s earned the right to have that kind of confidence. But we need a complete game from him. We need Gabe to be great at passing the ball, we need him to be great leading his team, shooting the ball inside the arc and outside the arc, and we need him to be rock solid on defense."
Miller usually tries to schedule nonconference home games against a variety of opposing styles but they keep seeing zones.
“You guys know this: The one thing about a college basketball season is there are so many different styles and there are so many different tempos and as much as you’d like to impose your will and make the game the same every game it’s just not” possible, Miller said.
“One of the things you want a team to be able to do is adapt. We have played against an amazing amount of zone defense. A few years ago I would have actually been very anxious about the fact that we haven’t played against man to man (at this point).
"But I think you learn over time that’s how a season works, the ebb and flow of the opponent, and right now I look at it as a plus. We’ve see a lot of zone. Our players are more comfortable against the zone. They know how to get good shots against it. We have combinations of players who work well together. We have to look at that as a positive. I know man-to-man is awaiting us and when it does we’ll be ready.”
Our game story recapped what an odd night it was for the Wildcats, while we also had Jon’s sidebar and a photo gallery.
The box score and updated stats are attached as PDFs.
Also in the Pac-12:
Utah's Jakob Poeltl took out his frustration on Temple in Utah's win at Puerto Rico.
Saint Mary's routed Stanford.
Dillon Brooks led Oregon over Valparaiso.
Tad Boyle wasn't happy with Colorado's close win over Nebraska Omaha.
Today's Pac-12 games:
ASU will face North Carolina State in Brooklyn. (7 p.m., ESPN3 online)
UCLA will open with UNLV and Stephen Zimmerman at the Maui Invitational, 9:30 p.m., ESPN2.
USC will host Cal State Northridge, 7 p.m. (Pac-12 Networks)
Sam Houston State will play at Cal, 9 p.m. (Pac-12 Networks)
