SAN JOSE, Calif. β
Arizona has been sent home by Sooie Pigs, Sooners, Shockers, Blue Devils, Badgers and Boilermakers, you name it, it all feels the same.
If feels like youβve been embalmed.
On Thursday night the Wildcats went slip-slidinβ away, sent home by the Musketeers. The names donβt seem to matter. Xavier. Wichita State. Purdue. To Arizona, unable to reach the Final Four for 16 years, it has become a Paul Simon song.
The nearer your destination, the more youβre slip slidinβ away.
By the time the Wildcats get to Phoenix itβll be 2018. Itβll be in Tempe, not Glendale. Itβll be too late.
Over the last 78 years, there have been more than 624 Sweet 16 games played in the NCAA Tournament. Of those 624 winners, none had more losses than Xavier did entering Thursdayβs game. Xavier was 23-13.
Let that sink in.
Arizonaβs last five possessions were almost chaotic. It shot 0-for-5. It was out of timeouts. It had non-shooting Keanu Pinder on the court. It lived and died with Allonzo Trierβs free-lancing.
Arizonaβs basketball season expired at 9:57 p.m.
At exactly 10:13, Sean Miller climbed the stairs to a podium at the SAP Center and said that Xavier not only outplayed the Wildcats, but outsmarted them too.
He spoke the truth. His team was flummoxed by Xavierβs zone defense, as had been an issue much of the year with any team from A to Z.
βIβm equally disappointed in myself,β said Miller. βOur team never did establish great confidence against the zone. The game never really felt good. Thatβs on me. The job when you get to this level of college basketball β I donβt care what defense theyβre playing β you have to get them shots, and I didnβt feel like we did that tonight.
βThatβs the worst feeling you can have as a coach.β
His former team, his former assistant, put a checkmate on Arizona that stopped it in its Nikes.
Xavier coach Chris Mack began his postgame comments with a bolt of perspective, saying βany team that can get through the eye of the needle to get to the Elite Eight. β¦ β
He didnβt need to say much more. Since 2001, Arizona has found the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament like trying to squeeze an elephant through the eye of a needle. It is a recurring nightmare for the Wildcats and their fans.
One year itβs an inconceivable collapse against Illinois, another itβs Wisconsin playing the game of its life, and on Thursday it was Arizona failing to score on its final five possessions.
It led 69-61. It lost 73-71.
Trier slumped onto the court at the SAP Center after his potential game-winning 3-point shot teased the rim, jigging in and out. It was SAP, all right. Sorrow. Agony. Pain.
Miller spoke of βthe promised landβ and how that βitβs on me.β And he spoke bravely about the journey, but itβll be a bit before anyone in Tucson wants to hear it.
βItβs never easy when it ends, especially when youβve had a great team or a great season,β said Miller. βWe define our own success and if youβre a team that is 32-5 and won both the Pac-12 regular season and Pac-12 Tournament and the journey ends in the Sweet 16, itβs hard to look at that as not getting it done, or failure.β
The words donβt matter. Failure. Loss. It all adds up to an exit few saw coming, especially after punching out Oregon and UCLA at the Pac-12 tournament, teams with superior forces to the Musketeers, who, after all, were missing their most talented player, injured point guard Roland Sumner.
Xavier shot 53 percent from the field. Only Gonzaga shot better than that against Arizona this season.
Xavierβs defense was so impenetrable that it forced Arizona to shoot 27 3-point shots, its most of the season and 11 more than its average.
Arizona is not a 3-point shooting team. Xavier turned the Wildcats into one, a bad one; the Wildcats missed 20 of them.
β(Mack) had his way with us tonight,β said Miller, who had a double-meaning message. Not only couldnβt the Wildcats find a good shot, it kept giving Xavier too many.
βWe could not guard them. We had as hard a time defending them as any team we played this season. We had no answers. They did a better job of that than I did.β
The Musketeers ran the old-fashioned pick-and-roll that your eight-grade PE teacher taught. It gave Arizona fits. There were dunks and bunnies. At times it was like Route 66 the hoop, with no stop lights all the way across New Mexico.
And yet Arizona still had the last shot, an in-and-out 3-ball from Trier, that wouldβve won the game and made it all go away.
After a game like that, after examining Xavierβs rΓ©sumΓ©, you wonder; how did the Musketeers lose 13 games? How did they lose six straight games from Feb. 15 to March 1? How did it get blown out by 25 at Villanova, 22 at Marquette, 15 at Baylor?
Why, in the yearβs most important game, did Arizonaβs defense turn to burnt toast?
Can you simply write it off to the Madness? Itβs not the first time Arizona exited a season that days earlier was primed, poised and gleamed with possibilities.
Now you wait. You slog through the weeks ahead asking yourself why Lauri Markkanen didnβt get more touches, why Xavier was tougher than Oregon and UCLA, and will Arizona ever get through this long shutout from the Final Four.
