Two UA students sitting adjacent to press row were unusually visible Sunday at McKale Center. In a routine victory over the historically hapless Cal Bears, the two Zona Zoo-ers alternated between giddy and skittish.
I had more fun watching them than I did watching Arizona beat the Bears 81-68.
The two impassioned young men had bet the over-under point total and didn’t cover their successful bet until the final minute. They embraced one another, raised their fists to the ceiling and were probably the only people who left McKale full of joy.
Most of the 14,352 exited the arena worried or unfulfilled. Why couldn’t the Wildcats score 100 points? What’s up with slumping Pelle Larsson? Did last week’s loss to Utah uncover some dire flaws in Tommy Lloyd’s lineup?
On his post-game radio interview, Cal coach Mark Fox said “I thought we took a big step forward tonight.’’
Is the sky falling?
I liked Lloyd’s reaction. He didn’t blow his stack or order an after-hours practice. Instead, he gave his team Monday off.
“What is learned through struggle is far more important than what comes easy,’’ he said, which is something straight out of the John Wooden coaching manual.
It’s a good thing that few (if any) of the largest crowd of the season at McKale knew that the Bears became the first team in Pac-8, Pac-10 or Pac-12 history to open the season 0-9. Or that of the 363 Division I basketball teams, only Cal, Wisconsin-Green Bay and Central Connecticut remain winless.
Had they been armed with that knowledge, Sunday’s “struggle’’ at McKale might’ve led to a few calls to the 1-800-HOOP-AID hotline.
“My favorite team lost to Utah — yes, Utah, a team that lost 20 games last year!’’ they would cry. “And they struggled to beat a Cal team that lost to UC-San Diego, which then lost back-to-back games to Navy and Youngstown State. I’m freaking out here.’’
Those who have studied UA basketball history know that this isn’t a season for deep-dish worry. There is a clear 25-years rotation that calls for distress. This ain’t one of those years.
1958-59: Arizona opened the season 2-18, which included a 16-game losing streak. Among those losses, ironically, was a 90-46 loss to the Cal Bears — yes, the same Cal Bears that might be fortunate to go 2-18 to start this season — in which the Star’s headline was:
UA CLOSES
DISASTROUS
ROAD TRIP
How times change. That ’58-59 Cal team won the NCAA championship, beating Oscar Robertson’s Cincinnati Bearcats and Jerry West’s West Virginia Mountaineers in the Final Four. The school erected a statue of Bears coach Pete Newell. Arizona? It went 4-22.
1982-83: Exactly 25 years later, Arizona opened the season losing 104-63 to Houston, which triggered the historic nickname “Phi Slama Jama.’’ The Wildcats lost 15 straight and went 4-24.
2007-08: Another 25 years later, Lute Olson took a leave of absence. Arizona had its first losing season in the Pac-10 since 1984. Olson then announced his retirement.
The good news about Lloyd’s second Arizona team is that it has neither been Phi Slama Jammed nor termed a disaster after a loss at Utah and failing to score 100 points against a historically bad Cal team.
You could almost see Sunday’s closer-than-expected finish coming.
The Bears, for example, are one of the most boring teams in college basketball. Mark Fox’s kill-the-clock offense is ranked No. 360 of 363 teams in tempo. To combat his team’s lack of talent and depth, Fox uses every second of the 30-second shot clock possible.
On Sunday, the Bears either launched a desperation shot or had the shot clock expire four times in the first seven minutes. Nobody scores 100 against Fox.
A year ago, the average score of a Cal game was 66-63. Arizona beat the Bears 96-71 and 89-61, becoming the only opponent to remotely threaten to score 100. (UCLA was next at 81-57).
Other than Lloyd’s first Arizona team, only the 2020 Oregon Ducks (90-56) have reached 90 against the Bears in Fox’s 3½ years at Cal.
Let me be the first to predict that Arizona won’t score 100 points again this season. A year ago, Arizona outscored opponents by an average of 84-68. This year it’s likely to be a smaller margin, something like 80-70. Why? There is no Bennedict Mathurin, an NBA lottery pick, to shoot you out of what Lloyd refers to as “grindy’’ games.
And who wouldn’t take 80-70 every night anyway?
Before Lloyd left McKale on Sunday, he did not bite when asked if it was encouraging to see Utah follow its upset over Arizona with a Pac-12 road victory over Washington State.
“I’m going to tend to my own garden,’’ he said.
And what UA fan wouldn’t take a grindy 69-68 win over No. 14-ranked Indiana on Saturday in Las Vegas?
