Of the million little things that defied basketball logic Thursday in Sacramento, the most baffling might’ve been that Princeton blocked six Arizona shots.
The Wildcats blocked one Princeton shot.
Who was David and who was Goliath? Princeton is ranked No. 234th in height efficiency by Kenpom.com. Arizona is ranked No. 5 in the size metrics.
Over Tommy Lloyd’s two seasons, only 10 other opponents have blocked six or more Arizona shots.
How does that happen?
Getting six shots blocked against a size-challenged team like Princeton suggests stepping unwisely into the paint, unafraid of the Tigers’ defensive presence. It suggests the Wildcats showed so little respect — paid so little attention to the Princeton scouting report — that they beat themselves.
Or, using a word Lloyd deployed in his post-loss news conference, the Wildcats were “casual.”
Casual might be good on the beach, but this is March, this is madness. There is no beach, no place for casual.
Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd talks with one of the game officials during a Wildcat timeout in the second half against Princeton in their NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament game at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, Calif., on March 16, 2023.
Former Villanova national championship coach Jay Wright, now a basketball analyst for CBS/Turner, suggested that the Wildcats walked into a familiar trap.
“When we’d play an Ivy League team, I’d tell my guys, ‘Don’t watch them warm up,’ “ Wright said Thursday. “It was an eye-test thing. Sometimes they’d look like a CYO team. You don’t want your guys getting that feeling.”
It wasn’t much different than Princeton’s 1996 first-round stunner over Pac-10 champion UCLA. On March 15, 1996, the Los Angeles Times wrote that the Bruins “refused to hustle” in their 45-43 loss to Princeton.
“When you look at some of their players,” Bruins guard Toby Bailey told the Times, “you might not go after them as fast as you would some other teams. At the end of the game we said, ‘How is this happening?’ “
UCLA did not score in the final 6:06 of its long-ago game against Princeton.
Arizona did not score in the final 4:42 of Thursday’s game against Princeton, a medley of casual mistakes that included two blocked shots, two turnovers and 0-for-7 shooting, most of those on risky or forced shots.
The snapshot of the day came when UA junior Pelle Larsson placed the palm of his hand over a TV camera to block the video of him exiting the court.
It was the UA’s best block of the day.
It’s unknown what Lloyd could’ve done in-game — if anything — to reset his club’s focus and produce a more energetic effort. As Gene Hackman’s character, coach Norman Dale, said to his club in “Hoosiers”: “We’re way past the big speech time.”
It was on the UA players to pivot and adjust their effort. There would be no “picket fence” play to save the Wildcats.
Princeton guard Blake Peters (24) gets the loose ball just ahead of Arizona guard Kylan Boswell (4) in the first half of their NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament game at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, Calif., on March 16, 2023.
Since 1990, Tucsonans have felt the emptiness and regret from way-too-soon exits in the NCAA Tournament as much or more than any team in the country. Part of it is that expectations in Tucson are much greater than those in any other Pac-12 precinct, except maybe UCLA. And part of it is that Arizona is the only team in college basketball history to lose games to 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th seeds.
Early exits? We’ve had a few too many.
Since Arizona reached the Final Four in 1988 — covering 30 UA seasons in the Big Dance — I have calculated a Maxed Out Factor (MOF) in which Arizona basketball teams left the NCAA Tournament feeling that they went as far as was realistically possible.
Of those 30 seasons, it’s my opinion that only seven Arizona teams Maxed Out and went home without enduring regrets. My Maxed Out seven:
1991: A Sweet 16 loss to third-seeded Seton Hall, 81-77, capped an acceptable 28-7 season.
1994: Losing to a better team in the Final Four, Arkansas, 91-82, did not produce tears.
1996: Kansas, the No. 2 seed, won 83-80 in the Sweet 16 when Arizona’s best effort fell just short.
1997: National champions.
2002: One of Lute Olson’s few rebuilding seasons reached the Sweet 16, beyond expectations, especially when Oklahoma won easily, 88-67.
2009: As a 12th seed, Arizona maxed out, reaching the Sweet 16 before being pounded 103-64 by Louisville.
2011: True, Jamelle Horne’s 3-point attempt at the buzzer would’ve put Arizona in the Final Four, but the fifth-seeded Wildcats had stunned Duke and beat Memphis and Texas on last-possession plays just to get to play UConn in the Elite Eight. The Final Four would’ve been a bonus.
Since that day, Arizona’s exits have been heartbreak (Wisconsin, 2014, 2015), letdown (Wichita State, 2016), baffling (Xavier, 2017) and bewildering (Buffalo, 2018).
Now comes elimination to Princeton, which is a combination of unfathomable and unforgettable.
Wait ‘til next year, right? We know the drill.
