azcat49 wrote:The loss to Xavier shouldn't have happened. It was early similar to the late collapse (without the parade to the FT line) to Butler. Of course this one stings 10x that loss.
For me, I can't tell if Miller took a team that should have been 27-10 instead of 32-5. The injuries, the Zo issue, mixing in new players, limited depth early on, chemistry issues late, lack of an elite floor leader.
Games like this seem to happen in the tournament. For the most part, Miller has avoided this fate. I am incredibly disappointed but I just am not ready to make Miller the scapegoat. Shit happens
I think he overachieved with the team. The best players on this team were freshman and a sophomore. And only 1 one and done talent unlike the countless UK teams. The sophomore missed most of the season.
Allen really shouldn't be starting at the point, Dusan is soft and is terrible on defense -why he never gets benched like Kobi I'll never know. PJC is PJC, not a F4 caliber Guard. Decent backup.
Weak weak weak perimeter defense (especially when Allen isnt in), no shot blocker/rim protector, no forward wing etc.
Most importantly...
The schedule was soft, the PAC 12 was down. Only 3 good team and a fourth decent team. Cal got Cuonzo'd. UCLA wouldn't be as good without Ball, truly a once in a generation talent. So Arizona stacked up wins vs lesser competition, not very convincingly tbh.
They got hot in the conference tournament and beat Oregon/UCLA back to back. The team was 1-4 vs top 25 before that, don't know about others but gave me a false sense of security. I wasn't feeling that confident in the team before that, I thought they finally clicked but they just got hot for a couple games.
For most of the season the sheer talent could mask the problems (no high caliber PG) and the team would win on talent and good coaching alone.
The team wasn't that good imo, the advanced metrics and analytics showed that. Always ranked in the 20s despite constant top 4-9 AP ranking.
Got the perfect bracket to almost make a run anyway. Think the team loses to Gonzaga anyway.