The 2021-2022 Season Thread

[ChooChooCat]

After I read through the latest pages of the Illini fan board linked by Gregg you can tell they are banking on:

O boarding to slow down our fast break
Beating our press
shooting FTs

Heh.

Good luck with that.

I like the ones predicting a 15 point win.

I mean, it’s possible. But that’s a bold prediction.

20….

Ok, ok, 17.

[ChooChooCat]

They are always going to be compared against each other... that's just human nature.

This is not a knock against Miller, I just feel like TL is a better fit for this current era of college basketball.

Cool. Let me know when Tommy Boy produces multiple conference titles, conference tourney titles, and tourney runs into the second weekend.

It’s been 8 games under Tommy Boy and some of you are like, “Sean Miller?? Dude sucked!”

Are you really this bitter that you have to continue calling the guy Tommy Boy like he’s a man child or something? I get the not hating on Miller and appreciating the foundation he left, but good Christ give the Lloyd hate a fucking rest already will ya? He’s not who you’re mad at, so knock it off already.

A) He’s a grown man who calls himself Tommy.

B) That post has no hate at all for Tommy, but instead is relating how stupid it is to act like Sean Miller didn’t leave Tommy Boy a full cupboard that he’s taking full advantage of.

C) Since we are telling people how to feel, why don’t you relax Choo? Maybe take a Melatonin and put on some Enya. Getting all upset at me isn’t good for the blood pressure, and is also totally unnecessary. Sorry I called your boyfriend Tommy Boy. I’ll only do it again about 600 more times, I swear.

A) You should hear what Sean Miller calls his wiener.

B) Sean left him a solidly filled cupboard, no question, but at the same time if Sean had this cupboard he would’ve cooked the meal completely wrong and would’ve baked the meal when it obviously was built for a fried meal. Euphemisms are fun!

C) I mean you can at least do him the courtesy of singing Fat Guy in Little Coat as opposed to just calling him Tommy Boy.

[Postmaster]

Bees!

[EastCoastCat]

They are always going to be compared against each other... that's just human nature.

This is not a knock against Miller, I just feel like TL is a better fit for this current era of college basketball.

Cool. Let me know when Tommy Boy produces multiple conference titles, conference tourney titles, and tourney runs into the second weekend.

It’s been 8 games under Tommy Boy and some of you are like, “Sean Miller?? Dude sucked!”

Are you really this bitter that you have to continue calling the guy Tommy Boy like he’s a man child or something? I get the not hating on Miller and appreciating the foundation he left, but good Christ give the Lloyd hate a fucking rest already will ya? He’s not who you’re mad at, so knock it off already.

A) He’s a grown man who calls himself Tommy.

B) That post has no hate at all for Tommy, but instead is relating how stupid it is to act like Sean Miller didn’t leave Tommy Boy a full cupboard that he’s taking full advantage of.

C) Since we are telling people how to feel, why don’t you relax Choo? Maybe take a Melatonin and put on some Enya. Getting all upset at me isn’t good for the blood pressure, and is also totally unnecessary. Sorry I called your boyfriend Tommy Boy. I’ll only do it again about 600 more times, I swear.

But you have to admit Tommy is a much better coach than a fat, dead comic right?

[Chicat]

Bring us a Final Four and I’ll call him the Pinball Wizard.

But then someone will probably get pissed that I’m associating him with a deaf, dumb, and blind boy from a rock opera…

In the meantime, I’ll be at the Illinois game cheering like a madman for the guy people want to believe I hate, so I’ll leave you with a paraphrased movie line of one of the greatest comics ever (fat, dead, or otherwise).

“Tommy want winny”

[U.P. Zona Fan]

He didn't have to call me a psycho.

Were you in there? You are a psycho!

[UAEebs86]

At least Chicat (whose favorite team is the Yank-ees) didn't say "he's a big dumb animal, isnt he folks?".

I did, but I was referring to Prez Ricky Bobby.

[Chicat]

Tommy Boy saved Sandusky, Ohio AND managed to find a girlfriend there who didn’t have three kids by three dads and weigh in at over 250 lbs.

Put some respect on his name…

[Longhorned]

In addition to taking melatonin and listening to Enya, I'll admit another embarrassing habit of mine: I watch and listen to a lot of sports talk shows on TV and the radio. More than you do, believe me.

And in the conversations, more and more sports personalities are adopting the view that Arizona is the best team in America right now.

[Chicat]

We may very well be the best team in America right now (best combo of talent and system) but I feel like we’ll still hit a tough stretch where players are run down or banged up and we may not play like the best team in America. I’m curious how we push through and ramp back up the performance as we head into the conference tourneys and Big Dance.

[Longhorned]

We may very well be the best team in America right now (best combo of talent and system) but I feel like we’ll still hit a tough stretch where players are run down or banged up and we may not play like the best team in America. I’m curious how we push through and ramp back up the performance as we head into the conference tourneys and Big Dance.

You never know, but if there's one signature Sean Miller quality, it's resilience. I wouldn't be surprised if a team he put together, which endured and prospered even after his firing, has it in spades.

[Alieberman]

[IndianaZonaFan]

Arizona -12.5

[Beachcat97]

We may very well be the best team in America right now (best combo of talent and system) but I feel like we’ll still hit a tough stretch where players are run down or banged up and we may not play like the best team in America. I’m curious how we push through and ramp back up the performance as we head into the conference tourneys and Big Dance.

Just want to point out that this post could be written by a fan of *any* team ranked highly and playing well this early in the season.

No team makes it through the proverbial "tough stretch" unscathed, and we won't either. But a loss or two won't change our larger prospects for the season. I think we've now seen enough to know that this AZ team can get deep in March.

[Beachcat97]

Arizona -12.5

Where are you seeing that?

If that's the actual line, I'll be very surprised.

[97cats]

just something to consider

from 2010 to 2018 Arizona's basketball record was 231-52 (.816) and had been to Elite Eight three times. Sean Miller had won 111 Pac12 games over that period including five conf championships. thats a lot of games and a lot of big wins not only on the road but in neutral environments.

Lloyd is eight games in, his team is playing tremendous basketball, fun to watch and exciting to be around. the players have good attitudes and Arizona somehow feels like Arizona again, maybe even a little glorydaysish, whatever that means.

i know for me as an Arizona fan im excited at the immediate prospects, the current team has a chance to win the whole thing right now. wouldnt that be a way to start your NCAA coaching career, so i say fucking take Sean Millers players and go do it, then realizing Lloyd is doing just that.

long, athletic, and motivated by their season being cancelled last year by their own school.

fun to be an Arizona basketball fan right now.

[Olsondogg]

Poster on poster crime over what to call a coach means the board is back.

[Spaceman Spiff]

A) You should hear what Sean Miller calls his wiener.

I have never been less interested to get a piece of insider information in my now almost 20 years of being a serious Arizona basketball fan.

I doubt it's "Book."

[Olsondogg]

A) You should hear what Sean Miller calls his wiener.

I have never been less interested to get a piece of insider information in my now almost 20 years of being a serious Arizona basketball fan.

I doubt it's "Book."

He calls it “Machina”

[Chicat]

We may very well be the best team in America right now (best combo of talent and system) but I feel like we’ll still hit a tough stretch where players are run down or banged up and we may not play like the best team in America. I’m curious how we push through and ramp back up the performance as we head into the conference tourneys and Big Dance.

Just want to point out that this post could be written by a fan of *any* team ranked highly and playing well this early in the season.

I disagree. In Arizona’s worst game they still had a 16 point lead at one point. They’re averaging 30 point margins in their wins. They are blowing the doors off Quad 1 teams.

That’s not the resume of just any old highly ranked team. It’s something that hasn’t been seen in decades.

[Olsondogg]

Nice breakdown in the athletic.

Arizona film room: The Wildcats are ex ... t Gonzaga

[UAEebs86]

Poster on poster crime over what to call a coach means the board is back.

[dovecanyoncat]

Poster on poster crime over what to call a coach means the board is back.

Damn right! Fuck all this Xs and Os bullshit, that's for pedants. So can we get back to crass insults of opposing coaches, which is what basketball is all about?

Bobby Boy
Andy Boy
Mickey Boy (It's a stretch, I know, but he's a grown man masquerading as an imp who stole a Rock icon's handle)

There's a target rich environment in other conferences and Leagues.

Billy Boy Donovan comes to mind.

I'll be here all day.

[Alieberman]

We may very well be the best team in America right now (best combo of talent and system) but I feel like we’ll still hit a tough stretch where players are run down or banged up and we may not play like the best team in America. I’m curious how we push through and ramp back up the performance as we head into the conference tourneys and Big Dance.

Just want to point out that this post could be written by a fan of *any* team ranked highly and playing well this early in the season.

I disagree. In Arizona’s worst game they still had a 16 point lead at one point. They’re averaging 30 point margins in their wins. They are blowing the doors off Quad 1 teams.

That’s not the resume of just any old highly ranked team. It’s something that hasn’t been seen in decades.

Sean Miller never accomplished that.



Calm down everyone... I kid, I kid

[Longhorned]

We may very well be the best team in America right now (best combo of talent and system) but I feel like we’ll still hit a tough stretch where players are run down or banged up and we may not play like the best team in America. I’m curious how we push through and ramp back up the performance as we head into the conference tourneys and Big Dance.

Just want to point out that this post could be written by a fan of *any* team ranked highly and playing well this early in the season.

I disagree. In Arizona’s worst game they still had a 16 point lead at one point. They’re averaging 30 point margins in their wins. They are blowing the doors off Quad 1 teams.

That’s not the resume of just any old highly ranked team. It’s something that hasn’t been seen in decades.

Yep. I hope we're self-aware enough to recall all those other years we were hopeful for seasons that didn't pan out. This is different because this time, it's based on a non-trivial sample size instead of preseason expectations. Atlantacat pointed out the similarity to December 1987. Even then, we started ranked 17 in the AP poll. This time, we were ranked as low as 8 in the Pac-12. And now on December 10, there's literally no statistical measure that would carry more promise against the competition faced so far. All we have left is to see how this team does against high-level competition (beyond just a neutral Michigan win) and overcomes the inevitable adversity.

[pc in NM]

We may very well be the best team in America right now (best combo of talent and system) but I feel like we’ll still hit a tough stretch where players are run down or banged up and we may not play like the best team in America. I’m curious how we push through and ramp back up the performance as we head into the conference tourneys and Big Dance.

Just want to point out that this post could be written by a fan of *any* team ranked highly and playing well this early in the season.

I disagree. In Arizona’s worst game they still had a 16 point lead at one point. They’re averaging 30 point margins in their wins. They are blowing the doors off Quad 1 teams.

That’s not the resume of just any old highly ranked team. It’s something that hasn’t been seen in decades.

The start that the Cats are having in this early season, especially overcoming pre-season underestimates of their strength, reminds me of the 1987-88 team more than any other. Of course, it's still early, but I'm really excited by these performances, and what I saw in Vegas!!

[ChooChooCat]

We may very well be the best team in America right now (best combo of talent and system) but I feel like we’ll still hit a tough stretch where players are run down or banged up and we may not play like the best team in America. I’m curious how we push through and ramp back up the performance as we head into the conference tourneys and Big Dance.

Just want to point out that this post could be written by a fan of *any* team ranked highly and playing well this early in the season.

I disagree. In Arizona’s worst game they still had a 16 point lead at one point. They’re averaging 30 point margins in their wins. They are blowing the doors off Quad 1 teams.

That’s not the resume of just any old highly ranked team. It’s something that hasn’t been seen in decades.

Sean Miller never accomplished that.



Calm down everyone... I kid, I kid

Some men just want to watch the world burn.

[Spaceman Spiff]

I go back and forth on some of this.

There was an intersting tidbit in the article about Koloko's draft stock that he was almost exclusively playing drop coverage in the pick and roll to keep him closer to the rim. That's a change from hedge and recover for bigs.

That said, one of the aspects that killed me last year was sloppy closeouts. The first year guys were maddeningly inconsistent in sometimes closing out without active feet and getting blown by. Miller used the phrase "straight line drive" more than I've ever heard it.

I think it's fair to say Lloyd has taken more of an approach of tweaking the system to highlight what his players do instead of trying to teach them into a system as Miller did with packline. To me, that approach has upsides and downsides, but it fits well with this team because this roster is fairly loaded with physical ability.

Some of the overall improvements are just that players learned lessons as freshmen and continued as sophs. You aren't seeing the straight line drives off sloppy closeouts like last year, and that's a direct result of now having two years of drilling, IMO.

I don't see it as a Miller vs Lloyd issue either. I see it as, if Miller doesn't do good work last year, we're not as far along as we are. If Lloyd doesn't do good work this year, we're not as far along as we are. It's a product of two years of good coaching applied to a roster with high level physical ability.

And its not a full drop. Its a more modern NBA style half drop. In addition, Lloyd has allowed Koloko to switch out onto guards more often, which was something I thought he should have been allowed to do last year as well.

Regarding the straight line drives, that goes into my breakdown of the differences between Lloyd's base scheme and Millers. Ill find it and post it after this, but essentially, Lloyd has guys playing up the line, versus Miller having guys sit in gaps. Both apply ball pressure, but Lloyd isnt having guys help one pass away (NBA style), they will dig, but there are very few close outs, compared to Miller, because guys are staying home off the ball due to our ball screen coverages.

First, thanks for the analysis you bring to the board.

My take on Lloyd, he has done a great job fitting defensive scheme to personnel. I do think there's an ongoing question about how he will be fitting future rosters into schemes or how he recruits to fill out his schemes, but for right now, he's fit a system to personnel quite well.

His scheme fits two big assets of this team. First, every starter but Kerr is longer/bigger than average for college. Combining that with being up the line creates a disincentive to aggressively swing the ball, as you're passing into a congested lane clogged by a long, athletic player. It also minimizes closeouts as you note, which was not a strong suit last year. Closeouts will always happen, and I feel like players have improved in that area, but minimizing them helps this roster.

Same with drop and or switching. They're both designed to keep the ball in front of a defender with less influence than hedge and recover. Again, this is well suited for bigger, longer defenders. My only caveat here is I wonder the sustainability vs a team with dynamic and quick scoring guards, which we haven't really seen yet.

Lastly, Koloko is an elite rim protector in the college game. A lot of what Lloyd is doing seems predicated on not needing team efforts to control penetration but instead counting on Koloko to erase things. This again plays to a strength of having an eraser...it's also why I wonder what the future holds when we may not have a elite rim protector.

On the whole it's interesting. I'm intrigued to see how Lloyd handles the developmental aspect of players, since one of the great advantages of this team is all the major guys had significant teaching and playing time when he stepped in. Do Bal, Ballo and Nowell develop to take the places of Mathurin, Koloko and Terry or does Lloyd restructure?

[ChooChooCat]

A) You should hear what Sean Miller calls his wiener.

I have never been less interested to get a piece of insider information in my now almost 20 years of being a serious Arizona basketball fan.

I doubt it's "Book."

What if it rhymed with “Look?”

[Spaceman Spiff]

We may very well be the best team in America right now (best combo of talent and system) but I feel like we’ll still hit a tough stretch where players are run down or banged up and we may not play like the best team in America. I’m curious how we push through and ramp back up the performance as we head into the conference tourneys and Big Dance.

Just want to point out that this post could be written by a fan of *any* team ranked highly and playing well this early in the season.

I disagree. In Arizona’s worst game they still had a 16 point lead at one point. They’re averaging 30 point margins in their wins. They are blowing the doors off Quad 1 teams.

That’s not the resume of just any old highly ranked team. It’s something that hasn’t been seen in decades.

My cautionary post would be that Michigan got hammered by UNC. Posts like that 71-72 UCLA comparison...with who we've played, I don't want to take away from a great start, but we're comparing to 21-22 UCLA not 71-72.

I say this partially in fairness to Lloyd and the team. I think this team is good, but it's not an undefeated juggernaut and when it does not look like an undefeated juggernaut, that is not a bad thing.

[Olsondogg]

Counterpoint: As of this writing, Arizona IS an undefeated juggernaut.

[Spaceman Spiff]

A) You should hear what Sean Miller calls his wiener.

I have never been less interested to get a piece of insider information in my now almost 20 years of being a serious Arizona basketball fan.

I doubt it's "Book."

What if it rhymed with “Look?”

Didn't Richrod already take that nickname or was that allegation refuted?

[Beachcat97]

Poster on poster crime over what to call a coach means the board is back.

It's also not just any two posters. It's heavyweights. This is must-see BDW TV!!!

[Alieberman]

Counterpoint: As of this writing, Arizona IS an undefeated juggernaut.

I won't link it but our good friend at ESPN, Joe Lunardi, has an article up talking about, in the wake of Purdue's loss, which 1 loss teams deserve #1 seeds right now.

I guess maybe we'd get more recognition if we lost a game?

[Chicat]

We may very well be the best team in America right now (best combo of talent and system) but I feel like we’ll still hit a tough stretch where players are run down or banged up and we may not play like the best team in America. I’m curious how we push through and ramp back up the performance as we head into the conference tourneys and Big Dance.

Just want to point out that this post could be written by a fan of *any* team ranked highly and playing well this early in the season.

I disagree. In Arizona’s worst game they still had a 16 point lead at one point. They’re averaging 30 point margins in their wins. They are blowing the doors off Quad 1 teams.

That’s not the resume of just any old highly ranked team. It’s something that hasn’t been seen in decades.

Sean Miller never accomplished that.



Calm down everyone... I kid, I kid

I’m actually fine with that comparison. To me, the biggest thing that’s made me think CTBoy >> CSM is how we are kicking other teams asses right from the jump.

CSM’s teams let other teams hang around. When opponents strung some made threes together all of a sudden it was a five point game. During the very brief CTB era, I’ve looked at the score after multiple successful offensive possessions by the opponent and we’re still up by 19. This year we hit the gas from the word jump and don’t look back. I fucking love it.

[Chicat]

Poster on poster crime over what to call a coach means the board is back.

It's also not just any two posters. It's heavyweights. This is must-see BDW TV!!!

Fat jokes are not appreciated. And for the record I plan to lose 400 pounds in January.

[Chicat]

We may very well be the best team in America right now (best combo of talent and system) but I feel like we’ll still hit a tough stretch where players are run down or banged up and we may not play like the best team in America. I’m curious how we push through and ramp back up the performance as we head into the conference tourneys and Big Dance.

Just want to point out that this post could be written by a fan of *any* team ranked highly and playing well this early in the season.

I disagree. In Arizona’s worst game they still had a 16 point lead at one point. They’re averaging 30 point margins in their wins. They are blowing the doors off Quad 1 teams.

That’s not the resume of just any old highly ranked team. It’s something that hasn’t been seen in decades.

My cautionary post would be that Michigan got hammered by UNC. Posts like that 71-72 UCLA comparison...with who we've played, I don't want to take away from a great start, but we're comparing to 21-22 UCLA not 71-72.

I say this partially in fairness to Lloyd and the team. I think this team is good, but it's not an undefeated juggernaut and when it does not look like an undefeated juggernaut, that is not a bad thing.

Absolutely. We are not going to be “on” in every game. We saw that in the second half of the Wichita game.

But when we are “on”, we look unstoppable. Unfortunately we’ve all seen pre-conference season unstoppable Arizona teams look very pedestrian coming down the stretch. Very curious how CTB and the team respond to some adversity.

[Beachcat97]

We may very well be the best team in America right now (best combo of talent and system) but I feel like we’ll still hit a tough stretch where players are run down or banged up and we may not play like the best team in America. I’m curious how we push through and ramp back up the performance as we head into the conference tourneys and Big Dance.

Just want to point out that this post could be written by a fan of *any* team ranked highly and playing well this early in the season.

I disagree. In Arizona’s worst game they still had a 16 point lead at one point. They’re averaging 30 point margins in their wins. They are blowing the doors off Quad 1 teams.

That’s not the resume of just any old highly ranked team. It’s something that hasn’t been seen in decades.

So you're saying that teams that reach mid-December with multiple quality wins aren't similarly confident? Come on, Chi. I don't have the time today to go back season by season, but it shouldn't be hard to find recent years where Gonzaga, Duke, Kentucky or Nova were steamrolling their opponents similarly.

Feels silly to say that through 8 games we've reached some kind of generational threshold of success not seen "in decades."

I love the team too and am also excited. Gonna keep the superlatives in check for a while longer. Let's see them blow the doors off Illinois.

[Chicat]

We may very well be the best team in America right now (best combo of talent and system) but I feel like we’ll still hit a tough stretch where players are run down or banged up and we may not play like the best team in America. I’m curious how we push through and ramp back up the performance as we head into the conference tourneys and Big Dance.

Just want to point out that this post could be written by a fan of *any* team ranked highly and playing well this early in the season.

I disagree. In Arizona’s worst game they still had a 16 point lead at one point. They’re averaging 30 point margins in their wins. They are blowing the doors off Quad 1 teams.

That’s not the resume of just any old highly ranked team. It’s something that hasn’t been seen in decades.

So you're saying that teams that reach mid-December with multiple quality wins aren't similarly confident? Come on, Chi. I don't have the time today to go back season by season, but it shouldn't be hard to find recent years where Gonzaga, Duke, Kentucky or Nova were steamrolling their opponents similarly.

My apologies because I read your post as talking about highly ranked teams this season, not all-time.

Sure, other teams in the past might have felt they were a juggernaut. I’ll 100% concede that. Still don’t think that takes anything away from what this team has accomplished so far.

And if your point is that this isn’t the greatest team of all time… uh… congrats? Everyone agrees.

[Beachcat97]

We may very well be the best team in America right now (best combo of talent and system) but I feel like we’ll still hit a tough stretch where players are run down or banged up and we may not play like the best team in America. I’m curious how we push through and ramp back up the performance as we head into the conference tourneys and Big Dance.

Just want to point out that this post could be written by a fan of *any* team ranked highly and playing well this early in the season.

I disagree. In Arizona’s worst game they still had a 16 point lead at one point. They’re averaging 30 point margins in their wins. They are blowing the doors off Quad 1 teams.

That’s not the resume of just any old highly ranked team. It’s something that hasn’t been seen in decades.

So you're saying that teams that reach mid-December with multiple quality wins aren't similarly confident? Come on, Chi. I don't have the time today to go back season by season, but it shouldn't be hard to find recent years where Gonzaga, Duke, Kentucky or Nova were steamrolling their opponents similarly.

My apologies because I read your post as talking about highly ranked teams this season, not all-time.

Sure, other teams in the past might have felt they were a juggernaut. I’ll 100% concede that. Still don’t think that takes anything away from what this team has accomplished so far.

It doesn't. Just trying to keep some kind of perspective as our excitement reaches a fever pitch!

Lloyd (and his staff) and our guys deserve a ton of credit, obviously. Through eight games, we appear to have the ingredients needed to do big things in the Pac and in March Madness.

Btw, it's going to be awfully strange if Gonzaga falls short of expectations in their first year without Lloyd.

[Andre Iguodunkya]

This team reminds me a bit of that 89-90 Loyola Marymount team. How we look to get the ball up and score so fast.

[EastCoastCat]

[Spaceman Spiff]

Counterpoint: As of this writing, Arizona IS an undefeated juggernaut.

We've started very well.

For clarity, one of my standing life philosophies is that if you don't get too unreasonably high in the good times, you also lessen the chances of going all Chicken Little when adversity inevitably hits.

We aren't 71-72 UCLA, but we also won't be Oregon State when adversity strikes.

[Alieberman]

I honestly don't understand some of you not wanting to get "too excited" "too early"

If not now, when?

I know full well this is all going to come crashing down. So I am going to enjoy the fuck out of it while it lasts.

[Beachcat97]

I honestly don't understand some of you not wanting to get "too excited" "too early"

If not now, when?

I know full well this is all going to come crashing down. So I am going to enjoy the fuck out of it while it lasts.

Oh, I enjoyed the f out of our wins vs. Michigan, Wyoming and the couple others I've seen. But this is Arizona basketball ffs. Winning a few OOC games in Nov/Dec is not going to hang any new banners in McKale. We need to beat our rivals, win (or come close to winning) a league title, and get back to the FF. Them's the apples we're all hungry for. At least, I think.

[Olsondogg]

I honestly don't understand some of you not wanting to get "too excited" "too early"

If not now, when?

I know full well this is all going to come crashing down. So I am going to enjoy the fuck out of it while it lasts.

I don’t like getting too excited too early and neither does my wife .

[Spaceman Spiff]

I honestly don't understand some of you not wanting to get "too excited" "too early"

If not now, when?

I know full well this is all going to come crashing down. So I am going to enjoy the fuck out of it while it lasts.

There's a difference between being happy and being unreasonably happy.

Unreasonably happy is saying we're like 71-72 UCLA. That team went 30-0 winning games by 30.3 ppg. Even in the tourney, they only had one game (the NCG) they won by less than 15 points.

When you get unreasonable, you set yourself up for massive disappointment later on when you don't meet an insanely high bar.

Just being happy means you're happy we've had a great start and excited to see how the rest of the season plays out. You can acknowledge that we haven't hit the toughest teams or the dog days where motivation is challenging. You can also realize that we could achieve great things even if we drop some games now and again.

That's my line.

[Macho Grande]

Arizona -12.5

Where are you seeing that?

If that's the actual line, I'll be very surprised.

No way that's the actual line. If that's legit, I'm selling everything I own and taking the points with Illinois.

I'm guessing the line will be Illinois -5 or so.

[Alieberman]

Whoa…. Someone said our margin of victory was close to that UCLA team. But no one claimed we are on the same level of that team

[Chicat]

I honestly don't understand some of you not wanting to get "too excited" "too early"

If not now, when?

I know full well this is all going to come crashing down. So I am going to enjoy the fuck out of it while it lasts.

I don’t like getting too excited too early and neither does my wife .

But think of all the time you’ll have left in your evening to watch Arizona Basketball.