Bear Down Wildcats

I have said that I believe the issue is mental not physical. I will be buying up the line big time on Wednesday and am expecting a 25 point win at least.

PHXCATS wrote:I think they can still make a run but I need to see a beat down Wednesday to continue to think that.

Yes I do know last year but notice what I said. I clearly say I still believe in this team but starting to lose some faith.

A beat down or non-beat down Wednesday legitimately means nothing either way, you know that.

ChooChooCat wrote:

PHXCATS wrote:I think they can still make a run but I need to see a beat down Wednesday to continue to think that.

Yes I do know last year but notice what I said. I clearly say I still believe in this team but starting to lose some faith.

A beat down or non-beat down Wednesday legitimately means nothing either way, you know that.

It is possible either way absolutely but for me to have confidence in it happenin I need to see a beat down. And ai am putting my money in on it happening.

Merkin wrote:Lauri will probably drop to 12-15.

Not a chance

9. Arizona

http://www.ncaa.com/rankings/basketball-men/d1" target="_blank

I'm on the side to not put too much value in the loss in terms of our post season potential.

Oregon was a bad matchup for us from the beginning and then they went and had a historical offensive night. We generally played shitty, but I never got the impression the team quit on the game and Miller gave no indication he thought that either. I wish we had a chance to play them at home and see if the outcome would be different.

I think the team has been playing a little lazy since UCLA and they were able to beat 3 teams without really even trying and then they weren't able to fully turn it on for Oregon in time to get going.

It is possible that players start pointing fingers and the team divides and implodes, but I don't think that is the likely outcome. I think the team will use this as motivation to come together and really work on some of their weak spots and improve. I'm also guessing players like Kadeem, Kobi, Lauri, etc really want another shot at Oregon in the pac-12 tourney.

Also worth reminding people after a loss like that, we are still in the driver seat for the championship and have a decent shot to win it outright. Road sweeps in the pac-12 are incredibly hard to come by and we have two of them, including in LA which is generally considered the hardest trip this season.

It was one game. A horrible game. One that got away. One that saw the best of one team and the worst of the other collide at equal times. But it is one game. Right in the heart of the re-integration of a major player. Saw the same thing when Miles came back.

You can get that surge the first game with Trier back, and we did, with everyone serving the purpose. But then comes the realities, both mental and physical...some people are going to have less of a role. And we need to figure out what those roles are. Who is shooting at the end of the shot clock? Is Zo ready to be that person? And so on.

We played shaky at best in the games following UCLA. We were not rolling into Eugene on our best foot.

But we EARNED the right to screw up in this process. We ran out to 10-0. It allowed us a margin for error. And we still have some flaws...our point guard play is average at best, and our interior defense lacks. Same issues pre Zo. We are not Villanova.

But we have the pieces to beat Villanova in a single game. And we have the pieces to win the PAC and earn ourselves a couple of games we should win with average performance before having to do heavy lifting in the NCAAs. And by then, people will know where they fit. We are not so deep as to have anyone outside Keanu Pinder feel totally screwed here. And he knew what was coming.

I guess I am also not on the side of putting too much on one game. But we are who we are, to quote Denny Green. We still will struggle against strong, quick pressure backcourts. We will dominate teams that try to play in the half court with us. Zones cause us some scoring issues, but also, if the team is not a zone-predominant team, open up our offensive boards, which is as good as making shots. Lots of times fans get lost in the missed shots/FGs against the zone and forget to apply the 2nd chance points opened from the zone rebounding issues to the total. But whatever...

We are an 8 to 12 level team that can beat teams 1-7 when they are the right matchup or we play well, and can lose to 8-25 if it is a bad matchup/we play poorly. We are not so good as to just will our way through games where we do not execute. And we will know who we are in the tourney in the next couple of weeks.

84Cat wrote:Tough trip and we don't match up with them all that well. They are very quick and tough to defend.

Yep, tough trip. Nike U played one of their best games of the year and we played one of our worst. We need to figure out how to play teams with 5 quick & athletic guys. They eat our big guys up every time. Next up, the Tree.

Could buy it up to 18.5

Was expecting a lot more heart in the first. Let's hope to see it in the second

This team is just broken right now.

EE at best, they way they are playing right now.

CalStateTempe wrote:EE at best, they way they are playing right now.

Hell thats pretty generous of you.

They'd be lucky to be around for the second week the way theyve been playing the last five games.

I like that this team is broken right now but last Saturday morning Bilas was tweeting how they could be best team in nation with a win.

I honestly think they are thinking too much...b4 Trier came in they were on the ropes every game, once they got him back they kinda relaxed, but defense is where we hang our hat and rebounds should ALWAYS be a plus sign in our column...we've gotten soft on defense and are trying to shoot our way out of it...it's the exact opposite we should be doing...

I honestly think they will sort it out...hopefully before Cal comes in and rips down one of our backboards...but if they don't guard on the perimeter and block the fucking post out we are gonna have another home court loss BEFORE Ucla...

Holy crap, that was a close one......better get our act together before CAL rolls in with momentum to beat us at McKale and get revenge.

This team has some serious issues. There's no flow, little joy, everyone is tight, tentative. We need to play smarter, yes but we also need to play looser. I am beginning to think that all the accolades after the UCLA win was the exact opposite of what this team needs. Miller has got to find a way to loosen these guys up or it's going to be a miserable last month of the season.

cpt wrote:This team has some serious issues. There's no flow, little joy, everyone is tight, tentative. We need to play smarter, yes but we also need to play looser. I am beginning to think that all the accolades after the UCLA win was the exact opposite of what this team needs. Miller has got to find a way to loosen these guys up or it's going to be a miserable last month of the season.

I agree with your assessment. The team thought they were a great team and lost "the edge" needed to excel. Until they get that chip back on their shoulder and feel like they have something to prove, and to start having fun again, they won't have the confidence to play well enough to compete on the big stage.

CalStateTempe wrote:EE at best, they way they are playing right now.

2nd Round of the PAC12 tourney and the Round of 32 as it stands today unless Miller figures out how to attack a simple Matchup 2-3 zone.

dmjcat wrote:

CalStateTempe wrote:EE at best, they way they are playing right now.

2nd Round of the PAC12 tourney and the Round of 32 as it stands today unless Miller figures out how to attack a simple Matchup 2-3 zone.

Scheer says Stanford only ran zone 4% of the possessions last night. There are more issues and they are all mental. Miller was coaching like the coach of the year until ucla and like a below average coach since. The coach has the be responsible to some extent for the heart and smarts the team plays with on the court.

PHXCATS wrote:

dmjcat wrote:

CalStateTempe wrote:EE at best, they way they are playing right now.

2nd Round of the PAC12 tourney and the Round of 32 as it stands today unless Miller figures out how to attack a simple Matchup 2-3 zone.

Scheer says Stanford only ran zone 4% of the possessions last night. There are more issues and they are all mental. Miller was coaching like the coach of the year until ucla and like a below average coach since. The coach has the be responsible to some extent for the heart and smarts the team plays with on the court.

Sheer actually said Furd only played zone on 4% of their defensive possessions previous to this game.

Alieberman wrote:

PHXCATS wrote:

dmjcat wrote:

CalStateTempe wrote:EE at best, they way they are playing right now.

2nd Round of the PAC12 tourney and the Round of 32 as it stands today unless Miller figures out how to attack a simple Matchup 2-3 zone.

Scheer says Stanford only ran zone 4% of the possessions last night. There are more issues and they are all mental. Miller was coaching like the coach of the year until ucla and like a below average coach since. The coach has the be responsible to some extent for the heart and smarts the team plays with on the court.

Sheer actually said Furd only played zone on 4% of their defensive possessions previous to this game.

My fault. Sorry for the confusion and for misreading the tweet.

The roller coaster of fandom is never more evident than on this thread.

We are gonna have a home court Final Four.

We have SERIOUS problems and are a first weekend exit.

Jebus...We all knew (or at least most noted as much) the Trier return would not come without bumps.

We are 22-3, 11-1, losers of two games to top 5 teams away from home.

Please tap the breaks so we might not fully break loose into a hydroplane.

I'm not one to knee-jerk react, but this is five straight games and only one of them was against a good team. As is, I wouldnt have much confidence in this team come tournament time. I have faith it will get figured out by then. But there are legitimate reasons to have some concerns right now and mentally pull back on the huge expectations for the time being.

EVCat wrote:The roller coaster of fandom is never more evident than on this thread.

We are gonna have a home court Final Four.

We have SERIOUS problems and are a first weekend exit.

Jebus...We all knew (or at least most noted as much) the Trier return would not come without bumps.

We are 22-3, 11-1, losers of two games to top 5 teams away from home.

Please tap the breaks so we might not fully break loose into a hydroplane.

We are not playing great right now. We can play much better. The issue is whether we do.

It's not a knee jerk to realize that if the team keeps playing the way it has for 2+ weeks, we won't beat many single digit seeds out there in the tournament.

I feel like the whole "offense disappearing" thing happens once a year here. Hopefully we snap out of it soon, still think this team has the goods to get to a FF

The offense disappearing has every thing to do with our inability to counter a zone defense. It's true Miller's teams have always had some difficulties with zones, but usually they have been countered by effective penetrating or getting the ball into the a guy in the middle of the zone in the past. So far I've seen zero effort to get the ball to someone in the middle of the zone and that may have to do with personnel as there's no Rondae/Solo Hill type wing on this team. The lack of penetration outside of Trier is concerning as well. Once again that looks like a personnel issue. Lord let's hope this team figures it out because team's playing zone against us isn't going away any time soon.

Have to agree with all the concerns over the post UCLA games here.....I too have faith it will get worked out BUT I'd be lying if I didn't admit I'm nervous as hell with CAL rolling into town having stomped the Scumdevils and us needing a home court advantage to beat a team we had utterly destroyed on their home court a month ago.

This is going to be one of the biggest tests this year to date IMO.

Question re: THE ZONE

If we never play a zone, does that mean we never practice a zone? I would assume since teams are constantly zoning us, we would be practicing a zone but I don't know what is going on in practice.

Alieberman wrote:Question re: THE ZONE

If we never play a zone, does that mean we never practice a zone? I would assume since teams are constantly zoning us, we would be practicing a zone but I don't know what is going on in practice.

Maybe a dumb question here but do we have enough talent to simulate a good zone vs our starters? Could that be part of our problem?

Nah thats a non issue. We have talent 1-9 that can hang with the best teams in the country's top 9. Throw redshirt Lee out there and it's 10. Hell, that walk on that saw time for us is a better defender than some of the clowns we have seen stump us with zones. Zone isnt difficult and most everyone ran a 2-3 at some point in their pre-college careers

There is a lot of overreaction. Most good teams who play in major conferences go through inconsistencies, ups and downs throughout the season. No need for anyone to panic. In the next game or so, the team may gel again and look like a well-oiled machine and the people will start talking final fours. Then there may be a game where there are some breakdowns on defense or the team is out of sync a bit, and then the sky will be falling. This is all very typical of a basketball season. Miller has been consistently good at tournament time getting the team ready to play, resulting in many respectable and deep runs; last year was an anomaly, and really more due to personnel.

The Oregon loss doesn't seem so outrageous considering they have been nursing a 15 point lead against UCLA on the road in the first half (obviously there is a lot of basketball to be played). They are hot. Can they maintain it for the next 4 weeks, through the Pac 12 tournament, and then in the NCAA?

I dunno, as much as I hate to say it, Duke and UNC looked pretty good tonight. So does Oregon.

Teams that make noise start to gel about right now. We aren't there.

midnightx wrote:There is a lot of overreaction. Most good teams who play in major conferences go through inconsistencies, ups and downs throughout the season. No need for anyone to panic. In the next game or so, the team may gel again and look like a well-oiled machine and the people will start talking final fours. Then there may be a game where there are some breakdowns on defense or the team is out of sync a bit, and then the sky will be falling. This is all very typical of a basketball season. Miller has been consistently good at tournament time getting the team ready to play, resulting in many respectable and deep runs; last year was an anomaly, and really more due to personnel.

The Oregon loss doesn't seem so outrageous considering they have been nursing a 15 point lead against UCLA on the road in the first half (obviously there is a lot of basketball to be played). They are hot. Can they maintain it for the next 4 weeks, through the Pac 12 tournament, and then in the NCAA?

I would agree if it were one loss or two subpar games. It is now 5 games in a row. It can be fixed for sure but everyone who is concerned is completely justified.

Alone in 1st

Watch us lose to Cal now

I'm glad UCLA won for obvious reasons, but it was very difficult to root for them.

psiclist23 wrote:I'm glad UCLA won for obvious reasons, but it was very difficult to root for them.

truth

Sometimes relying on your defense doesn't work. Even though Oregon was shooting lights out for a big chunk of of the UCLA game tonight, UCLA could stay in the game because they could keep making buckets.

Defense should always be the foundation, but we have to be able to score if we want a championship.

Another issue not talked about much is Miller's overreliance on Kadeem Allen. I know he's Miller's only above average defender right now, but that takes energy, then offensively playing him so much at the point is just killing us. He's just so out of position there and hurts the flow of our offense dramatically. You can just see it live. That stubbornly high amount of playing time there for Allen could be a function of PJC still not being healthy enough with the ankle, because Allen will be another 1st round disaster if he remains at point for the tourney. Will be WichSt all over again.

Almost would rather see Simmons run it 28 min a game--take the mistakes and learning curve that will go with that--and allow him to start driving the lane more to free everything up better. Miller might implode though due to defensive lapses. Early in the season when PJC got dribble penetration we were better. He doesn't do that much now, nor does he play as much, again probably due to not being 100%.

And our bigs defense/rebounding is sucking too. Ivan Rabb could be a real real problem for us down low on Saturday nite. He was pretty sick last year at McKale.

We're a mishmash right now of some very talented parts, so hope remains, as does playing like a team again.

I don't think Miller has much choice but to use Allen a lot because of two factors. PJC can't be a starter and other wings aren't giving us a ton on D.

With PJC, I'm sure the ankle doesn't help, but I just don't have a lot of faith that he will ever be the guy that does more than just fills a spot in the rotation and needs someone else to actually shoulder the load.

Rawle, Allonzo and Kobi being spotty on D is just hurting. It isn't fair to Kadeem that out of 4 guys, he's the only plus defender right now.

Spaceman Spiff wrote:
We are not playing great right now. We can play much better. The issue is whether we do.

If the comments were just that, as you say, we aren't playing well right now and we can play much better and there is natural concern with when and/or if, I wouldn't have made a sarcastic remark. Because all of that is true.

But I wasn't responding to that kind of reasoned concern.

Yeah, if we figure nothing out between now and the tournament, and do not improve any with the eligibility of Trier, and continue to play worse with more talent, we are in trouble.

But does that seem reasonable? That we are a lesser team with Trier? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me, so the next place I have to land is "we are having some issues assimilating Trier." Because we were 18-2 without him. We had proven to be a 2nd weekend level team without him. We weren't a 3rd weekend team without him...the only way to get there is with Trier. The roller coaster of "we are a Final Four teeEEEEAAAAAAmmmmmm" to "we suck...first weekend exit" is what I am speaking to.

ASUHATER! wrote:It's not a knee jerk to realize that if the team keeps playing the way it has for 2+ weeks, we won't beat many single digit seeds out there in the tournament.

If the tournament were tomorrow, I hear you.

But it is knee jerk to assume the highs this season were mirages and we will not improve any despite getting our best player back and that right now is forever. That is all knee jerk.

What EVCat writes rings true. Arizona was really good until the attempted integration of Trier. It wouldn't make sense that Arizona will be worse off with Trier, and we have to wait and see what Arizona looks like when he's better integrated and has worked through what should have been early season kinks with issues like his role on defense. The bigger challenge is that he needs to do this against February teams instead of November teams. This team could very well peak in the post-season, and after having won the conference championship. Or maybe this is just a first weekend flameout team. Neither is known, it just depends which rings more true to you.

EVCat wrote:

Spaceman Spiff wrote:
We are not playing great right now. We can play much better. The issue is whether we do.

If the comments were just that, as you say, we aren't playing well right now and we can play much better and there is natural concern with when and/or if, I wouldn't have made a sarcastic remark. Because all of that is true.

But I wasn't responding to that kind of reasoned concern.

Yeah, if we figure nothing out between now and the tournament, and do not improve any with the eligibility of Trier, and continue to play worse with more talent, we are in trouble.

But does that seem reasonable? That we are a lesser team with Trier? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me, so the next place I have to land is "we are having some issues assimilating Trier." Because we were 18-2 without him. We had proven to be a 2nd weekend level team without him. We weren't a 3rd weekend team without him...the only way to get there is with Trier. The roller coaster of "we are a Final Four teeEEEEAAAAAAmmmmmm" to "we suck...first weekend exit" is what I am speaking to.

I agree with you. Fans of all programs, and we're not immune here, suffer from mood swings.

I think there are two realities. There's the reality of our potential. Everything up until after UCLA was extremely positive and shows Final Four potential.

There's the reality of what everything since UCLA has been, which is 4 blah wins and one butt kicking. If we continue that, March will not go well.

We need to get back to how things were and explore our potential. We can do that, but it's going to require us to step it up. From my perspective, that is exactly where we stand. The sky isn't falling, but we aren't trending the way you want to trend.

If Trier has been raft icing with the team every day I am concerned it is taking this long to get the team to gel together by adding him.

True there is still six games to go but I am starting to worry more and more every game when I don't see things working and Arizona playing far below the expectations and talent and potential that it has.

EVCat wrote:
Yeah, if we figure nothing out between now and the tournament, and do not improve any with the eligibility of Trier, and continue to play worse with more talent, we are in trouble.

But does that seem reasonable? That we are a lesser team with Trier? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me, so the next place I have to land is "we are having some issues assimilating Trier." Because we were 18-2 without him. We had proven to be a 2nd weekend level team without him. We weren't a 3rd weekend team without him...the only way to get there is with Trier. The roller coaster of "we are a Final Four teeEEEEAAAAAAmmmmmm" to "we suck...first weekend exit" is what I am speaking to.

Longhorned wrote:What EVCat writes rings true. Arizona was really good until the attempted integration of Trier. It wouldn't make sense that Arizona will be worse off with Trier, and we have to wait and see what Arizona looks like when he's better integrated and has worked through what should have been early season kinks with issues like his role on defense. The bigger challenge is that he needs to do this against February teams instead of November teams. This team could very well peak in the post-season, and after having won the conference championship. Or maybe this is just a first weekend flameout team. Neither is known, it just depends which rings more true to you.

Here is the thing though, would we all agree that the best basketball we played all year was against UCLA? Trier may not have started, but he didn't start in the four games that followed. If we are talking minutes, Trier still played 27 in that game. If we are talking shots, Trier still took 10 that game and the only guy who took more was Kobi (several ill-advised too). If we are going to blame Trier from a defensive standpoint, remember he got 27 minutes against the best offensive team in the country and we played excellent defense against UCLA - to me, that seemingly proves Space's point about some other perimeter players have been been holding it down these last five games. The only common denominator in all the games that followed UCLA is they didn't zone much (and it did slow us down a bit when they did) and everyone else is. So yea, I agree that Trier's assimilation may be playing a part, but it is far from being the only reason or probably even the biggest.

The next thing to remember is, what two games did we play before the UCLA/USC road trip? Utah and Colorado. We have been so focused on the last five games, we forget that we did not play particularly well against both those teams at McKale. We beat Utah by 10 and Colorado by 9. Utah led around 10 full minutes of that first half. We got comfortable but let them get within 3 with 6 minutes left in the game. They were within striking distance the rest of the game which we were able to thwart with some clutch shots and excellent play by PJC down the stretch. Luckily, Utah was off from deep (4-21) and I remember multiple times that game thinking how lucky we were that they missed that many wide open looks. They also only made 2 free throws. Against Colorado, again, they led approximately the first 10 minutes of the game. We were up 59-39 with 11:30 left in the game. They cut it to 5 with 2:18 left in the game and thankfully, PJC turned it up again. We shot .1% better than Rado, got outrebounded by 6. Thankfully we shot 8-14 from 3 and won the free throw disparity 26-10. I also remember again thinking we were lucky that Colorado missed quite a few wide open 3s and that between the last two games, UCLA is going to murder us if we dont clean that up. I posted it here too I believe.