Bear Down Wildcats

Didn't return entire lineup. Had Benjamin and Cook last year. Added Pritchard and Ennis this year. Still, very experienced.

21% chance to win the tourney according to KenPom

Here's what I find odd.

We match up well against UCLA. UCLA matches us pretty evenly too.

UCLA also matches Oregon pretty evenly and vice versa.

So, you'd expect that the transitory aspect holds and we match Oregon pretty well. Yet it seems like the opposite is the case.

I hope these guys have the nastiness that they need for the post-season. I hope they WANT to play UCLA and Oregon in the PAC12 Tourney.

Spaceman Spiff wrote:Here's what I find odd.

We match up well against UCLA. UCLA matches us pretty evenly too.

UCLA also matches Oregon pretty evenly and vice versa.

So, you'd expect that the transitory aspect holds and we match Oregon pretty well. Yet it seems like the opposite is the case.

Way I look at it is we have nobody to match up with Brooks, and UCLA's offense is much better so that negates the Broks issue on their end.

Oregon's three best players are 6'6" - 6'10".

We've only got one guy in that height range: Keanu Pinder.

We're not made to match up against teams with athletic and long dudes in that height range. They negate the inside of the inside out game we like to play.

UCLA plays on the perimeter - that long and quick post advantage is less meaningful.

YoDeFoe wrote:Oregon's three best players are 6'6" - 6'10".

We've only got one guy in that height range: Keanu Pinder.

We're not made to match up against teams with athletic and long dudes in that height range. They negate the inside of the inside out game we like to play.

UCLA plays on the perimeter - that long and quick post advantage is less meaningful.

Putting Lauri on Brooks probably wasn't Miller's best idea.

Although we have no one else taller than 6'5 (Kobi, no way Trier, Rawle are 6'5) to 6'8/6'9 that gets consistent minutes.

I think that's our biggest weakness going into tournament play. How can we guard Tatum, Josh Jackson, Justin Jackson etc, press Virginia.

YoDeFoe wrote:Oregon's three best players are 6'6" - 6'10".

We've only got one guy in that height range: Keanu Pinder.

We're not made to match up against teams with athletic and long dudes in that height range. They negate the inside of the inside out game we like to play.

UCLA plays on the perimeter - that long and quick post advantage is less meaningful.

It's hard to blame Miller because I'm fairly certain Ray Smith was the guy to give us exactly what we have had issues with.

NYCat wrote:

YoDeFoe wrote:Oregon's three best players are 6'6" - 6'10".

We've only got one guy in that height range: Keanu Pinder.

We're not made to match up against teams with athletic and long dudes in that height range. They negate the inside of the inside out game we like to play.

UCLA plays on the perimeter - that long and quick post advantage is less meaningful.

Putting Lauri on Brooks probably wasn't Miller's best idea.

This entire season could be defined by the gradual unfolding of the realization of how best to play Lauri.

Spaceman Spiff wrote:

YoDeFoe wrote:Oregon's three best players are 6'6" - 6'10".

We've only got one guy in that height range: Keanu Pinder.

We're not made to match up against teams with athletic and long dudes in that height range. They negate the inside of the inside out game we like to play.

UCLA plays on the perimeter - that long and quick post advantage is less meaningful.

It's hard to blame Miller because I'm fairly certain Ray Smith was the guy to give us exactly what we have had issues with.

Baylor, West Virginia, Louisville and other similar teams are terrible matchups. Don't want to face them and find out.

I really want another shot against Oregon when they are not hitting the half court 3s.

Spaceman Spiff wrote:
It's hard to blame Miller because I'm fairly certain Ray Smith was the guy to give us exactly what we have had issues with.

Yeah worth mentioning that all three players that we lost for the year were in that height range. Ray Smith (6'8"), Terrance Ferguson (6'7") and Talbott Denny (6'6").

IndianaZonaFan wrote:I hope these guys have the nastiness that they need for the post-season. I hope they WANT to play UCLA and Oregon in the PAC12 Tourney.

KA talks about how he wants both UCLA & Oregon in the PAC12 tourney

Great video 84 - fun to get All Access.

Olsondogg wrote:

CalStateTempe wrote:Me too cat fan.

I think Oregon is best option to cut nets at the moment and if that happens it will seriously depress me.

I'll put it this way about Oregon. They've been in a ton of close games...on last second shots. Some against mediocre teams. They faltered at uCla, but besides that they've been on the better end. They barely beat Furd, Cal, ASSU, uCla, Boise St., Tennessee etc.

Things have a way of evening out over the season...they are due to have the pendulum swing the other way in a tight game.

I keep telling myself this exact same thing. The problem is, for us to benefit we have to make the game close to begin with...surely the harder part...and then it has to be the number/game when the reversion occurs. Brooks appears to have range from anywhere on the court.

I look at Lauri as perfectly capable of guarding anyone in the upper half of that 6'6" to 6'10" range. And by extension of the match up inequality noted, we also cause Oregon match up problems.

We played them once and got throttled in a horrible game. And last year's team looked nothing like this year's and was a missed FT from winning the game in Vegas. So, what I am saying is...we have no idea what a rematch would look like other than it would be a difficult game against an excellent opponent

Gilbertcat wrote:I really want another shot against Oregon when they are not hitting the half court 3s.

Yeah, this would be a different game. I'm guessing they wouldn't shoot 65-66% again.

HiCat wrote:

Gilbertcat wrote:I really want another shot against Oregon when they are not hitting the half court 3s.

Yeah, this would be a different game. I'm guessing they wouldn't shoot 65-66% again.

We said that in 2015 about Wisconsin haha. Can't happen again!

But yeah, I would like to give Oregon another shot.

Don't think we will see Markkanen defending on the perimeter v. Oregon this time.

scumdevils86 wrote:

HiCat wrote:

Gilbertcat wrote:I really want another shot against Oregon when they are not hitting the half court 3s.

Yeah, this would be a different game. I'm guessing they wouldn't shoot 65-66% again.

We said that in 2015 about Wisconsin haha. Can't happen again!

But yeah, I would like to give Oregon another shot.

We held them under 40% shooting that first time. Wisconsin in 13-14 we lost due to bad offense. 14-15 we lost to their incredible offense. So really, we managed to get the cheese in both ends in the span of a calendar year.

NYCat wrote:Final regular season Kenpom:

Kenpom #21 (21.69) | AdjO: #29 (116.4) | AdjD: 27 (94. 7)

Dropped to #30 in both AdjO + AdjD without playing. Will be interesting to see the movement after Colorado.

Faced a zone.
Faced a press.
Put up 90+ points.

On top of that, Lauri shot 4-7 from 3.

Great GREAT win.

A nice leap in the right direction. Been a long time since we have had six or seven guys play great in the same game. Lauri 4-7 from three was the story of the night for me. Kobi has almost played himself out of the rotation at this point.

rgdeuce wrote:A nice leap in the right direction. Been a long time since we have had six or seven guys play great in the same game. Lauri 4-7 from three was the story of the night for me. Kobi has almost played himself out of the rotation at this point.

He looks completely checked out.

Markkanen 20 pts
Trier 19 pts
Alkins 15 pts
Ristic 15 pts
Allen 13 pts

That's when the team is at its best, when 4-5 players have 10+ pts.

Frybry02 wrote:

rgdeuce wrote:A nice leap in the right direction. Been a long time since we have had six or seven guys play great in the same game. Lauri 4-7 from three was the story of the night for me. Kobi has almost played himself out of the rotation at this point.

He looks completely checked out.

On defense he looks like he doesn't care. On offense he looks like he's auditioning for the (d-)League. That's not a good combo.

That's good, right?

NYCat wrote:Markkanen 20 pts
Trier 19 pts
Alkins 15 pts
Ristic 15 pts
Allen 13 pts

That's when the team is at its best, when 4-5 players have 10+ pts.

Well balanced starting 5. Thought Dus was silky smooth tonight, and Rawle is becoming a favorite.

Chicat wrote:

Frybry02 wrote:

rgdeuce wrote:A nice leap in the right direction. Been a long time since we have had six or seven guys play great in the same game. Lauri 4-7 from three was the story of the night for me. Kobi has almost played himself out of the rotation at this point.

He looks completely checked out.

On defense he looks like he doesn't care. On offense he looks like he's auditioning for the (d-)League. That's not a good combo.

Too bad he hasn't been able to adjust to Zo's return and embrace a role off the bench. Patience would serve him well. Think he'll stick around?

He needs to stick around, listen to feedback from the coaching staff and work on his game. He is not in a position to do well if he leaves. His attitude has me thinking that he will leave.

Not sure where he'd go. If he transfers then its three years out of high school before he gets paid. If he declares he goes undrafted and likely makes $24k taking bus rides in the d-league or he goes to Europe/China never to be heard from again.

My gut tells me he is transferring

NYCat wrote:

NYCat wrote:Final regular season Kenpom:

Kenpom #21 (21.69) | AdjO: #29 (116.4) | AdjD: 27 (94. 7)

Dropped to #30 in both AdjO + AdjD without playing. Will be interesting to see the movement after Colorado.

After Colorado

Kenpom: #21 (+21.96) | AdjO #27 (117.1) | AdjD #30 (95.2)

rgdeuce wrote:My gut tells me he is transferring

I think we were lucky we were able to get as much out of him as we did this year. He played very well for the first two thirds of the season and was the best player on the court during the win in Westwood. After that, he was never the same. Did he run out of gas or check out mentally? It is hard to say.

rgdeuce wrote:My gut tells me he is transferring

Agree. That or overseas. How many transfers/random early departures have we had? Justin Simon, Sidiki Johnson, Momo Jones, Grant Jerrett, Craig Victor...And all of them were in a 5 year period. There will always be 1 guy that bails on the program during or after his freshman year under Miller that isn't a 1 and done lottery guy.

ASUHATER! wrote:

rgdeuce wrote:My gut tells me he is transferring

Agree. That or overseas. How many transfers/random early departures have we had? Justin Simon, Sidiki Johnson, Momo Jones, Grant Jerrett, Craig Victor...And all of them were in a 5 year period. There will always be 1 guy that bails on the program during or after his freshman year under Miller that isn't a 1 and done lottery guy.

Don't forget Josiah Turner .

az91 wrote:

ASUHATER! wrote:

rgdeuce wrote:My gut tells me he is transferring

Agree. That or overseas. How many transfers/random early departures have we had? Justin Simon, Sidiki Johnson, Momo Jones, Grant Jerrett, Craig Victor...And all of them were in a 5 year period. There will always be 1 guy that bails on the program during or after his freshman year under Miller that isn't a 1 and done lottery guy.

Don't forget Josiah Turner .

No! Please, let's forget about the biggest disappointment at PG EVER at Arizona.....He helped kill our 'Point Guard U' rep IMO.

ASUHATER! wrote:

rgdeuce wrote:My gut tells me he is transferring

Agree. That or overseas. How many transfers/random early departures have we had? Justin Simon, Sidiki Johnson, Momo Jones, Grant Jerrett, Craig Victor...And all of them were in a 5 year period. There will always be 1 guy that bails on the program during or after his freshman year under Miller that isn't a 1 and done lottery guy.

Judkins, Momo (after 2 years), Bejerano, Chol (after 2 years), Sidiki Johnson, Josiah, Victor, Simon = Eight.

Don't know if we can throw Jerrett in that mix, but it was probably a situation where he transfers if he didnt have the info he did about declaring. Zach Peters is a "sort of situation" too, not sure if you include him as well.

I really see no problem with them bailing. Either you can cut it or you can't.

rgdeuce wrote:

ASUHATER! wrote:

rgdeuce wrote:My gut tells me he is transferring

Agree. That or overseas. How many transfers/random early departures have we had? Justin Simon, Sidiki Johnson, Momo Jones, Grant Jerrett, Craig Victor...And all of them were in a 5 year period. There will always be 1 guy that bails on the program during or after his freshman year under Miller that isn't a 1 and done lottery guy.

Judkins, Momo (after 2 years), Bejerano, Chol (after 2 years), Sidiki Johnson, Josiah, Victor, Simon = Eight.

Don't know if we can throw Jerrett in that mix, but it was probably a situation where he transfers if he didnt have the info he did about declaring. Zach Peters is a "sort of situation" too, not sure if you include him as well.

I will say, of that group, the only one I feel wound up hurting was losing Momo for Josiah.

We would up with better than Judkins, Bejarano, Chol and Sidiki. Simon is too early to tell, and Victor getting kicked off LSU's team says something.

Lets look at the eight:

Simon = TBD @ St Johns. To be honest, I was never really that high on him. He would have been an excellent ball stopper on defense, but I dont think he would have been a guy that started here until his senior year, with our knack for bringing in dominant wings, unless there was a situation where we had a mass exodus and had one of our weaker classes coming in. Zero chance at being our starting 1, IMO
Victor = Decent at LSU, but out of basketball (?) 8 games into his junior season. Likely bench depth here til his senior season.
Chol= Couldn't even sniff 14 mpg at a SDSU program that was a shell of its former self. Hot garbage and never would have been more than bench depth here.
Turner= We know how this trainwreck ended.
Sidiki Johnson= Played 11 games in one year at Providence and out of college basketball. 15 mpg, 3.9 ppg, 5 boards.
Judkins = 1 year at Texas A&M Corpus Christi, 22 mpg and nothing impressive in those minutes, out of NCAA ball after his junior year.
Momo Jones = Had a nice final two seasons at Iona. 15.7 and 22.6 ppg and won MAAC POY. I'll admit, this one hurts my soul, I LOVED Momo.
Bejerano = Averaged 16.3 and 11.4 as JR and SR, respectively, at Colorado State. I wouldn't be too upset though, his advanced numbers show he didn't improve his awful defense that much, and he shot 36% and 35% his JR and SR seasons and only shot above 35% from 3 once (35.9%), so scratch "Arizona 3 pt specialist off the bench" off the list.

The common theme. We didn't lose much, outside of Momo (which makes you hate Turner even more). Of the six remaining guys (Simon TBD), four ended their NCAA careers early, leaving Chol (bum) and Bejerano, who would have at best been a role playing, three point specialist who couldnt defend and was a horribly inefficient shooter. So basically, everyone sans Momo wasnt shit to begin with, which was why they didnt get the minutes they wanted and bailed. They didnt want to work hard and respect the process, and it showed after they left Arizona.

Spaceman Spiff wrote:

rgdeuce wrote:

ASUHATER! wrote:

rgdeuce wrote:My gut tells me he is transferring

Agree. That or overseas. How many transfers/random early departures have we had? Justin Simon, Sidiki Johnson, Momo Jones, Grant Jerrett, Craig Victor...And all of them were in a 5 year period. There will always be 1 guy that bails on the program during or after his freshman year under Miller that isn't a 1 and done lottery guy.

Judkins, Momo (after 2 years), Bejerano, Chol (after 2 years), Sidiki Johnson, Josiah, Victor, Simon = Eight.

Don't know if we can throw Jerrett in that mix, but it was probably a situation where he transfers if he didnt have the info he did about declaring. Zach Peters is a "sort of situation" too, not sure if you include him as well.

I will say, of that group, the only one I feel wound up hurting was losing Momo for Josiah.

We would up with better than Judkins, Bejarano, Chol and Sidiki. Simon is too early to tell, and Victor getting kicked off LSU's team says something.

I also think losing Jerrett (though not actually in the list) hurt a lot once Bash went down. I think we win the title in 2014 even with the Bash injury if Jerrett returns and gives us that stretch 4 to open the middle for AG.

Bejerano was also, IMO, a necessity to recruit only because it established Arizona under Miller still could take anyone in state that we wanted. I really didn't think he was going to do much here, but I didn't expect what happened either...I thought he was a 4 year bench microwave scorer type guy. We don't even look at Bejerano if we had known what we already had.

Judkins was another stretch...one of those "late bloomer" hopes and reaches.

Chol? He was Chol. If he could have realized what he was, he could have had a nice career at Arizona as a crowd favorite banger ala Gene. Instead, he thought he was NBA bound. And he did at SDSU pretty much what he did here.

Simon? Well, in retrospect, that was the biggest mistake of all. Dorsey is making us feel that daily.

Victor/Sidiki/Josiah...those have nothing to do with our recruiting or treatment of players. They were clearly destined to be problems wherever they went, as Arizona wasn't their final failure.

Momo...hurt bad. He was our heart and soul. 2012 CU in Staples never would have happened with Momo on watch. Yeah, he could be infuriating at times, and he was never going to be a classic 1, but he had that "it" factor that made him run toward the pressure when others backed away.

Momo was a cat to the core.

We are in the tourney in 2012 with him in uni.

EVCat wrote:Bejerano was also, IMO, a necessity to recruit only because it established Arizona under Miller still could take anyone in state that we wanted. I really didn't think he was going to do much here, but I didn't expect what happened either...I thought he was a 4 year bench microwave scorer type guy. We don't even look at Bejerano if we had known what we already had.

Judkins was another stretch...one of those "late bloomer" hopes and reaches.

Chol? He was Chol. If he could have realized what he was, he could have had a nice career at Arizona as a crowd favorite banger ala Gene. Instead, he thought he was NBA bound. And he did at SDSU pretty much what he did here.

Simon? Well, in retrospect, that was the biggest mistake of all. Dorsey is making us feel that daily.

Victor/Sidiki/Josiah...those have nothing to do with our recruiting or treatment of players. They were clearly destined to be problems wherever they went, as Arizona wasn't their final failure.

Momo...hurt bad. He was our heart and soul. 2012 CU in Staples never would have happened with Momo on watch. Yeah, he could be infuriating at times, and he was never going to be a classic 1, but he had that "it" factor that made him run toward the pressure when others backed away.

Bejarano was a very early Miller recruit. At that point, he wasn't established, and we would probably have taken anyone in the top 70 who would come. The roster was severely depleted at the beginning. Judkins is a great example of that. He wasn't a Miller recruit, but he was getting more time here than he got at the directional school he wound up at.

I thought Dorsey was a Simon/Trier combo issue, but I might remember wrong.

rgdeuce wrote:Lets look at the eight:

Simon = TBD @ St Johns. To be honest, I was never really that high on him. He would have been an excellent ball stopper on defense, but I dont think he would have been a guy that started here until his senior year, with our knack for bringing in dominant wings, unless there was a situation where we had a mass exodus and had one of our weaker classes coming in. Zero chance at being our starting 1, IMO
Victor = Decent at LSU, but out of basketball (?) 8 games into his junior season. Likely bench depth here til his senior season.
Chol= Couldn't even sniff 14 mpg at a SDSU program that was a shell of its former self. Hot garbage and never would have been more than bench depth here.
Turner= We know how this trainwreck ended.
Sidiki Johnson= Played 11 games in one year at Providence and out of college basketball. 15 mpg, 3.9 ppg, 5 boards.
Judkins = 1 year at Texas A&M Corpus Christi, 22 mpg and nothing impressive in those minutes, out of NCAA ball after his junior year.
Momo Jones = Had a nice final two seasons at Iona. 15.7 and 22.6 ppg and won MAAC POY. I'll admit, this one hurts my soul, I LOVED Momo.
Bejerano = Averaged 16.3 and 11.4 as JR and SR, respectively, at Colorado State. I wouldn't be too upset though, his advanced numbers show he didn't improve his awful defense that much, and he shot 36% and 35% his JR and SR seasons and only shot above 35% from 3 once (35.9%), so scratch "Arizona 3 pt specialist off the bench" off the list.

The common theme. We didn't lose much, outside of Momo (which makes you hate Turner even more). Of the six remaining guys (Simon TBD), four ended their NCAA careers early, leaving Chol (bum) and Bejerano, who would have at best been a role playing, three point specialist who couldnt defend and was a horribly inefficient shooter. So basically, everyone sans Momo wasnt shit to begin with, which was why they didnt get the minutes they wanted and bailed. They didnt want to work hard and respect the process, and it showed after they left Arizona.

Nice breakdown of our early departures. Momo was definitely the one that hurt the most, but he had to do what was best for him. I wonder where Victor will end up? Could he come back to Tucson?

In the Dorsey case, it's also like he would have been here for 4 years. As he's likely to be a 4 year player at Oregon.

I doubt we get Trier for more than 3 and Simon may as well never have suited up as he literally didn't contribute anything but a handful of turnovers and 2 nice dunks.

I seem to remember Dorsey was a bit toxic in the AAU circles as a guy known as a chucker and ball hog. I think Simons circle basically said it's him or us , and then I think Trier didn't particularly seem excited to play w him either but it wasn't a dealbreaker for him.

Simons circle saw Simon as a future PG (seems laughable I know) and they didn't like Dorsey who was in the Lyons mold of a score first guy who wanted to dominate the ball and show out. Trier s camp wasn't crazy about him cuz they knew Trier was a shooting guard in an NBA pg body and needed to learn some combo guard skills to boost his stock for scouts and that wouldn't happen alongside Dorsey.

As it turned out the guy who said Dorsey would be too toxic to play w ended up being the guy who bitched about Pt and left because of it. Not to mention Simon, at least in his short time here, absolutely sucked on offense and wasn't disciplined on D at all.

I'm sure hindsight and all, the move was let Simon go and recruit to Trier that the two could coexist and Trier wouldn't have to sacrifice anything for Dorsey. I haven't heard one word of dissension from Oregon about Dorsey, and he isn't dominating the ball at all there. He's a cog in that great teams machine and he excels in his role. And he kills us every chance he gets.

We also could have gotten Briscoe over Trier had we wanted but we preferred Trier. I wouldn't have minded both though because Briscoe is a combo pg and he'd have had a role here. He's terrible on D tho and Trier is and was the better player, though they were ranked similar.

I truly think the reason we "encouraged" Dorsey to go elsewhere was because we were coming off the Josiah debacle and Miller saw some similar "red flags" in Dorsey , his attitude, his game, and his opinion of himself that he learned could manifest into what Turner was.

Miller was wrong here. I'm sure he'd admit it too in a quiet moment w Dorsey. And recruiting isn't an exact science so it happens. One kids warning signs and troubles aren't another's. Different kids respond differently when push comes to shove.

Kobi was the man the only time we beat UCLA, it appears he'll be riding the bench tonight and for the rest of his games in an Arizona jersey

I feel bad for him - his NBA aspirations are taking a hit.

RiseAndFire wrote:Kobi was the man the only time we beat UCLA, it appears he'll be riding the bench tonight

I feel bad for him - his NBA aspirations are taking a hit.

I don't really feel bad for Kobi.

I compare Kobi and Rawle. When Trier returned, the wing spots got really competitive. Rawle began killing it on the boards and not just relying on offense. Kobi kept playing like he had been playing.

That's why Rawle still gets a lot of time and Kobi has fallen off. Rawle seized the competition and Kobi didn't. Kobi has potential, but to break through, it is on him to raise his game.