Bear Down Wildcats

StickItInTheyFace wrote:

TatetheGreat wrote:

PHXCATS wrote:Fifth best team in the nation per Vegas

http://stats.inpredictable.com/rankings/ncaab.php" target="_blank

Sixth best odds to win the natty! You gonna bet on it?

https://www.teamrankings.com/ncb/" target="_blank

That is crazy that we are so high. With the highs and lows of this team there's no question they could do it, or fall flat on their face. I have irrational confidence in them though lol.

I don't have irrational confidence in this team. But I do have a rational expectation that the tourney will be bonkers. It always is. I keep thinking that one of these years, we're going to be Syracuse in '16 or Kentucky in '14: lower-seeded teams from major conferences who caught fire in March and actually reached the FF. It's also possible that Boeheim and Calipari are more likely to get there than Miller will ever be.

I don't have irrational confidence either. I just have hopes that the freshmen will mature by the end of the regular season. I have (maybe irrational) hopes that they all have actuallu LEARNED something from the losses. I have hopes that this team can come close to what the 1996-97 team accomplished, after finishing 5th in the PAC-10 with an 11-7 conference record.

The thing with the 97 team is that they had to deal with losing Simon and then deal with reintegrating back in the lineup. Those issues, in part lead to the low regular season record.

Postmaster wrote:The thing with the 97 team is that they had to deal with losing Simon and then deal with reintegrating back in the lineup. Those issues, in part lead to the low regular season record.

Arizona is dealing with roster issues of a different sort this year: Doutrive leaving. Gettings’ injury, Jeter’s injury. You can’t argue this year’s lineup has been stable.

Simon was back for the 2nd semester and conference play, where Arizona went 11-7. But if you look at the score of those 7 losses you’ll find those games all very close except for a 13 point setback at USC. A 2 point OT loss at Pauley, a 1 point loss at Stanford, a 2 point loss at Cal and a 2 point home loss to UCLA.

I’m not celebrating moral victories but it’s reassuring this team is close. They’ve played good teams very close. They just haven’t learn to close strong on the road. That takes maturity. And the more you go through close games, the better you get at handling the pressure. That’s the takeaway right now.

From ‘97, only UCLA beat us at McKale. By 2 points. So their experienced team beat our inexperienced team twice in two nail biters. Was Steve Lavin a better coach than Lute that year??

Arizona barely beat Cal & Stanford at McKale but hammered USC, Oregon and Washington, all teams they lost to on the road. You’ll notice that in Arizona’s three conference home games thus far this year, they’ve hammered ASU, Utah and Colorado.

uw game thread is up

Jeter update?

Jefe wrote:Jeter update?

2-ply, but hopefully he’s working on it.

For the Wildcat fan in your life who watches away games live...

As fans we're really on a roll right now.

At least we are prepared for when they lay a turd.

Good to get a quality road win on our tourney resume

Feels good to get a true road win out of the way.

WildcatStunner wrote:Feels good to get a true road win out of the way.

And it's not even February!

Go Cats!

People attack me individually....nothing

I call it as it is on groups as a whole, threads locked and my posts deleted. That's how you know you are doing it right

PHXCATS wrote:People attack me individually....nothing

I call it as it is on groups as a whole, threads locked and my posts deleted. That's how you know you are doing it right

You are a hero.

That was a great game thread tonight, even well before the game was close to getting started. A win in its own right. Thanks, everybody.

PHXCATS wrote:People attack me individually....nothing

I call it as it is on groups as a whole, threads locked and my posts deleted. That's how you know you are doing it right

Doing what right?

Desperately begging for attention?

Yep, you’re a champ at that.

Alieberman wrote:I like to look at the positives.

At least we are pissing off Illinois each time we choke away a game.

Lmao.

catgrad97 wrote:

Statfreak77 wrote:

PHXCATS wrote: At #1 now Baylor-5 point loss
At #11 Oregon 1 point loss in OT when a bunch of shit happened
At Oregon State-shit show loss no excuse
At asu, 1 point loss when even more shit happened than Oregon

Yeah using logic and not being emotional tells me U of A can easily win all the remaining away games

Sean Miller doesn't like moral victories, and neither should you.

Newsflash - these are STILL losses. They don't mean shit. How ridiculous and blinded has this fan base gotten to where we are cool with moral losses?

That man does NOT represent the Wildcat fanbase.

In rational factland, Arizona's only even technical shot left at a Top 4 NCAA seed is winning out through the P12 tourney title.

And, as you allude to, Stat, if the Cats drop even one more of those non-Q1 road games, kiss that Hail Mary goodbye.

If we won out we’d likely be a 3. I think we can lose 1 , maybe even 2 and still get a 4 seed, assuming we won pac regular and pac tourney. I personally think we lose 2-3 more and end up in 5-6 seed range.

Couldn’t watch last night, but I’m thrilled they pulled it out. Finally got a road win with good potential for a road sweep tomorrow.

Baker and Hazzard have been important roster additions this year, even in limited minutes. Smith’s horrible shooting yesterday was offset by Baker’s hot hand.

Let’s keep it going. Beat the Cougs!

Beachcat97 wrote:Couldn’t watch last night, but I’m thrilled they pulled it out. Finally got a road win with good potential for a road sweep tomorrow.

Baker and Hazzard have been important roster additions this year, even in limited minutes. Smith’s horrible shooting yesterday was offset by Baker’s hot hand.

Let’s keep it going. Beat the Cougs!

Smith knocks down the first shot (a 3 of the game), pure, and doesn't come close on his next 8 shot attempts. I mean, not even close.

Dude is an enigma.

Statfreak77 wrote:

Beachcat97 wrote:Couldn’t watch last night, but I’m thrilled they pulled it out. Finally got a road win with good potential for a road sweep tomorrow.

Baker and Hazzard have been important roster additions this year, even in limited minutes. Smith’s horrible shooting yesterday was offset by Baker’s hot hand.

Let’s keep it going. Beat the Cougs!

Smith knocks down the first shot (a 3 of the game), pure, and doesn't come close on his next 8 shot attempts. I mean, not even close.

Dude is an enigma.

1 of 3 from the line down the stretch including missing the front end of a 1 & 1. He did get 5 boards and 5 assists though

Sad state for CBB.
I think it was Farnam last night that said if you are a bubble team this year and don’t get in, you have no one to blame but yourself.

Postmaster wrote:Sad state for CBB.
I think it was Farnam last night that said if you are a bubble team this year and don’t get in, you have no one to blame but yourself.

Did he say that just because he believes the level of play is not as high as usual? What was the context for that remark?

Yes
Not a strong field this year.
Parity

Postmaster wrote:Yes
Not a strong field this year.
Parity

To me, parity just means a better tourney, with more possibility for high seeds to fall and unheard of schools to rise. For us, it just means we need to secure a bid and hope that we can string together our two best weeks of basketball in late March.

84Cat wrote:

Statfreak77 wrote:

Beachcat97 wrote:Couldn’t watch last night, but I’m thrilled they pulled it out. Finally got a road win with good potential for a road sweep tomorrow.

Baker and Hazzard have been important roster additions this year, even in limited minutes. Smith’s horrible shooting yesterday was offset by Baker’s hot hand.

Let’s keep it going. Beat the Cougs!

Smith knocks down the first shot (a 3 of the game), pure, and doesn't come close on his next 8 shot attempts. I mean, not even close.

Dude is an enigma.

1 of 3 from the line down the stretch including missing the front end of a 1 & 1. He did get 5 boards and 5 assists though

And prior to Arizona inbounding the ball on the last play of the game, Miller did sub Smith out for Hazzard...which again, good move. Granted there was only like 3 seconds left, but still. Smith has been a disaster at the line during late/close situations.

Statfreak77 wrote:

Beachcat97 wrote:Couldn’t watch last night, but I’m thrilled they pulled it out. Finally got a road win with good potential for a road sweep tomorrow.

Baker and Hazzard have been important roster additions this year, even in limited minutes. Smith’s horrible shooting yesterday was offset by Baker’s hot hand.

Let’s keep it going. Beat the Cougs!

Smith knocks down the first shot (a 3 of the game), pure, and doesn't come close on his next 8 shot attempts. I mean, not even close.

Dude is an enigma.

And it was not a good shot he made. 23 on the shot clock against a zone defense that’s in position to rebound the miss. He damn near shot it from Tacoma.

zonagrad wrote:

Statfreak77 wrote:

Beachcat97 wrote:Couldn’t watch last night, but I’m thrilled they pulled it out. Finally got a road win with good potential for a road sweep tomorrow.

Baker and Hazzard have been important roster additions this year, even in limited minutes. Smith’s horrible shooting yesterday was offset by Baker’s hot hand.

Let’s keep it going. Beat the Cougs!

Smith knocks down the first shot (a 3 of the game), pure, and doesn't come close on his next 8 shot attempts. I mean, not even close.

Dude is an enigma.

And it was not a good shot he made. 23 on the shot clock against a zone defense that’s in position to rebound the miss. He damn near shot it from Tacoma.

Then he tries the exact same shot next play. Think that one hit the rim, which was about as close as he got the rest of the game.

Merkin wrote:

zonagrad wrote:

Statfreak77 wrote:

Beachcat97 wrote:Couldn’t watch last night, but I’m thrilled they pulled it out. Finally got a road win with good potential for a road sweep tomorrow.

Baker and Hazzard have been important roster additions this year, even in limited minutes. Smith’s horrible shooting yesterday was offset by Baker’s hot hand.

Let’s keep it going. Beat the Cougs!

Smith knocks down the first shot (a 3 of the game), pure, and doesn't come close on his next 8 shot attempts. I mean, not even close.

Dude is an enigma.

And it was not a good shot he made. 23 on the shot clock against a zone defense that’s in position to rebound the miss. He damn near shot it from Tacoma.

Then he tries the exact same shot next play. Think that one hit the rim, which was about as close as he got the rest of the game.

Heat check, babay.

Smith should sent to the locker room at the under-4 timeout. His missed a front end FT against Oregon would have put that game away.

Is it unrealistic to expect we'll win the next five, beginning today?

Beachcat97 wrote:Is it unrealistic to expect we'll win the next five, beginning today?

All winnable games this team just hasn't shown it's ability to remain consistent.

I can't point to a single upcoming game in the next month that I think we will lose but in reality there are probably a couple losses in there.

Alieberman wrote:

Beachcat97 wrote:Is it unrealistic to expect we'll win the next five, beginning today?

All winnable games this team just hasn't shown it's ability to remain consistent.

I can't point to a single upcoming game in the next month that I think we will lose but in reality there are probably a couple losses in there.

Not trying to get too far ahead of ourselves. Today's game isn't by any means a gimme, but I just think we need to start feeding on these middle to bottom tier Pac teams. Need to find that consistency that's eluded us thus far.

WSU is no gimme at home. They have beat Oregon at home and only lost one in conference. They got one guy that can really light folks up and he has no conscience no matter how good or bad it is going. Will be interesting. This isn't Ernie's WSU.

We know what the big 3 freshmen are capable of giving us, but in my opinion a big key is getting that other guy to get hot. It was Stone tonight, Baker the other night, Max has done it and even Dylan has done it.

Keep it up. Not a pretty game, but a good win and great road sweep.

I’ll take it! Road sweep! Next four very winnable.

Bear down!

First road sweep by any PAC-12 team this season.

UAEebs86 wrote:First road sweep by any PAC-12 team this season.

Really?!!!

Alieberman wrote:We know what the big 3 freshmen are capable of giving us, but in my opinion a big key is getting that other guy to get hot. It was Stone tonight, Baker the other night, Max has done it and even Dylan has done it.

Just gotta get the right blend.

Alieberman wrote:

UAEebs86 wrote:First road sweep by any PAC-12 team this season.

Really?!!!

That's what they said on the PAC-12 Network postgame show.

I'm not sure what it means to be "the favorite" right now in the conference, but I expect Arizona to win it.

Huge sweep on the road.

coming into the the game at ASU I mentioned AZ’s schedule setting up nicely with three winnable games on the road to start that favorable stretch - the toe stub against the Devils was a tough pill to swallow, but a manly response on the Washington trip gives Arizona real promise heading into February with the most favorable part of that favorable schedule stretch in its sights.

Right now we are the only team in the PAC that has won our last two games whether they be home or away. Everyone else split.

Alieberman wrote:We know what the big 3 freshmen are capable of giving us, but in my opinion a big key is getting that other guy to get hot. It was Stone tonight, Baker the other night, Max has done it and even Dylan has done it.

Keep it up. Not a pretty game, but a good win and great road sweep.

It would be nice if one (or more) of those 4 get hot every game. My money is on Stone. I can't see a trend in the other 3, but Stone has improved consistently since becoming a starter. He can certainly help spread the floor if Josh isn't having a good game. I think he can be that fairly dependable spread 4 we were hoping to get. Let's hope we play Delaware in the tournament. Gettings dropped 39 points on them in the past.

Merkin wrote:

Alieberman wrote:Just because we have not won a single road game does not mean we shouldn’t feel really fucking good about winning every road game in the future

It’s logic guys... don’t you idiots get it?

The WA schools are a combined 18-5 at home too.

Machina needs to find a bookie who will take his bet.

Good call

PHXCATS wrote:

Merkin wrote:

Alieberman wrote:Just because we have not won a single road game does not mean we shouldn’t feel really fucking good about winning every road game in the future

It’s logic guys... don’t you idiots get it?

The WA schools are a combined 18-5 at home too.

Machina needs to find a bookie who will take his bet.

Good call

So how much did you win on your $20 wager to sweep?

After losing 5 of 7, it is great to see this team follow up with taking 4 of 5. They have a great opportunity to keep the momentum going!