RondaeShimmy wrote: ↑Tue Dec 21, 2021 9:50 am
Anyone remember the 2012-2013 season vividly (I've seem to memory holed everything in between winning vs top 5 Florida and losing to Ohio St on the Laquinton Ross shot) and think it could happen again to this year's Arizona team?
https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/sc ... edule.html
This team had a Sr Lyons, Hill, Parrom, So NJ, and the obvious 3 freshman 5* bigs. Team went undefeated in pretty good non conference schedule and climbed to #3 in the nation and proceeded to go 12-6 in a pretty weak conference (only 3 ranked teams including Arizona at the end, all in the 20s).
Interesting idea. I feel like this year is different for two reasons. First, 12-13 had some warning signs during the undefeated run (like back from the dead vs Florida and Sabatino Chen's shot being .00001 too late) that implied things weren't as pristine as the record.
Second, the roster composition is sort of the opposite, IMO. In 12-13, there was a logjam of similar players. Perimeter, we had a bunch of shoot first players who weren't big distributors (Lyons, Hill, NJ, Parrom). Post was a bunch of young guys who either weren't quite ready yet or never would be (Zeus, Ashley, Jerrett, Chol). The roster was too duplicative and lacking complements.
This year, the main 5 complement each other nicely, but we sort of need them all. There isn't a real plan B for Kerr or Tubelis. Plan B for Mathurin or Koloko involve significantly lesser players.
12-13 had trouble developing because there was no distributor, rim protector and a lot of similar parts. This year, I feel like we have the right parts, but the big ones are irreplaceable.