The Miller Era's trademark? The "above-the-rim" player

[catgrad97]

Updating a classic thread. What's the trademark of Miller's recruits to you?

It's a term that has been bandied about since before there was a shoe company with that name. Most of our players who have gone on to the best NBA careers have earned that label. But it has also been the deficiency that has cost the program in several memorable, critical games: The "above-the-rim" player.

This is a player who can challenge defenders with aggressive drives and high-jumping finishes. This is also a player who has the same vertical to hit jumpers even with said defender's hands up, directly in his face.

It's not just about timing--because if it were, Jamelle Horne would have been in the pantheon of Arizona basketball greats now--it's also about physicality. The upper-body strength to force points down the opposition's throat in the key, or at least force fouls. That same strength IMHO would have made the difference in Horne's three-point jumper going down--instead of just "looking good" but going short at the last second.

Derrick Williams was definitely one of the finest, if not the finest, of that kind to ever wear an Arizona uniform. Kevin Parrom and Solomon Hill developed into the same mold. Nick Johnson will, before his Arizona career is over, be as consistently "above-the-rim" as any player Lute Olson ever coached.

Why is this becoming such an important concept? I think many of Arizona basketball's previous postseason finishes evidence why, including the UConn loss. Calhoun had two players in Walker and Lamb who took the points at Arizona--whereas only DWill could respond for us, as Parrom and Hill simply were not there yet.

I started thinking about this directly after seeing the replay of the Seton Hall trouncing in the 1988 NCAAs. The Pirates were a physical team that year, but no match for the post moves that Tom Tolbert, Anthony Cook and Sean Elliott had developed by that point. Even Carolina's J.R. Reid was more bull than back-down/face-up post player that March, and Tolbert, black hole that he was--as he did with the Hall's Mark Bryant--was simply more effective once he got those guys to face up in the air with him, above the rim.

But most of that team's offense really was created, and finished, below the rim, and that is what doomed the Cats against Oklahoma in the Final Four that season--the Sooners simply had more of those players than Lute did. Billy Tubbs had assembled an athletic machine of Ricky Grace, Harvey Grant, Mookie Blaylock, Stacey King and others, and Blaylock used all of his vertical skill to force Steve Kerr into the worst shooting game of his life. Grant and King were both skilled, face-up post players with strong verticals who ultimately overwhelmed A.C. and Tolbert that night.

In 2001, Arizona got down quickly to Duke in the championship and never could counter effectively with its above-the-rim players, due to a) Gilbert Arenas playing hurt and ineffective, and b) Loren Woods not being fed enough in the post. As was the case three postseasons prior, in the 1998 Elite Eight loss to Utah, settling for low-percentage jumpers--not just the refs or Mike Dunleavy having the game of his life--doomed the Cats' hopes for a second title.

Arizona's many memorable March battles with Kansas have demonstrated how the team with more players who play above the rim in any given contest usually comes out the winner. No post player in 1997 was more physical or aggressive in the postseason than Arizona's AJ Bramlett, constantly swatting shots and rebounding misses for putbacks, accompanied by hard-working grunts we could hear all the way in our living rooms.

Many Cat fans, including this one, feel that Arizona lost the 2003 Elite Eight matchup against the Jayhawks when Coach Olson replaced young Andre Iguodala and Hassan Adams--freshmen in name only by that point in the season who were putting KU on its heels with flying blocks and skying fast-break buckets--with the more-experienced, but also far more grounded, senior duo of Luke Walton and Ricky Anderson for the final 3 1/2 minutes of that contest. Arizona's winning edge had been willingly substituted out of the game.

Even the diminutive Salim Stoudamire showed, in the final two seasons of his career, that when called on for points, he knew when and where to go and stick the J. Oklahoma State's Brooks Thompson was no match for him on that final shot. Illinois went on a rise-and-fire rampage in the final three minutes of regulation in 2005 that was an uncanny imitation of what Salim had done to countless teams over the previous four years of his college career.

Now, is merely stockpiling more "above-the-rim" players enough to win every contest? Absolutely not, as the Princetons and Santa Claras of the world have shown convincingly. Above-the-rim players who play without discipline or dedication as a unit are, at best, the Fab Five or the 1992 UNLV Running Rebels--playing entitled to a victory without focusing on the opponent at hand.

This attitude IMHO killed Arizona in the first round in 2004 against Seton Hall. It has also headlined the biggest list of NBA draft busts next to seven-foot centers. Showing the ability to play "above-the-rim" in pickup games, or even a couple of Marches out of the regular season, is no guarantee of a great basketball career. If it were, players like Rumeal Robinson, Sherman Douglas, God Shammgod, Jerome Lane and Anderson Hunt--maybe even our own Kenny Lofton and Chris Rodgers--would be HOFers by now.

More above-the-rim players--as Johnson, Brandon Ashley and Aaron Gordon have laid the foundation for--are on the way to Tucson, and soon. More year-in and year-out than Lute Olson had assembled in any one of his seasons. These guys are going to make Arizona a household name late in every March, because Coach Miller will make them challenge each other--vertically, with hands always in the face--to earn their points, whether with jumpers or with dunks.

That's the way DWill did it. That's the way Arizona's superstars yet to come will show their mettle. The Wildcat West Coast dynasty will continue as long as Sean Miller claims superiority in numbers of above-the-rim players who can play that way consistently, throughout any given season.

And that tendency appears only to be growing. Welcome to the Era of the Above-the-Rim Basketball Player to Tucson, Wildcat faithful.

[UAdevil]

So it could be said that Arizona has 'Air Superiority'.

[ASUHATER!]

defense, superb athleticism and a team first attitude are all his trademarks.

[Jefe]

Above the rim? You must be talking about Jumpin Joey Johnson!

[gumby]

Bzzzt! You don't get to call your own threads "classic." That is below the rim.

[BigSkyCatinMT]

Nice pics of Joey. First one at the CSI gym. I had season tickets there for both his seasons. Pic two in Ontario, OR vs. Treasure Valley CC. Pretty much every day sruff from him. Got to watch him posterise John Starks, Mookie Blaylock, Latrell Spreewell, and more.

[Puerco]

Bzzzt! You don't get to call your own threads "classic." That is below the rim.

Must spread rep.

[legallykenny]

This post never ceases to give me a laugh. So many statements in it that are flat out wrong. Everything starts turning to shit right around the reference to Hill and Parrom as in any way notably athletic.