Bear Down Wildcats

Is primarily a focus on March, IMO. My guess is that with all of the setbacks from Day 1 of this year, the only thing the team is going to be focused on is contending for the PAC to get a decent draw in the NCAA's. Provided that there are not anymore health or "personal" issues, the team should be healthy (Ray Smith aside) for a March run. After watching Trier score 8 points after breaking a finger, I don't worry at all about his ability to come right back into the lineup and continue the trajectory that he was on. Furthermore, this will hopefully give Simon even more minutes to become acclimated and to perform well, and that could mean good things in the future.

It's not a good thing when a player gets injured, but provided that player can return within the same year, it does allow for some development that may not have happened beforehand.

That's pretty much the silver lining I'm looking at.

Here's a silver lining...... Seniors

We got em. Zeus, Anderson, York, and Tolly. Not to mention Allen is in his 4th year.

I like Seniors

Agree this season is no where near over and I don't understand why people are saying nit. May not get the pac regular season title but nothing prevents this team except not improving a little more on d from winning games in the NCAA.

We need to forget about seed, focus on winning what we can with what we have and peaking at the right time. It isn't always the 1 seed that goes to the FF. We have had that high seed before. I would trade it for tournament production every day of the week. We did not lose that potential.

I'm not upset if we arn't in the west bracket.

PHXCATS wrote:Agree this season is no where near over and I don't understand why people are saying nit. May not get the pac regular season title but nothing prevents this team except not improving a little more on d from winning games in the NCAA.

yeah, we can't give up on our team three games into the season. that's unlv talk. Miller will get our guys where they need to be by march.

and maybe our guys will realize that one way to mitigate the loss of trier's offensive production is through tougher defense.

This team hasn't been "whole" (ie: no injuries) for an extended period, and perhaps they won't be. But we've seen them get some good wins and play great basketball in stretches. I don't think we'll finish top 3 in the Pac, not with our leading scorer out, but we'll get into the tourney with a lower seed and will be looking at a second round matchup with a 2 or 3 seed, probably someone from this group: Duke, Nova, Xavier, UK, Providence (how fun would that be?), UNC, UVA...it'll be the hardest second round game we've had in a long time.

13 hours ago • Bruce Pascoe Arizona Daily Star


Miller was optimistic on Simon's ability to help bail the Wildcats out a bit.

"We’re working hard with Justin and he’s practicing hard," Miller said. "He’s just an incredible, coachable kid, really somebody who’s a willing learner and a hard worker. He has not missed one practice.

"A lot of freshmen in January hit their stride and with Justin, he can hit his stride with a renewed opportunity here. He made some plays in both the UCLA and USC games that I don’t know if anybody else can make. The shot block at USC where he came from the other side and took away a dunk. And he had a long rebound against UCLA where he took it coast-to-coast and dunked the ball.

"Those are things we see as part of his upside that will become a part of who he is as a player. With game experience he’ll learn with trial and error."

http://tucson.com/sports/blogs/pascoe/a ... &id=201408" target="_blank

Good news...help is on the way.

After the way the last two years went down, I'm more than fine with being under the radar and pouncing in March. This team will make a run come March, no doubt in my mind.

Plus, I think this ensures a second year from Trier.

If this team can land Josh Jackson and get back Smith and Trier healthy, with a couple of seven-footers with edge in this program (harden up, Chance and Dusan!), look out.

catgrad97 wrote:Plus, I think this ensures a second year from Trier.

If this team can land Josh Jackson and get back Smith and Trier healthy, with a couple of seven-footers with edge in this program (harden up, Chance and Dusan!), look out.

Exactly. Adding JJ, RS, and LM to this team would make us a top 5 team next season. Oh, and we need Trier back.

pokinmik wrote:After the way the last two years went down, I'm more than fine with being under the radar and pouncing in March. This team will make a run come March, no doubt in my mind.

I'm not 100% how far we go, but if we have a healthy lineup in March, we will be significantly more dangerous than our seed indicates. Full strength, I doubt higher seeds will want us in their bracket.

BTW...I read that 8 of the last 20 losses have happened in SoCal...

CalStateTempe wrote:I'm not upset if we arn't in the west bracket.

My buddy and I were talking about this recently. Screw playing in California.

catgrad97 wrote:Plus, I think this ensures a second year from Trier.

If this team can land Josh Jackson and get back Smith and Trier healthy, with a couple of seven-footers with edge in this program (harden up, Chance and Dusan!), look out.

And with the final in our back yard next year too. I can't even imagine what that scene would look like.

splitsecond wrote:

catgrad97 wrote:Plus, I think this ensures a second year from Trier.

If this team can land Josh Jackson and get back Smith and Trier healthy, with a couple of seven-footers with edge in this program (harden up, Chance and Dusan!), look out.

And with the final in our back yard next year too. I can't even imagine what that scene would look like.

If we were in our first final 4 in 16 years in Phoenix..it would be a zoo.