Pac 12 Basketball Game Recap: Arizona Wildcats 77, Utah Utes 51
By Jeff
I was trying to come up with a catchy way to start this game recap, some sort of a “hook” to entice you to keep reading, but alas I’m drawing blanks. Kind of like the way the Utah Utes were drawing blanks all night from the free throw line and from the field! Zing! See what I did there? Get it? No? Okay, me either.
Really, the story of the Wildcats 77-51 victory was the ejection of Solomon Hill a few minutes into the second half and the subsequent 20-2 run that Arizona mounted, ironically, to put the game away.
At the 18:14 mark of the second half with the score reading 35-30 in favor of the Cats, Hill inexplicably landed what appeared to be an intentional elbow into the back of Utah G Cedric Martin’s head. After several minutes of confusion, the referees ruled it a Flagrant 2 which meant that Hill would have to watch the rest of the game from the locker room. The scenario was this: a relatively close score, the already struggling Wildcats just lost their best player for the rest of the game, the home team Utes now have the adrenaline pumping and all of the reason in the world to gut it out and make Arizona pay for an ostensibly very unsportsmanlike play. The script is supposed to read that Utes rally around Martin and hand the Wildcats a loss that puts a nail in their proverbial NCAA tournament hopes coffin, right?
For whatever reason, what transpired over the next six minutes was pretty much the polar opposite of that scenario. After a pair of free throws that were awarded as a result of the Flagrant 2, Sean Miller’s team stepped up and delivered a knock-out blow (too soon? maybe) with a 20-2 run to put the game well out of reach. A pair of F Jason Washburn free throws with 12:15 left in the game snapped that run and cut the Wildcat lead to 55-36. However, the Wildcats wouldn’t even need to add to that score for the rest of the game as Utah (ranked 336th in NCAA basketball, offensively) was barely able to crack the L-note mark.
Random Game Thoughts/Notes:
– I wonder if Hill will face any further sanctions by either Miller or the Pac 12 office. I sincerely hope not because the Cats have no room for error against Colorado. Miller said Friday that Hill’s elbow was retaliation to a “similar blow” he had earlier endured but I call BS on that, not because it didn’t happen, but because everybody knows that in sports that the refs always catch the guy who reacts. Hill should’ve known better and probably deserves to be suspended just out of the shear stupidity and lack of maturity he displayed.
– Who is Jason Washburn and why do the Wildcats make every opposing post player look like the next Kareem Abdul-Jabbar?
– Angelo Chol stinks. He needs minutes because he’s a freshman, I know…but he plays the worst post defense I’ve seen in a long time. Yes, even worse than Kyryl.
– It was nice to see Jordin Mayes get some run (22 minutes) but man he just looks totally disinterested sometimes, doesn’t he?
– Hill’s elbow reminded me immediately of Eugene Edgerson’s fateful elbow that ended BYU C Bret Jepsen’s season back in 1998. Totally uncalled for and extremely embarrassing.
– Josiah Turner had a nice game. Just one TO in 25 minutes. Not too shabby. He wasn’t trying to force things as much, that was good to see. Then again, Utah might be the worst Pac 10/12 team in a long, long time.
– If Utah, USC, and ITT-Tempe combined their rosters and took the best 12 guys, they’d still be the worst team in the league. I’m not even joking.
– Joe Lunardi sucks. No reason in particular, it’s just something that needs to be said as often as possible.
– The Cats are 13-6 and probably need to go at least 8-4 or 9-3 before heading into the conference tournament to have any shot at making the Big Dance. It’s not lookin’ good for this year, gentlemen.