Arizona Basketball team focused amid FBI probe, folks need to chill

Arizona President Robbins and AD Heeke request us all to focus on the Arizona Basketball team and basketball and why not, nothing else we can do at this point but wait.

Arizona Basketball fans are frustrated, worried, upset, praying, and hoping everything works out for the program to move forward, not just this season but in the future starting with the 2018 class.

Today two of the Arizona Basketball players and their coach spoke to the media, both Dusan Ristic and Allonzo Trier showed solidarity and team focus amid media attacks and fan concern.

Before the press conference, five notable things happened. First Sean Miller released a statement, then Arizona AD Dave Heeke published a statement, then the biggest deal was when Arizona President Robbins released his statement supporting Sean Miller. Next, it seems Arizona is preparing a claim against the $150,000 alleged future payment piece of the FBI allegations offered to a recruit. But Nassir Little’s dad refuted the claims publicly on Twitter.

President Robbins came out in support of Head Coach Sean Miller, “Head coach Sean Miller has not been charged with — nor accused of — any misconduct and he has been fully cooperative and supportive of our efforts to determine the facts in pursuit of the truth. In a message that he shared with the community earlier today, Sean expressed his own devastation at the revelations last week and acknowledged his responsibility as the head coach to promote and reinforce a culture of compliance. Based on the facts that we know at this time, we support Coach Miller and intend to provide him with all of the tools necessary to meet our goals and expectations.”

Arizona Wildcats Basketball

Robbins also asked fans to support the team, “The tremendous young men in our basketball program deserve our continued support as they work towards the start of the season, and I have complete faith that our passionate fans will continue to show them our love.”

Also, Robbins outlined the actions he is taking and more in his Wildcat Wednesday email. He hired lawyers to work with the FBI, lawyers to work with the NCAA, he fired Emmanuel Richardson after consulting with the NCAA and the Pac-12. “Upon learning of the indictment,” wrote Robbins, “We immediately consulted with the Office of the General Counsel and engaged in communications with officials from both the NCAA and PAC-12 Conference.”

Finally, Brandon Williams solidified his commitment to Arizona and Shareef O’Neal is telling people basically not to jump to conclusions about his commitment (have to read between the lines) amid rumors that he is going with his best buddy Bol Bol to visit Kentucky and has an offer.

https://twitter.com/TheeBWill/status/914916507301306370

When the press conference today was first announced, it included PJC (Parker Jackson-Cartwright) and Allonzo Trier, but later it was changed to include Dusan Ristic instead of PJC. Media have been thirsty for something to write and some like David Kelly went at the program a bit.

Follow this thread for some interesting insights and arguments on whether the players and the coach should entertain anything besides basketball questions:

Miller started the presser with a statement backing his earlier statement. He also is looking forward to and planning for a season with this team.

Miller spoke about Ristic, a senior, who has been through a lot of big games in his three years at Arizona getting past the language barrier and is set for a great season. Then he spoke about Trier, and he hopes he gets a start to finish season this year. Trier talked about how the team is dealing with this new situation, “Just us coming together. Understanding it’s a tough situation, it’s a little bit of adversity, but it will help us get stronger, and maybe help us closer together, Just try to be a leader and focus on what we can control. And that’s and how much better we can get now that practice starting. And try to lead this off to be the best year we can have.”

Heeke spoke at the press conference and once again threw his support behind Sean Miller.

Here is the press conference in full:

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If the FBI is looking deep into all schools, Nike, Adidas and more, they are bound, in our opinion, to find out that all top schools have some shady things going on as suggested by past players in the media like Jay Bilas. Until these investigations are over, we will not know how deep into the NCAA these types of things permeate, and how many other top schools are implicated or are just really good at hiding things. So for the sake of the team and your own sanity, we all should just chill out, support the team, think positively and pray hard for everyone involved. Focus on basketball for now.