Arizona Basketball comes close but falls to Alabama in a nailbiter

Arizona Basketball traveled to the deep south to take on Avery Johnson’s Alabama Tide for another challenge before conference play.

If you watched the first four minutes of this game between the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Arizona Basketball team, you would have sighed a breath of relief. Chase Jeter was dominating the paint and Brandon Williams hit a sweet three. Both coaches, Avery Johnson, and Sean Miller called several time-outs to adjust. Johnson came out the victor with a 23-2 run, his Tide couldn’t miss a shot while the Wildcats went stone cold.

Behind 33-14, the Cats backs were against the wall in Justin Coleman‘s backyard. Coleman started his college career at Alabama (his home state) then transferred to Stamford, then to Arizona. Miller decided the paint was going to be the difference and Brandon Randolph broke the freeze with a layup followed by Jeter. Jeter took his 2nd charge of the game and 15th of the season. He sees the play coming, and he is so good at drawing charges.

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Randolph proved that he has the Eurostep down, Randolph was starting to get into his groove. Gotta think Miller pointed to him in the huddle. With 4:49 left in the first half, Alabama was still ahead 37-22. Arizona made five of their last seven. Ryan Luther set a solid screen which gave Slim (Randolph) time and enough space to hit a three, his first in six attempts. The Cats were 11-36 at this point in the game, 3-11 from three. Then 3-13.

Justin Coleman, who had 21 family and friends in the stands was playing defense well, but couldn’t get his shot to drop. He didn’t give up and neither did the Cats. Williams hit a huge three which brought the Cats within single digits, 30-39 as Bama missed eight of their last nine shots.

Halftime adjustments need to be made but Arizona was still in it, Bama was favored by three. “You can’t count this team out no matter how bad they are playing. They always seem to battle back,” commented our Contributor Jordan Cuda.

The ESPN announcers were back at it at halftime with nothing to say about Arizona basically.

It may just be me, but I did not see the energy on rebounding, those second-chance points can win games. I wanted to see Williams score more.

I got my wish. Williams drove to the basket and scored an easy layup followed up by a quick Jeter slam dunk and just like that, Arizona came within three points, 36-39 which resulted in Johnson calling a timeout. And just like I called it, haha, Williams turned on the burners, he went 5-8 and 4-6 from three to score 14 points with 15:35 left in the game and Arizona trailed by two, 47-45.

These two plays were sweet down the stretch:

Williams had the hot hand along with Jeter. Chase made a brilliant play when the Cats found themselves down by like six points. He shot the ball and missed down low, he grabbed the rebound, went back up made the shot, got fouled and made the free throw. Then Slim hit a two and Justin got his first basket on a goaltending call.

Arizona gained the lead back with 9:55 left, Akot drew a foul and made both free throws. Arizona 55, Alabama 53.

The two teams tied it up at 64 with 3:05 to go as ironically the Tide hadn’t scored for 3:05.

Back and forth they played until Miller used his last time out with 29.1 seconds to go. Alabama had 14 seconds on the shot clock, Arizona needed a top and a basket ASAP! But Alabama would hit a three putting them up by five, 73-68, 12.2 seconds left in the game. Cardiac Cats moment.

SLIM! Randolph hit a huge three-pointer and with seven seconds left, and two made free-throws by Alabama, Avery called a timeout. Arizona down three, 71-74, ironically the point spread, Arizona had time to tie up the game. But if they go for two and then foul again, they also had a chance.

Johnson decided to force Arizona to throw free-throws, and Coleman made both. Arizona down one, 74-73 with 3.6 seconds left. Coleman fouled Bama immediately forcing fouls.

Kira Lewis Jr. made back-to-back three and then had to make both free-throws. He did and made it a three-point game again. Zona couldn’t get the ball to the basket and ran out of time coming up short losing their third game, a heart-breaker, 76-73.

You could say this game came down to free-throws, Arizona only shot nine making 6-9, but Alabama shot 28 free-throws making 16-28. What a huge difference, makes you wonder because this cannot reflect reality. So Arizona fouled Alabama three times as much? Miller didn’t blame the referees.

Miller, post game with Brian Jeffries, focused on defensive rebounds, that players have to increase their production and effort. The 11 turnovers were good even though five of them were Coleman’s. Miller blames the slow transition in the first half second shots from Alabama when they needed them. Miller gave his team and coaching staff an “F” on defense, specifically on “horrendous” ball screens and details.

The Cats lost by three points and got an “F”? Well then they can only get better. He wants guys to get back on transition, more communication and to block out. He mentioned that he saw missed traps in the low post as well which is what he prides his coaching on.

Miller also talked about how not being able to have consecutive practices hurt his team, “There’s always certain pockets of the season where you can’t practice five or six games in a row and then play in a game — our practices have been less over the last 7-14 days. It finally did us in.” He wishes he could have had more practices.

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Four ties and five lead changes, the game could have gone either way, unfortunately, the Cats fell on the wrong side of the scoreboard and go home 7-3. Valiant effort and the lessons learned will help in conference play. I love the fight in this team, they never gave up, and maybe coaching strategy lost this game as Miller never pulled Devonaire Doutrive off the bench. Could have helped with energy if nothing else.

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