Shooting woes continue for Arizona Basketball in loss to UCLA

LOS ANGELES, CA- Southern California was not friendly for the Arizona Basketball team as the Wildcats dropped their second game of the trip to UCLA.

Thank goodness that road trip is over. It was a rough weekend for Arizona Basketball, as we got a real wake up call without the presence of Chase Jeter against UCLA or USC.

Coming off a lopsided loss to USC just a few nights ago, things weren’t much better on Saturday evening as the Wildcats dropped their second-straight game against UCLA by a 90-69 final.

Arizona Wildcats

Ice cold is how I would breakdown the SoCal trip. In the games versus USC on Thursday, Arizona shot just a whopping 27.8 percent from the field.

On Saturday, still without Jeter, things were more of the same for Arizona, as the Cats connected on 33.3 percent of their attempts from the field. Even worse was that the Wildcats were 8-26 from beyond the arc.

We can definitely cite the absence of Jeter for the poor play, but the truth is, it’s just an excuse. This is essentially the same group that beat Oregon State at home just a week ago, as they were red hot from the field.

The major difference? Shooting!

From the tip, the Wildcats pretty much trailed and were never able to fully recover. Down 22-15, the Bruins would go on a 16-10 run to end the half, leading 38-25 at the break.

Things wouldn’t look much better in the second half either. The poor shooting still a problem, and UCLA was able to absolutely take it to the Wildcats, pacing themselves to the 21-point win.

Perhaps it the poor performance can be attributed to the ongoing distractions this past week as to whether Jeter would be available or not, as well as Miller being largely unavailable due to illness.

Regardless, what we saw this week was not Arizona Basketball… at least not what we’re used to.

However, to some degree, this is what we should have expected from this group this season.

That’s not a defeatist attitude, let’s just look at some of the simple facts here.

Gone from the 2017-18 squad are; former No. 1 pick Deandre Ayton, Allonzo Trier, Dusan Ristic, Parker Jackson-Cartwright and Rawle Alkins.

However, coming in to replace them was a pieced-together class that was highlighted by Brandon Williams. Outside of that, the Wildcats had to rely mostly on the grad transfer route, bringing in Justin Coleman and Ryan Luther.

To make matter worse this week, is that Jeter has been out the last couple games due to injury, and the transfer of Emmanuel Akot is looking more and more impactful in a negative way.

The bottom line is, this is far from Arizona’s best team we’ve had on the court.

Blame Sean Miller if you will, but I think we should agree in why Arizona’s recruiting was affected last off-season. Personally, I think it’s a damn miracle the team even has 14 wins at this point in the season. Moreover, this just shows how extremely high expectations our fans have every year.

With the loss, the Wildcats drop to 14-7 (5-3) on the year, and things get pretty tight from here on out, especially if Jeter is still unavailable.

The Wildcats will travel to Tempe this Thursday to take on rival ASU, who has been pretty tough at home this season. After that, Arizona will take on the Pac-12 leading Washington Huskies in Tucson the following week, with Washington State due up after that.

Moving forward, Arizona has to do a better job of shooting, and distributing well enough to give guys good looks. From what I saw, we had some good looks versus USC, but couldn’t connect, and a bit of the same against UCLA.

Listen to coach Miller following the loss to the Bruins:

The losses suck, but remember the reasonable expectations should be a bit down this year, and the team needs our support now more than ever.

At Zona Zealots, we’re bummed, but understand the circumstances. Hopefully, Jeter can come back healthy next week and the Cats can get back into the win column. Bear Down, Arizona!