Arizona Basketball head coach Sean Miller gave a lot of insight to the media in a long press conference on Monday. One thing is for sure, he knows it’s all about winning, make no mistake about that.
Arizona Basketball and Football fans have come into the 2018-2019 season with high hopes. First disappointed by the Arizona coaching staff, taking what was mostly an intact team that performed at a high level last season and shook up everything which resulted in not protecting their Heisman Trophy-contending quarterback early in the season.
What most Wildcats fans say when the football team isn’t performing to expectations, is, “Well we always have basketball.” Thanks to the FBI Investigation and ESPN, getting a high level recruiting class this season was difficult, to say the least. When Brandon Williams, the bright spot in his current lineup per Miller, recommitted, that helped other recruits commit to coming to Tucson.
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Painful as it was, and believe me, I was at both games, the Wildcats did not turn the ball over very much, and they caused turnovers. Three stats killed them. They were outrebounded, they missed key free throws, and their shot percentage was in the dog house in both games. If their shots were dropping like their opponents, they were in both games.
Miller is hoping that last years bench players step up and get their confidence back that they had at the beginning of the season. Not having Chase Jeter in the lineup has hurt the Wildcats as well. As one of the leaders of the team along with his height and ability to rebound and put back the ball, his presence was missed by his teammates.
It was extremely obvious that Arizona’s lack of big men hurts when your shots don’t drop.
Team chemistry is also important but also who is playing in the rotation is also important.
If you have been watching the Lakers lately, they have dropped off from the level they were playing at when LeBron James, Rajon Rondo, Lonzo Ball and now Kyle Kuzma are out injured (Rondo has come back recently.) Luke Walton’s young players Josh Hart and Ivica Zubac have excelled in the veteran’s place, and Lance Stephenson has shown what he is capable, but the team just isn’t winning that often recently.
In today’s press conference, Sean Miller was asked about the toughest part coaching A Player Program. He reminded us he lost seven players from the rotation from last season and then answered, “You know I think just to a win, to win every game. It’s not okay to lose, isn’t, that’s all part of it — losing is not fun for anybody, I’m no exception.”
Miller was also asked about breaking the zone, “There is a fine line on whether you throw it to whoever that is in the middle — but being able to get the ball to the middle and then out creates that opportunity — a number of our best options whether we made or missed a shot this past week happened with that kind of inside out movement, and then it’s just up to us to take advantage of it.” The zone wasn’t the problem last week, the problem was, once again, the shots the team took didn’t fall.
With regards to shooting struggles, Miller thinks confidence is a big part of the issue. That sometimes you are hot or not, and they have had great shooting nights. Last season they had a better shooting team, “Last years team shot 50% or higher on the season.” He said there are few teams, even under Lute Olson that were a 50% or better shooting team.
Miller wants the past to be left in the past and he is hoping that the Wildcats play their best ball in Vegas to win the Pac-12 Championship and that they end up only having to play three games and not four. He hopes the team makes it a magical run. All fans can do right now is support the team, that is what fans are supposed to do.