Arizona Basketball: Wildcats fans call out haters, call them bandwagon fans

When an Arizona Basketball team loses seven straight games, fans will lose their darn minds, and that is expected for a storied program. But are you a bandwagon fan?

Yeah, it’s been a rough season for Arizona Basketball and Sean Miller. ESPN fulfilled part of its mission to bring down the program to benefit ASU’s head coach Bobby Hurley, Arizona is indeed having a rough time of it, although losing the last two games by single digits is not Armageddon, a lot of fans on Twitter have thrown a ton of hate and disappointment out into the ether.

If you are wondering why we say that ESPN wanted to help Bobby Hurley, it’s because Dick Vitale hinted at that on a live Twitter broadcast we were a part of. We caught the tail end of his raving about Bobby Hurley, then he saw we joined and mentioned us by name, “Oh! Zona Zealots just joined, I better get off now because I have been on a while, gotta go.” That was the gist of it, and it became so clear at that time that was his motivation. He’s still asking us to get upset and call for Sean Miller’s firing while at the same time pushing Rick Pitino to be hired again in the NCAA.

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One of our most prolific writers, David Rosen, posted a supportive Tweet for the Arizona Basketball team which included a picture of John Button’s bust:

"For so many years we have been spoiled as @APlayersProgram fans. Pac-12 championships, consecutive postseason appearances, great athletes. Yet we have 1 bad season & all the haters come out. Let the haters hate. True fans know this is just a bump in the road."

The reaction was mixed by the majority of fans who commented were positive saying things like, “There’s only one thing to do. Say it with me… #BearDown !!” And, “just a bump. We who love our Cats are fine,” along with a couple folks who just said they agreed.

Then are those fans that likened the Arizona Basketball program to the Hindenburg while others are posting Tweets with the hashtag #FireSeanMiller along with the reasons which include a predictable offense and defense, that he hasn’t gotten to a final four, and that he has had great talent but hasn’t developed the players enough for a good run in the tournament. Most of these reactions came as the recruiting class started de-committing last season to be fair, but there are a lot of discussions in closed chat rooms on Facebook as well.

Let’s be honest. Miller not only fired Emmanuel Richardson (Book), he recently had to fire Mark Phelps.  Miller was most successful when he had these two coaches on the bench with him along with Joseph Blair. Former players have expressed their affinity for these coaches, and Book and

Phelps did a ton of the recruiting. It seemed to me things fell apart for players when Book was fired because he always pumped them up on the sidelines. He never let a player come out of a game and just sit, you always saw Miller play bad cop then Book come along and pump up the player after. Phelps played a huge role in recruiting huge targets, and without him, so he deserves credit for scouting and recruiting.

Things have not been the same in the program, and injuries over the last two seasons have not helped as well. Add on the FBI investigation and ESPN badgering, it’s a wonder at all how Sean Miller continues to coach the team.

There seems to be a disagreement with what constitutes a “Fan” of a team. Can you be critical and still be a fan? Can you be a hater and still be a fan? If you are a homer, are you a fan in denial? There are so many thoughts on the subject. What stood out to us was what the @ArizonaNBA Twitter account posted, they pulled out all the stops and told haters to not come back next season, called them bandwagon fans.

We all thought that was great at ZonaZealots, but not for the reasons you might think but because we are staunchly not in favor of putting down players having a bad go of it. Making constructive suggestions for improvement, that might help a ton more. I have not seen a player get better when fans hate on him or her. Put yourself in their place. Yes, we have expectations to win, but if they are not complacent and they show they hate to lose, they are feeling the same way as you are.

Perhaps this fan got it right?

Or this one:

We don’t know if this was why, but at the beginning of the season, Dylan Smith caught a lot of hate on Twitter, and he responded, then took his account down which is really sad because he was so active and made it more fun for fans. He points out that his team has held teams down to 50 or 60 points, but Colorado’s big runs did the Cats in. He played really well against the Buffs and feels getting Brandon Williams back would help.

No one can dictate what kind of fan you want to be, there are no judgments here. We also are mixed on the head coaching situation as some of us would like to see more variations in offense and defense, maybe play all the players. We just wish that fans would not hate so much but rather express dissapointment and support the players who probably will become even better next season. Bear Down for life!