TUCSON, AZ- A season marred by distractions and adversity, the 2018-19 Arizona Basketball regular season ends with disheartening loss to ASU.
A season perhaps destined for struggles, the regular season came to a rather disheartening end as the Arizona Basketball team fell on Saturday to rival ASU on Senior day.
It’s been an usually rough year for Arizona. For just the fifth time in the last 30 years, the Wildcats finished the year with 13 losses or more.
Arizona Wildcats
A team that was essentially patched together after the false and disastrous story ran by ESPN, Sean Miller and the Wildcats had to put a band-aid on the team, hoping to put together a serviceable group of players for the 2018-19 season.
While the team started fairly hot at 14-5 (5-1) on the year, however, an unfortunate series of events and injuries to Chase Jeter and Brandon Williams, cause the team to then lose an uncharacteristic seven-straight games, all but sealing the fate on the year.
However, just as the Wildcats always tend to do, they responded in a big way, by winning three-straight games!
Then a tough loss to Oregon last week could all but be remedied by a win on senior night in Tucson against hated rival, ASU.
In front of a raucous and energized crowd, the Wildcats opened the game on Saturday afternoon with a 23-17 lead.
Then the cold offensive stretch started as the whistles became more prevalent from the refs, and the Wildcats were outscored 16-10 down the stretch to enter halftime tied 33-33.
Needing a big half to hopefully send the seniors off on a high note, the Cats got into foul trouble quickly and never seemingly recovered. First Williams fouled out with 13 minutes to go, then Justin Coleman fouled out with 5:07 to play, and that was basically it.
ASU would essentially run away with this one, winning 72-64 in rare fashion in Tucson.
Final from McKale:
— Arizona Basketball (@ArizonaMBB) March 9, 2019
ASU 72
Arizona 64
Thank you to our great fans for all your support throughout the regular season. Thanks to you, we led the conference in attendance for the 35th straight year. #APlayersProgram
Ryan Luther would finish the game with a team-high 12 points, but couldn’t capitalize on the big stage, converting on just 2-9 from three.
Turnovers, fouls and long stretches of poor shooting and offensive inefficiencies ultimately doomed the Cats in this one. With the loss, Arizona drops to 17-14 (8-10), their worst season since Millers’ first season in Tucson.
Following the game, it was an emotional for Miller as he thanked the fans for being supportive throughout the year, saying “it has been an amazing honor to coach in McKale Center for the last 10 years.”
https://twitter.com/AZATHLETICS/status/1104529549591633920
From here, the Wildcats will enter the Pac-12 Tournament as the No. 9 seed and will face USC on Wednesday to begin the conference tournament.
At Zona Zealots, we’re bummed for the way things ended this year, but can’t thank the team and Miller enough for still going out there and competing! Bear Down, Arizona!