Arizona Basketball: Wildcats not playing in March Madness and NIT, should fans be worried?
By David Rosen
The Arizona Wildcats basketball season is officially over with the latest NCAA Tournament and NIT bracket being announced.
The 2018-19 Arizona Wildcats basketball season is now officially in the books as both the NCAA Tournament field of 64 and NIT field of 32 were announced and Arizona isn’t in either. This doesn’t come as a surprise as they had to win the Pac-12 Tournament to have any chance of extending their post season. That didn’t happen of course and now we have to wait at least six months before the 2019-20 basketball season begins.
This season was a disappointment for sure, but lets be real here expectations were low heading into this season. Nothing to take away from those teams in the non-conference and conference schedule that beat the Wildcats, but this wasn’t one of their best teams. Injuries and lack of athleticism compared to previous season were some of the reasons why.
Not making the NCAA Tournament or even the NIT is not something Wildcat fans should be worried about. Yes, it will be weird for most not seeing this team play in March in some capacity. But sooner or later this was going to happen with the landscape of college basketball changing. We have to accept the fact that this is just one chapter in Wildcat back that is now closed and we can look ahead to exciting bright future of this program.
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Of course you will have those who feel that not making the post season is something to be worried about and place the blame on Coach Sean Miller. How is it his fault? I will never understand this argument. As a coach, one can only do so much because at the end of the day its the players on the court that decide that ultimate outcome of the game.
Making to the field of 64, going to the final four and then winning a national championship requires a lot of skill, but also a lot of luck. Even if this year’s team made it into the NCAA Tournament, how far could they have actually have gone? Maybe 1 or 2 games or maybe the whole way, who knows? The point is for what this team went through this seams, fans should be proud of the season they had.
Another interesting way this season can be put into perspective is the Wildcats went 2-8 against those teams that made the tournament. Those two wins were against Montana and Iowa St (who went onto become Big12 Champions). The other six losses were to all the Pac-12 teams, Washington, Oregon and ASU that made the tournament (technically ASU is in the play-in game).
The Arizona Wildcats basketball season is over, but there are still ways to follow all the action while having fun at the same time. Sports Illustrated Realtime Brackets is the first bracket game that lets college basketball fans switch their picks, in exchange for points, between and during live tournament games to keep their brackets alive all month long. Sign up now!
Must Read. Arizona Basketball: Why Sean Miller should remain as head coach. light
At Zona Zealots, once next season begins, Wildcat fans can put all their worries behind them, forget about this past season and look forward to this program getting back to where the belong, at the top. Bear Down, Arizona!