Arizona Basketball picked as an 11-seed in early Bracketology

Already gearing up for next season, early season outlooks have the Arizona Basketball team seeded No. 11 in the latest bracketology for 2020.

It’s never to early to get hyped for another season of college basketball, and after an uncharacteristic year for the Arizona Basketball team, fans are chomping at the bit to fast forward to 2019-2020!

Forget 2018-19, the difficult 17-15 (8-10) season was an anomaly. Sure, we can blame the FBI investigation, ESPN, injuries, etc. whatever the issue, it was an unprecedented year to say the least.

Arizona Wildcats

Luckily, that all looks to be a thing of the past!

So why be so optimistic? Well, for those that may still be unaware by now, the Wildcats will be adding the No. 1 recruiting class for 2019, and should return a solid corp of players.

That should provide enough talent for Arizona to turn things around quickly, and in a significant way too!

So with that said, it’s never too early to start thinking ahead to next year.

While our fans are surely excited about the potential return to prominence, perhaps the national media isn’t so sold on our Cats.

As Virginia wrapped up their first National Championship on Monday evening, ESPN broke out their ‘way too early’ Bracketology (created by ESPN Analyst Joe Lunardi) for 2020.

Well from early indications, things don’t look so promising to the outside observer apparently. No, in the ever-so-popular Bracketology breakdown by Lunardi, the ESPN analyst has the Wildcats currently as an 11-seed in the National Tournament, projected to play the play-in game against Virginia Tech to begin the tournament. The projected winner of that game would go on to play No. 6 Maryland in the next round.

Fair? I don’t know. I know we may all be a little biased here, but seems a little low. Especially for a team that will likely return their three, top scorers.

This of course overshadowed by the monstrous recruiting class! To recap, Arizona will bring in the No. 1 point guard on the West Coast in Nico Mannion, the No. 2 Small Forward in the class in Josh Green, the No. 35 overall player in Zeke Nnaji and a dynamic scorer and athlete in Terry Armstrong along with center Christian Koloko.

Assuming there are no major transfers at this point, this will perhaps be the deepest team that Sean Miller and the Wildcats have had in quite some time.

The Pac-12 should once again be competitive in 2019-20, but I can’t see any scenario where Arizona isn’t a strong contender next year. The talent is too good for the Cats to be an 11-seed.

If Arizona brings in the talent stated above, the Wildcats finishing as an 11-seed would be a major disappointment.

At Zona Zealots, we’re anxious to see how the Cats perform in 2019-20 and feel we could have another special group that will make for an exciting, college basketball season! As always, Bear Down, Arizona!