Arizona Basketball: The need for more guard usage

College Basketball is an evolving game, and as a coach you need to get with the times or get left behind, and for Arizona Basketball that couldn’t be any truer.

I know this may not coming as a surprise to many people, but College Basketball is a constantly changing and evolving game. For Sean Miller and Arizona Basketball, that is certainly true as we’ve seen this program go through numerous changes over the years.

Since coming to Tucson, Miller brought a toughness and defensive focus that was seemingly absent prior to his arrival. Adversely, since his arrival, Miller’s offenses haven’t quite stacked up to some of the better offensive teams under Lute Olson.

Arizona Wildcats

So what does Arizona need to do in order to remain as one of the best programs in the country? Well yes in short, good offensive play, but in order to achieve that, I feel that is dependent on strong guard play.

Need a reminder? Well, during some of Arizona’s most successful seasons, one thing I noticed was strong guard play. Whether it was the 1996-97 Championship season or the 1993-94 Final Four, etc. Arizona has had strong guard play from players like; Mike Bibby, Miles Simon, Jason Terry, Khalid Reeves, Damon Stoudamire and Gilbert Arenas among numerous others.

Heck, even Miller’s best teams at Arizona have had good guard play. And for other NCAA Champions over the years, it seems as if guard play has always been the constant theme as well.

With basketball moving to be more “positionless”, and line-ups becoming smaller, it’s abundantly clear guard play is what’s going to be valued in the future, and in my opinion, it would be wise to see Arizona invest in developing and having strong guards on their roster for the future.

Here’s the guards Arizona will have for this upcoming season:

PG- Kerr Kriisa (FR – 6’2” 170)

PG- James Akinjo (RS SO – 6’0” 160)

SG- Jemarl Baker (RS JR – 6’4” 200)

SG- Terrell Brown (SR – 6’2” 175)

That’s also not including players like Dalen Terry or Ben Mathurin who are wings that could play in some sort of combo guard capacity.

This could turn out to be a solid group, but the verdict is still out, and we will see. Nonetheless, we are excited to see Arizona and Miller possibly changing their strategy in order to use more guards!