Arizona Basketball predicted to finish 9th in the Pac-12

With the 2021-22 Arizona Basketball season just around the corner, Mercury News writer Jon Wilner picks the Wildcats to finish 9th in the Pac-12. 

It has been a wild couple of months for Arizona Basketball as the Wildcats have gone through numerous staffing and coaching changes, most namely with the replacement of longtime head coach, Sean Miller.

However, coming in is longtime Gonzaga assistant Tommy Lloyd to take over a talented group that seemingly exceeded expectations last year, finishing 17-9 (11-9) en route to a fifth-place finish in the Pac-12.

Arizona Wildcats

Nonetheless, with so much change and roster turnover in just a matter of months, naturally, that would leave numerous skeptics about the state of the program and the team.

So with the season still months away, Jon Wilner may be one of the biggest skeptics of Arizona Basketball picking the Cats to finish 9th.

Typically a balanced and unbiased writer, Wilner often tells it likes it is, however, in his latest article in which he previewed the upcoming Pac-12 Basketball season, it seems he may have missed the mark in his breakdown of the Conference.

Coming in at No. 1 was UCLA, followed by Oregon and USC. But from No. 4 and No. 8 are Oregon State, Washington State, Colorado, ASU, and then Utah respectively. Pretty preposterous list if you ask me.

Now, this isn’t to say I think Arizona Basketball will be the best team in the conference or will compete for a national championship, however, I think that Wilner severely undersells the team.

What he failed to highlight was the amount of production the Wildcats return in 2021-22, even omitting Azuolas Tubelis from his list of impact players returning for Arizona. He also seemed to have not considered the potential impacts of Ben Mathurin or Oumar Ballo who had solid showings at the FIBA U19 Tournament.

Outside of that, Arizona added Pelle Larsson from Utah and brought in Georgia graduate transfer, Justin Kier. Maybe this isn’t a group that contends for a conference title, however, they are also not finishing in the bottom quarter of the conference either.