The stakes have been raised since the last Washington game.
Photo by Chris Morrison-US PRESSWIRE

It wasn’t easy at home but the Arizona Wildcats took care of business against Colorado and Utah. Two wins were needed; two wins were recorded.

Next up is a trip to the state of Washington with first place on the line. These are the games you look forward to as a fan. Big stakes mean big fun.

And big anxiety.

The Colorado game was a solid bit of revenge making up for a close road loss earlier in the year. The Utah game was not that.

No, the win over the Utes wasn’t pretty. It didn’t even have a “nice personality.” Each of Sean Miller’s strong words was appropriate.

One sliver of beauty was the performance of the three UA freshmen who make up 43% of the player rotation. Nick Johnson had 18 points on Saturday, his most in a month, and he made 11-of-13 free throws (85%) over the weekend. Josiah Turner dished out a season-high seven assists against Utah. Angelo Chol had eight points and four blocked shots in the two games. These guys are getting better, rising to the challenge and making significant contributions.

As a result they get to spend another week playing as a contender and they now get to go toe-to-toe with another contender.

It’s why you come to play basketball at Arizona. Last year’s championship rookies can use that experience to prepare them for this week. This year’s new guys will be able to take whatever they learn from these next two games and use it the rest of their careers.

As part of that learning experience it’s good that the Washington State game comes first. Pac-12 weekends are a single war broken into two battles. Winning one only gets the job half done (as the Cats came oh-so-close to proving against Utah). You can’t tie Washington in the standings if you don’t first beat Wazzu.

In the same way it’s a taste of what preparing for an NCAA tournament weekend is like. Even if the bracket shows a matchup with the #1 seed in the next round, you can’t ignore the 5- or 8-seed right in front of you.

It’s counterintuitive but the WSU game is the most important one this week. Beating the Huskies would be great but beating the Cougars is crucial. Even sitting a game out of first place, two losses could put the UA right back on the wrong side of the NCAA tournament bubble. When your team is razor thin you constantly live on the razor’s edge.

And that’s where the fan anxiety comes in. We The People have our hopes nice and high and we’ve opened ourselves up to getting our hearts broken the week of Valentine’s Day.

An entire spectrum of fan emotions is possible this week. The euphoria of winning both (Bay Area sweep part II!), the status quo of winning one (Ho-hum L.A. split!), or the terror of critical losses (90% of the Utah game!).

This is where it’s good to remember it’s much better to have a shot at something big and come up short than to be irrelevant the entire year. It’s also worth noting that with the current four-game streak the Wildcats locked up a winning season for the 28th straight year. That’s a lot of shots at a lot of big things.

Arizona has an impressive 6-3 road record. The only other team in the Pac-12 with a winning mark away from home this year is Oregon at 5-4. This team has done it before, just with a different kind of pressure.

Thursday night is a huge road game. Win that and you get another huge one two days later.

That anxiousness building in your stomach?

That’s the fun.

- – - – -

Scott Terrell has already started pacing. Burn that energy on Twitter and Facebook.

Someone other than Kevin Parrom will have to take this shot. And it has to go in this time.
Photo by Ron Chenoy-US PRESSWIRE

Life is more interesting when your team is in the March Madness conversation. Arizona Wildcats fans have a little more pep in their college basketball step as they prepare for this week’s games.

Washington stands alone atop the Pac-12 standings but will the Huskies’ path be as clear after a night on the blurry floor of the Matthew Knight Arena?

TWIT-Pac salutes Fox Sports for stepping up with a nice selection of games this week. Here is the plump TV schedule (all times Arizona/Mountain):

CSN NW = Comcast SportsNet Northwest
FSAZ = Fox Sports Arizona
FSN = Fox Sports Net
PT = Prime Ticket
ROOT NW = Root Sports Northwest

Thu. Feb. 9

Utah (5-18 / 2-9) at ASU (7-16 / 3-8)
This is the Utes’ last realistic chance at a win. Maybe they’ll break out the Rick Majerus Memorial Triangle-and-Two.

Colorado (16-7 / 8-3) at ARIZONA (16-8 / 7-4)
Colorado’s last two road losses were by a combined 37 points. The Cats need to shoot well early, get the McKale crowd going and make the Buffaloes dream of Tempe.

WSU (12-11 / 4-7) at OSU (15-8 / 5-6)
The Beavers have won four of their last five. Root for them to take this one and keep the momentum going into the Washington game.

Cal (18-6 / 8-3) at USC (6-18 / 1-10)
Cal bounced back after the Arizona loss by beating ASU by 21, but that’s not much of a bounce these days.

Stanford (16-7 / 6-5) at UCLA (13-10 / 6-5)
The Bruins have gone 3-1 the last two weekends with the lone loss a two-point defeat at Washington. They also haven’t lost in league play in their home-games-away-from-home.

Washington (16-7 / 9-2) at Oregon (16-7 / 7-4)
The Pac-12 Game of the Week! The Ducks can get themselves back into the conference race while the Huskies are trying to stiff-arm the competition. The first meeting was a 16-point UW win in Seattle.

Sat. Feb. 11

Utah at ARIZONA
The goal in this one is to put the game away without getting anyone ejected.

Cal at UCLA
Now that the Wildcats are playing for something tangible it’s time to root against the teams ahead of them in the standings. This one would be a Go Bruins!

WSU at Oregon
Wazzu is the only team to lose to both Utah and ASU. USC can’t wait for the rematch.

Colorado at ASU
If Thursday goes well the Cats could use the Devils’ help to completely leapfrog the Buffs.

Sun. Feb. 12

Washington at OSU
OSU has already been a factor in the Pac-12 race with wins over Cal and Oregon. An upset here would make things a free-for-all.

Stanford at USC
Three weeks ago we asked if Stanford’s close victories meant the Cardinal was overrated or simply knew how to win. Four losses in five games later we have our answer.

* * *

Your Arizona Wildcats had the best week of anyone in the Pac-12 (which is why Kyle Fogg is the reigning Player of the Week). Can they keep it going at home and leave the days of .500 basketball behind for good?

After Angelo Chol’s breakout performance I would look long and hard at finding more minutes for a lineup of Josiah Turner, Fogg, Solomon Hill, Jesse Perry and Chol. It’s the closest this team has to a standard lineup and it could free up Hill and Perry to be their best on offense without fouling as much on D.

But with only seven healthy (and productive) players your options are limited.

Keep up the energy, turn up the defensive pressure and the UA’s tournament chances will continue to bubble up.

- – - – -

Scott Terrell thinks things are looking up. Check out the view on Twitter and Facebook.

These Cats boggle the mind.
Photo by Jason O. Watson-US PRESSWIRE

Remember those lowered expectations for Arizona Basketball in 2012? Do you recall coming to terms with the close-but-no-cigar finishes?

Toss it all out with the congealed nacho dip from your Super Bowl party. The Wildcats have brought back optimism in a big way.

After splitting each weekend in the first half of the Pac-12 season the Cats swept what the standings say is the toughest road trip on the schedule. It wasn’t just unlikely; it made zero sense.

Against Cal the UA shot better from 3-point range (64%) than 2-point range (53%) or 1-point range (52%). On Saturday the Wildcats scored 56 points on 38% shooting and beat Stanford by double digits in both categories.

A freshman who didn’t have more than four points in any conference game scored eight against the Bears. A guy who had a total of three blocked shots since Christmas had four against the Cardinal and six for the trip. Angelo Chol is pleased to meet you, Pacific-12 Basketball Conference.

With 3:41 remaining and the score tied Thursday night Arizona forced Cal to miss its final seven field goal attempts with the help of two blocked shots. Two days later Stanford shot 25% for the entire game. A .250 batting average gets you benched even in baseball.

We’ve been waiting all year for a go-to guy to emerge. It turns out the go-to guy is the team defense.

Now, I’m not going to get all Pac-12 championship crazy. I still expect Washington to drop no more than two games the rest of the way which means the Cats would have to run the table (including in Seattle) to share the championship.

But an NCAA tournament at-large bid? It is off the Wish List and back on the To Do List.

The model is last year’s USC squad, a team that finished tied for 4th in the Pac-10 and still made the field of 68. Here’s how those Trojans compare with these Wildcats:

The UA’s RPI number is from last week and will certainly go up after the two wins. The key the rest of the way is to take care of business at home. The good news is the Cats have four of the last seven games at home. The bad news is Arizona currently has a better conference record on the road (4-2) than at McKale (3-2).

Colorado and Utah this week, USC and UCLA at the end of the month. Win those games, take care of Washington State and ASU on the road, budget for one horrible shooting night, and things are looking pretty good at 21-10 (12-6) with seven or eight road wins.

The team embraced and thrived in the underdog role this past weekend. Can these Wildcats adjust to being the favorite in every remaining game except at Washington?

This group’s margin for error has always been thin and it got even thinner with the list of available (and reliable) players being trimmed to seven. It’s not going to help that teams like Colorado will have plenty of prep time to try and exploit Arizona’s two-man bench.

Is there a way to believe your team can make the NCAA tournament without being disappointed if they don’t?

No?

All right then. Bring on the hope, expectation, anxiety and fun.

- – - – -

Scott Terrell is emotionally reinvested. Discuss diversification strategies on Twitter and Facebook.

Will Cal run over the rest of the Pac-12 down the stretch?
Photo by Rob Schumacher/The Arizona Republic

The second half of the initial Pac-12 conference season is about to get underway.

Because of the extra teams (without extra games) you don’t play all the same teams you played in the first half of the year. As we saw in football, the schedule can play a significant role in who makes a run at the championship.

Which school has the advantage among the contenders over the final nine games? And can the Arizona Wildcats fare better against this Pac-12 co-leader than they did against the other one?

TWIT-Pac has bad news if you were hoping to watch a lot of games tonight (or if you were looking to get to bed early). Here is the limited TV schedule (all times Arizona/Mountain):

CSN CA = Comcast SportsNet California
FSN = Fox Sports Net
ROOT NW = Root Sports Northwest
ROOT RM = Root Sports Rocky Mountain

Thu. Feb. 2

Oregon (15-6 / 6-3) at Utah (5-16 / 2-7)
All the Ducks needed to stay atop the Pac-12 standings was to beat Oregon State at home last Sunday. Just another reminder that rivalry games are never easy.

OSU (14-7 / 4-5) at Colorado (14-7 / 6-3)
After suffering a 17-point beating at UCLA, Colorado is happy to be back in its mile-high home.

UCLA (12-9 / 5-4) at Washington (14-7 / 7-2)
Washington acquitted itself well on the road last week to move into a 1st place tie. Can they remain there? Read on!

ASU (7-14 / 3-6) at Stanford (15-6 / 5-4)
The only team happier to be at home than Colorado is the Cardinal. Three straight double-digit road losses have wiped out Stanford’s promising start.

USC (6-16 / 1-8) at WSU (11-10 / 3-6)
Rejoice, Trojans! There will not be an 0-18 team in the Pac-12 this year.

ARIZONA (14-8 / 5-4) at Cal (17-5 / 7-2)
Cal is calling for a “gold out” tonight. Why? Because “yellow out” doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Sat. Feb. 4

ARIZONA at Stanford
No word of an “out” for this one. It may take the Cats a bit to adjust to multi-colored shirts.

ASU at Cal
The Sun Devils exploded for 70 points to beat WSU. Actually, 55 is an explosion for this team so 70 is more like a gamma-ray burst.

OSU at Utah
Thanks to the aforementioned upset in Eugene the Beavers are on a nice little three-game win streak. Utah is trying to forget it lost to USC.

UCLA at WSU
UCLA has been the opposite of Arizona in that every week has been sweep-or-get-swept for the Bruins.

Oregon at Colorado
This is a big one for the two teams starting the week tied for 3rd. Does either have enough to catch the co-leaders? Read just a little bit further!

USC at Washington
Your wait is over. If we assume the Pac-12 champion will come from among the current top four teams, who has the smoothest path to the title? Let’s break down each team’s record and remaining schedule:

You’ll notice another quirk in the new Pac-12 schedule in that some schools play each other twice in the second half of the year. That’s a plus for Washington (USC twice) and Oregon (Utah twice).

But the Ducks have too many home losses already and Colorado has been terrible on the road. That leaves the current co-leaders. If both win out at home Cal has the advantage of Utah as one of its remaining road games. But if the Bears lose at Colorado and the Huskies split on the Oregon Trail (and the leaders have the same result at UCLA) it’s going to come down to each team’s rivalry game.

Cal fans will lament not getting a chance at Washington on their home court because I think that ends up being the difference. I predict the Bears drop the season finale at Stanford to finish at 13-5 while the Huskies go 7-2 on the back nine to finish 14-4 and win the Pac-12 regular season championship.

As for the Wildcats? We talked about the need for the freshman guards to improve over the latter half of the year. It would also help the UA’s long-term aspirations if Solomon Hill continued developing into a force on the offensive end. Expect more close games and root for this team to mature in last-two-minutes scenarios with Hill emerging as a closer.

Halftime is over.

- – - – -

Scott Terrell says get the cheerleaders off the court. Get back to game action on Twitter and Facebook.

The BasketCats got to the rim but couldn’t finish.
Photo by Chris Morrison-US PRESSWIRE

The Arizona Wildcats started the weekend with high hopes on the basketball court and on the football recruiting trail. Both programs had a shot at a big win and took things to the wire.

Close-but-no-cigar times two.

The basketball game was the high-profile event. After an impressive showing on ESPN’s GameDay and an electric atmosphere in prime time the UA hoops team battled back late but came up just short against Washington.

It was certainly a more dramatic weekend than usual but the result fit the script for the season to date. A hot-shooting night produced a comfortable win and the grind-it-out struggle ended with a narrow defeat.

Add it up and Arizona completed the first half of the Pac-12 season without sweeping a single two-game weekend. It’s a great way to find yourself in a three-way tie for 5th place, and to get the fans’ eyes peeking at next year’s schedule.

On the football side, Rich Rodriguez’s whirlwind recruitment of New Jersey quarterback Devin Fuller ended with the touted prospect announcing he would instead attend UCLA.

The hope was that Greg Schiano leaving Rutgers for the NFL was going to be RichRod’s Tim Floyd moment. A sudden coaching change leaves recruits looking at other options and Arizona takes advantage. The dream was Fuller becoming the football equivalent of Derrick Williams, complete with championship performances and epic tributes.

RichRod’s white shirt didn’t prevent bad recruiting news.
Photo by Chris Morrison-US PRESSWIRE

The class that gets announced on Wednesday will be short of the 25-player maximum and lacking in star power. What Cat fans should focus on is the “closing speed” exhibited by Rodriguez and his staff over the past few weeks. Fuller had no reason to find Tucson on a map before Rodriguez was hired and he ended up taking an official visit. Other players, including ones as far away as Pennsylvania and Florida, did choose the Wildcats after the new coaches arrived on the scene.

There weren’t any recruiting miracles but the staff made enough noise to put themselves on the map for next year’s recruits and give the fans confidence that bigger fish will indeed end up on the line.

I had to laugh a little when I read comments about the white-out basketball crowd being louder than McKale has been in a long time. Yes, there was a lull during the extended transition from Lute Olson to Sean Miller, but the program’s foundation never crumbled. The UA hoops faithful can borrow Solomon Hill’s line from last year: “We never left.”

It wasn’t a surprise when Washington’s Tony Wroten said, “This was the loudest crowd I’ve ever heard in my life. The crowd was so loud I couldn’t even hear myself breathe or think.”

Pac-12 players will have to get used to the noise, but they’d better enjoy winning at McKale while they can.

- – - – -

Scott Terrell never left either, but you probably weren’t looking for him. Find him on Twitter and Facebook.

The big shots might not all go in but you’ve got to keep shooting.
Photo by Ron Chenoy-US PRESSWIRE

The one good thing about a conference without an elite team is it makes the race more interesting. If you just look at the numbers, eight of the 12 teams can say they still have a shot at the championship.

Last week the top tier eroded so now the league basically is one big middle with a few outlying bottom teams. Will anyone create a bit of separation the final week before the midway point in the Pac-12 season?

This Week In The Pac-12 (TWIT-Pac) is happy to see the games spread out a bit more this week for enhanced viewing opportunities. The TV schedule is here (all times Arizona/Mountain):

FSAZ = Fox Sports Arizona
FSN = Fox Sports Net
PT = Prime Ticket
ROOT NW = Root Sports Northwest

Thu. Jan. 26

Washington (12-7 / 5-2) at ASU (6-13 / 2-5)
The Huskies lost the first-place battle with Cal but got an assist from Washington State to get UW back into a tie for the lead. This will be just Washington’s third conference road game to date.

WSU (11-8 / 3-4) at ARIZONA (13-7 / 4-3)
Wazzu had the best weekend in the Pac-12 with a sweep of Cal and Stanford. Not bad for the current 7th place team.

Utah (5-14 / 2-5) at UCLA (10-9 / 3-4)
The Bruins have seven of their final 11 league games in Southern California, which is good news for them since they are 0-4 everywhere else.

Colorado (13-6 / 5-2) at USC (5-15 / 0-7)
Utah came within a game of playing for the first Pac-12 football championship and Colorado has moved within a half-game of first place in the initial hoops race. So much for hazing the new guys.

Sat. Jan. 28

Colorado at UCLA
CU has the opposite remaining schedule as UCLA with seven of the final 11 games on the road. Maybe the new guy will finally suffer a little bit.

WSU at ASU
The Sun Devils posted a season-low 43 points at Utah. The Cougars scored that many in a half in both games last week.

Washington at ARIZONA
Don’t look now but the #1 rebounding team in the conference is coming to Tucson. Seven-footer Aziz N’Diaye leads the way at 8.1 boards a game.

Utah at USC
For once an 11 p.m. Eastern Time game that makes sense. If Kevin O’Neill doesn’t want to go 0-18 he really needs to win this one.

Sun. Jan. 29

OSU (13-7 / 3-5) at Oregon (15-5 /6-2)
The Beavers got off the deck by sweeping the L.A. schools at home last week and the Ducks have the longest active winning streak in the league at four.

Stanford (15-5 / 5-3) at Cal (16-5 / 6-2)
This game lost a little sizzle after the teams combined to go 1-3 on the Washington trip, but it’s still one of the Pac-12 Games of the Year.

* * *

When the projection for the season isn’t what you’d like it’s best to just focus on the next game. The Arizona Wildcats are back at home with a high-profile ESPN game and a rare College GameDay appearance waiting on Saturday.

The Cats would be wise not to get distracted by the shininess of the Worldwide Leader. Washington State swept Cal and Stanford behind super-sub Faisal Aden who scored a combined 57 points off the bench last week. The senior guard doesn’t shoot a lot of 3s (he hasn’t made one in five games) but he does Derrick Williams-like work at the free throw line (13-for-13 against Stanford and 6-of-7 vs. Cal).

Every win is a good win for this team at this point, and the next opportunity is a couple days before the ESPN cameras arrive.

The battle for the Pac-12’s oversized middle awaits.

- – - – -

Scott Terrell thinks the next game is the best game. Tune in on Twitter and Facebook.

Will the Wildcats' season end like the Colorado game?
Photo by Ron Chenoy-US PRESSWIRE

The Arizona Wildcats lost another close basketball game and are barely hanging on to the top half of the Pac-12 standings.

It’s not unexpected, but that doesn’t mean it’s fun.

At first glance things don’t look terrible. Yes, the Cats are in 6th place but they’re only one game behind the co-(co-co-co)-leaders in the loss column. Turn either the Oregon or Colorado close losses into wins and you’re tied. Win them both and you’re alone at the top.

But you don’t get do-overs and the Oregon State win was this close to being a loss in regulation. Going back to mid-November Arizona has won twice in the same week only two times: New Mexico State and NAU, plus Oakland and Bryant. No Pac-12 weekends there.

Inspecting the remaining schedule the Cats still have the two hardest road trips left (Cal/Stanford and Washington/WSU). It looks a lot more like a 9-9 or 10-8 season than 12-6. The UA’s at-large bid believers are fading fast.

With an Elite Eight and conference championship already in Sean Miller’s pocket you forget he’s still rebuilding but this is definitely a transitional roster. No size, can’t shoot on the road (under 20% on 3s in three of the last four games), and no one who can reliably create his own shot.

So we lower expectations and wait.

I will be watching every game and hoping for wins the rest of the way, because that’s what we fans do. But I won’t be upset if the season ends the way it’s going right now.

What will upset me is if the players who will be around next year don’t get better. The improvement of the guards is crucial for the future. Josiah Turner is clearly making progress. He’s buying in, the game is slowing down for him and we’re starting to see the court vision and passing that made him such a valued recruit.

Turner’s backcourt mate, however, has been struggling as the season wears on. Nick Johnson hasn’t shown much lately besides outside jumpers and those have been sporadically successful the last few weeks. The roles were reversed a little over a month ago so there’s still plenty of time for Johnson to make developmental strides.

Solomon Hill and Kevin Parrom are also big to watch when looking toward next season. Hill has had some very strong stretches recently (minus the random WWE move against Utah) and Parrom just had his best weekend of the season.

These guys just need to keep listening in practice, bring maximum effort in games and get more experience playing together. If it comes to pass, root for getting into the NIT over nothing at all.

We got through one year without the tournament and, if needed, we’ll get through another. Dream big for next year. Dream even bigger about 2014.

What makes this awkward is Arizona Basketball hasn’t been a “wait till next year” program for almost thirty years. Fans feel almost dirty coming to grips with 5th or 6th place.

Hang in there, Wildcat fans. The hoops team’s current address is not a permanent residence.

- – - – -

Scott Terrell is looking forward to the next game. Stay involved on Twitter and Facebook.

UW hopes to become the face of the Pac-12. Photo by Steven Bisig-US PRESSWIRE

We are starting to see some groupings in the Pac-12 basketball standings. Teams are clumping together in three tiers and the top teams finally play each other.

A true conference leader is about to emerge.

The Arizona Wildcats find themselves stuck in the conference’s large midsection. Can they pick up a couple road wins and climb back toward the top, or will they remain a consistently inconsistent win-one-lose-one team?

Arizona fans have good news if they want to watch the Cats try and bounce back, but bad news if they want to watch what could be the games that decide the Pac-12 race.

Here is the TWIT-Pac TV schedule (all times Arizona/Mountain). Happy channel hunting!

CSN BA = Comcast SportsNet Bay Area
CSN NW = Comcast SportsNet Northwest
FSAZ = Fox Sports Arizona
FSN = Fox Sports Net
PT = Prime Ticket
ROOT NW = Root Sports Northwest
ROOT RM = Root Sports Rocky Mountain

Thu. Jan. 19

ARIZONA (12-6 / 3-2) at Utah (4-13 / 1-4)
Utah’s best player was kicked off the team the day before the game. After an unpleasant loss against Oregon, the Wildcats aren’t complaining one bit.

ASU (6-11 / 2-3) at Colorado (11-6 / 3-2)
Would you believe that ASU is the third-best shooting team in the conference? The Sun Devils are not going to be as big a pushover as initially expected.

Cal (15-4 / 5-1) at Washington (11-6 / 4-1)
Game of the Year, part I. Washington will not be playing in the Bay Area this year so this game has a football-like feel to it. If the Huskies can hold serve at home this weekend they’ll be the new team to beat.

USC (5-13 / 0-5) at Oregon (13-5 / 4-2)
Oregon became the first Pac-12 team to sweep a road trip this year. The Ducks have the next three at home so now would be a good time to make a move toward that top spot.

Stanford (15-3 / 5-1) at WSU (9-8 / 1-4)
The Cardinal has Pac-12 wins by one, two, and three points. Is that a sign they’re overrated or the sign of a team that knows how to win?

UCLA (10-7 / 3-2) at OSU (11-7 / 1-5)
The Beavers are the anti-Stanford with a five-point loss and two defeats in overtime. This isn’t going to make them feel any better but they have to be the best 1-5 team in the country.

Sat. Jan. 21

UCLA at Oregon
The Bruins have quietly won three straight. If not for a one-point loss at Stanford they’d be in first place.

ASU at Utah
It’s a battle of teams that kicked their starting point guard off the team! ASU is actually down to its fourth point guard after academic ineligibility, disciplinary actions and injury.

ARIZONA at Colorado
As expected, the Buffaloes found Pac-12 life more difficult on the road. They’ll want to take advantage of these home games because after this weekend they’ll only have four games left in Boulder.

Cal at WSU
Washington State is canceling classes due to the snow but the game must go on. Bundle up, Coug fans!

Stanford at Washington
Game of the Year, part II. If Cal isn’t able to jump to the front of the line with a big road win, maybe Stanford can.

USC at OSU
The battle for last place ends here…at least until Utah and USC play next week.

* * *

Like an old bottle of Italian dressing, the Pac-12 is starting to separate. Cal, Stanford and Washington look like the contenders with Utah, WSU, OSU and USC in the basement. In the middle are Oregon, Arizona, Colorado, UCLA and ASU. I’m including the Devils because they’ve already beaten two teams from the bottom.

After Saturday’s game Arizona will have played everyone else in the middle (the Cats went 1-2 against ASU, UCLA and Oregon). The bad news is the UA hasn’t played anyone in the top tier yet.

That, however, is a problem for next week. This week the Cats need to maintain their energy level the entire game and take care of the ball. Efficiency will be key as Arizona has failed to hit 60 points in three of its five Pac-12 games thus far.

A couple wins in the snow would warm the heart of the team from the desert.

- – - – -

Scott Terrell is ready for some frosty hoop battles. Warm up on Twitter and Facebook.

Replace logo and colors; change nothing else.
Photo by Photo by Bill Haber-Pool/Getty Images

When you are a coach who was a success at School A but failed at School B, the strategy at your next job is pretty obvious: Do exactly what you did at School A.

With the completion of his coaching staff, Rich Rodriguez took a major step toward making the “A” stand for Arizona.

On Friday Rodriguez introduced the final assistant coaches who will be making up his first staff at the UA, but to RichRod himself they needed no introduction. Defensive coordinator Jeff Casteel was the key as some have said he was the missing piece for Rodriguez at Michigan.

The Wildcats’ new coaches look a lot like the West Virginia Mountaineers’ old coaches, and that’s the way it should be.

It’s the first question you ask when a coach is trying to recreate past success at a new location: Can he assemble a coaching staff as good as the one he had?

In this case, yes. A resounding yes. Here’s a breakdown of the staff including each person’s total number of years coaching at the college level and the number of years coaching the position for which he’ll be responsible at the UA:

Nobody with less than a decade of experience and everybody but one has multiple years coaching his assigned position. The lone exception is Spencer Leftwich who has been an offensive line coach for 23 years but will be coaching tight ends at Arizona.

The fear with getting the band back together is that when they start to play you remember why they broke up in the first place. You can’t recapture past glory if the game has passed you by.

That’s not the case here. Instead of a bunch of old has-beens you have a combined 202 years of coaching with one guy in his early 50s and one guy in his 60s. Experience plus energy? It’s not just a bad hair-care commercial.

Compare that to Mike Stoops’ first staff where a rookie head coach brought in a rookie defensive coordinator, or Stoops’ last staff where his OC had no previous experience as a coordinator and his defensive backs coach had zero years of coaching experience anywhere.

Even if you leave out Casteel’s long history with Rodriguez, the Cats are getting an active defensive coordinator with a shiny new Orange Bowl ring, a guy whose defense has been a part of 70 wins over the past seven years. That kind of hire doesn’t happen to Arizona Football.

(Duane Akina leaving Texas to come to Tucson, only to go back one month later? That’s what happens to Arizona Football.)

So the RichRod revival is off and running but a number of questions remain.

Will his offensive system work in the Pac-12? A version of it is working just fine at Oregon.

Will his defensive system work in the Pac-12? We’re going to have to wait and see. But it does make sense at a traditional non-power like Arizona to run a scheme that emphasizes smaller, faster players over huge, dominating defensive linemen.

Can Rodriguez recruit players as good as the ones he’s had? This is the big one. Pat White came from Alabama. Steve Slaton is from Pennsylvania. Denard Robinson came from Florida. It would be a tough sell to get players from any of those places to come all the way to the desert.

Rodriguez and his staff have proven they can build a winning program and put together a winning game plan. Will they be able to recruit well enough to close the talent gap with Oregon and USC to give their system a chance to succeed once again?

That’s a lot of questions, and it may be a few years before we have all the answers. But RichRod successfully answered the first challenge by convincing his coaches to join him on the other side of the country.

At this point there’s no reason not to believe Rodriguez will be able to positively answer all the remaining questions. Even at Arizona.

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Scott Terrell is willing to wait. Pass the time on Twitter and Facebook.

Jared Cunningham and the Beavers have enjoyed playing Sean Miller’s teams.
Photo by Cheryl Evans/The Arizona Republic

After two weeks of Pac-12 basketball it wasn’t a shock that only one team still had a perfect conference record. It was a surprise that the one team was Colorado.

But then you realize the Buffaloes are the only Pac-12 school that played the first two weekends at home.

That changes this week as Colorado hits the road while the other four teams in the top half of the league return home. Will there be a new conference leader when the final buzzer sounds Sunday night?

TWIT-Pac is ready to watch more hoops with you. Here’s the TV schedule (and, as always, all times are Arizona/Mountain):

CBS = Columbia Broadcasting System (I did not know that)
CSN BA = Comcast SportsNet Bay Area
CSN CA = Comcast SportsNet California
FCSC = Fox College Sports Central
FSAZ = Fox Sports Arizona
FSN = Fox Sports Net
PT = Prime Ticket
ROOT NW = Root Sports Northwest

Thu. Jan. 12

OSU (11-5 / 1-3) at ARIZONA (11-5 / 2-1)
This is the Cats’ only game against Oregon State this year. Considering the Beavers have won three of the last four in the series, that might not be a bad thing.

Utah (4-11 / 1-2) at Stanford (13-3 / 3-1)
Stanford is coming off the longest game in school history, a quadruple-overtime victory at OSU last Saturday. I’m guessing they have a little bit easier time in this one.

Oregon (11-5 / 2-2) at ASU (5-10 / 1-2)
If you’re looking for new material to use against your ASU friends and coworkers, might I recommend: “The Sun Devils are so bad they once lost twice in the same NCAA tournament!” (1973, when they used to play regional third-place games.)

Colorado (11-4 / 3-0) at Cal (13-4 / 3-1)
The Buffaloes must’ve been thinking this Pac-12 stuff is pretty easy as they won their first three league games by a combined 69 points. Caution: Rough road ahead.

Sat. Jan. 14

Oregon at ARIZONA
Contrasting the OSU series, the UA has won the last six against the Ducks, with none closer than last year’s eight-point win at McKale.

Colorado at Stanford
A quick look at Colorado’s profile: 68 in the RPI and they don’t have a single non-conference win against the RPI top-100. Don’t expect CU’s current six-game winning streak to last long.

OSU at ASU
I will give the Devils credit for beating USC last week. When you kick your leading scoring off the team and only suit up six scholarship players it’s not easy to beat anybody.

Utah at Cal
The Pac-12 favorites stumbled in their road opener in Corvallis last week, making the other contenders in the conference feel better about their chances.

Sun. Jan. 15

WSU (9-7 / 1-3) at Washington (10-6 / 3-1)
The Huskies beat Seattle U. Tuesday night. The Redhawks had three wins against current Pac-12 teams the last two years so I’m going to give UW credit for a solid win.

UCLA (9-7 / 2-2) at USC (5-12 / 0-4)
The team most upset to see Utah win last week was USC. The Trojans now have the indistinction of carrying the Worst Team in the Conference banner.

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Defending your home court is even more important than usual this year. It’s going to be extremely difficult to make up for home losses with road wins so if you want to contend for the Pac-12 title (or position yourself for an NCAA tournament at-large bid) you have to win at home.

The Wildcats (and the car dealership) hope the familiar atmosphere of McKale Center will help the ball go through the hoop. After making 8-of-20 (40%) from beyond the arc against ASU, the UA shot a combined 5-for-32 (16%) on 3s in L.A.

Nick Johnson in particular has had a rough go of it lately. The freshman started by hitting 46% (13-for-28) of his 3-point shots in the first eight games of his college career, but has cooled to 19% (5-for-26) over his last eight games. Maybe for the time being Johnson should focus on posterizing the opposing team’s center.

Oregon State leads the Pac-12 in scoring and shooting. Arizona leads in 3-point defense and is second in field goal percentage defense. In this strength-versus-strength matchup you hope the strength of the home court is the difference.

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Scott Terrell is happy at home. Come on in on Twitter and Facebook.