Time for Arizona to respect itself and get things back to good
by Javier Morales on Feb. 21, 2010, under Sports
UA coach Sean Miller is going through typical problems of a program in transition as the coaches and players try to blend together (Tucson Citizen photo)
One of the more telling quotes by UA coach Sean Miller this week was about his former team, Xavier, which appears headed for its fifth consecutive NCAA tournament.
“Our guys don’t respect Xavier,” Miller said.
Miller’s comment was in response to a question about whether he will use videos of his success at Xavier for motivation for the Wildcats.
That whole scenario shows what’s wrong with Arizona in its present state. Baseball players call it “thinking too much” when they are in something like a 3-for-30 slump.
Miller’s point is well taken, although it’s probably more accurate to say Arizona’s players don’t know Xavier. That’s one of the hardships of this year of transition. Besides Kevin Parrom and Kyryl Natyazhko, Arizona’s players did not know much about the 41-year-old coach and his staff heading into the season.
Parrom and Natyazhko were recruited to Xavier by this staff. Parrom took an official visit to Xavier and signed a letter of intent with the Musketeers. Natyazhko attended Xavier’s summer elite camp and committed to Arizona without even visiting Tucson because he felt comfortable with Miller and Co.
Other than that, it’s a safe bet the rest of the Wildcats from Nic Wise to D.J. Shumpert did not watch a Xavier game last season. They likely did not know James Whitford from Emanuel Richardson. Likewise, Miller and his staff probably could not distinguish Kyle Fogg from Brendon Lavender when they first arrived in Tucson.
The Arizona melting pot this year is not exactly water mixed with oil, but it’s obvious the unfamiliarity of the major parties involved — the UA’s returners and Miller’s staff and recruits — made for this year to be a difficult transition.
I could tell by the look on Miller’s face all the way back to Media Day that this season would not be an entirely feel-good affair. That day normally is only filled with smiles and confident statements. Miller, however, entered the media room with a rather tense look after coaching the Cats in a few practices to that point.
Somebody asked Miller if he is eager to coach his first game with the Wildcats. Instead of answering, “I can’t wait to get things started,” Miller responded that too much work had to be done for him to be thinking ahead like that.
He did say that Arizona should be a different team in January and February than what it would be in November. The Cats’ record has been around .500 for most of the year. The only real difference with the Cats is how they first reacted to each other in November and December as opposed to how they are meshing (or not meshing) together in January and February.
Here we are 26 games into the season and Arizona is no different than when it played without confidence at San Diego State and Oklahoma in December. When the UA won four straight games last month, including a 19-point win in Tempe, junior forward Jamelle Horne said the reason for Arizona’s emergence was its improved chemistry.
Instead of building on that, Arizona’s chemistry has dissolved. That’s what happens in a season with more than 30 games. So many twists and turns can occur. A team that admirably handles the roller-coaster ride exhibits maturity and confidence playing with each other under an established coaching system.
ASU is a counter-example to what Arizona is going through. After it lost to Arizona, ASU followed that with another setback to Cal in Tempe to fall to 4-4 in the Pac-10. The Sun Devils, with veteran leadership from Derek Glasser, Ty Abbott and Rihards Kuksiks, have responded by winning five of their next six games.
Herb Sendek is in his fourth season as ASU coach. These are all of his players. The belief system is there.
In his first season in Tempe in 2006-07, Sendek’s club finished dead last in the Pac-10 with a 2-16 record. Kevin Kruger bolted before that season to UNLV to play his senior season with his father, UNLV coach Lon Kruger. Sendek relied heavily on three freshmen — Glasser, Jerren Shipp and Christian Polk — to execute his game plan with Rob Evans holdovers such as Jeff Pendergraph and Antwi Atuahene.
Despite suffering through his worst record (8-22) in his coaching career, Sendek said at the end of his first season in Tempe: “Our men were resilient, tough-minded and determined. They stuck together, maintained a positive attitude, worked hard and battled.”
Miller still has time to say the same thing, if somehow Arizona regains its confidence within the next three weeks.
With only four regular-season games left, the Wildcats are no longer unfamiliar with each other and the demands placed on them by Miller and his staff. An outsider’s opinion: Their familiarity has bred contempt.
A snapshot of that occurred Sunday with 7:22 remaining after Parrom passed the ball one way and Fogg broke the other way. The turnover stalled a potential run after Fogg nailed a three-pointer on the previous possession to cut the lead to 56-52.
A media timeout ensued, further bringing things to a standstill. Fogg reached out to Parrom to let him know he was at fault for breaking too soon away from Parrom’s pass. Parrom did not acknowledge Fogg as he walked past him to the UA bench.
This season has not come down to survival. Forget about the 25-year run in the NCAA tournament. Whether Arizona qualifies for the NIT is not paramount by any means. It’s all about getting things back to good, as that song by Matchbox Twenty suggests, heading into the offseason. Some lyrics to that song:
Everyone here’s to blame,
Everyone here gets caught up in the pleasure of the pain,
Everyone hides shades of shame,
But looking inside we’re the same, we’re the same,
And we’re all grown now,
But we don’t know how to get it back to good
ASU got things back to good in the last month.
If the season ended today, Sendek should to be Pac-10 coach of the year. No doubt about it. He has ASU playing its best basketball after removing a struggling senior in Kuksiks from the starting lineup a couple of weeks ago. Shipp is now a senior who never panned out as far as being a difference-maker for the Sun Devils, but he nailed a three-pointer and made a layup in consecutive possessions with less than three minutes remaining to preserve the lead.
Kuksiks and Shipp are two examples of players who could have put themselves before their teammates and Sendek. They could have created a negative undertone. Sendek has proven to be a master at smoothing out egos.
Arizona needs a similar cleansing by Miller before things really unravel. Nobody thought Arizona, picked in the preseason to finish fourth in the Pac-10, could finish this season with a losing record. The Cats are on the brink of going under .500 with two difficult games looming in the Bay area.
The time is now for Arizona to respect itself, not the way Xavier did things when Miller was there. They must co-exist with each other once and for all to get things back to good before it gets too late.
For more Wildcat information, visit WILDABOUTAZCATS.com. You can e-mail Javier Morales at wildaboutazcats@gmail.com.
