Kyle Fogg shoots over Stanford's Dwight Powell on Saturday. Photo by Jason O. Watson-US PRESSWIRE

Arizona senior guard Kyle Fogg earned his first conference player of the week honor after leading the Wildcats to a sweep of the Bay Area schools.

In winning the Pac-12 weekly award, Fogg averaged 18.5 points, 3.5 rebounds and four assists in wins at Cal and Stanford. He scored a season-high 23 points vs. the Bears.

Fogg made 8 of 13 3-point attempts, had two blocks, three steals and also played the kind of shut-down defense that coach Sean Miller has raved about all season. He had the lead role against Cal’s Allen Crabbe and Stanford’s Chasson Randle, helping the Cats hold that duo to 8-of-28 shooting.

This is the third weekly honor for Arizona this season; Solomon Hill won the award on Dec. 5 and 26.

Fogg, averaging 12.5 points per game, has taken over the team lead in scoring from Hill, who is at 12.2 points per game. Fogg also is averaging a team-high 13.0 points through 11 conference games.

Arizona (16-8 overall, 7-4 Pac-12) will play host to Colorado on Thursday at 7 p.m.

Arizona's Kyle Fogg kept good care of the ball vs. St. John's, not committing a turnover. Photo by Anthony Gruppuso-US PRESSWIRE

Arizona Wildcats senior guard Kyle Fogg is easy to take for granted. He wasn’t a big-time recruit. He’s not an athletic leaper who makes highlight dunks. He doesn’t have a killer cross-over dribble.

But he knows his way around a college basketball game — 89 career starts and counting — and he can still school a younger player such as St. John’s sophomore Nurideen Lindsey.

Lindsey often had his way with the Wildcats on Thursday night from Madison Square Garden in New York City — scoring a game-high 18 points — but Fogg had the last laugh, drawing two charging fouls late in the game.

The first came with 5:57 left. The second came with 4:02 to go … and with that, Lindsey fouled out.

Meanwhile, Arizona was using its depth and balance to wear down St. John’s, who missed the attacking Lindsey down the stretch. The Wildcats finished on a 23-6 run to win 81-72, advancing to play Mississippi State in the championship game of the 2K Sports Classic on Friday night.

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Nick Johnson

Arizona Wildcats freshman guard Nick Johnson averaged 22 minutes in two exhibition games, and coach Sean Miller said he needed to average 25.

Johnson played 25 minutes in Arizona’s season opener, and Miller said Johnson needed to play still more.

“Playing him 25 minutes is his starting point. I could see that even going higher,” Miller said. “We’re always in search of trying to find a way to play him more because he’s really earned it. …

“He has to be one of the best freshmen in our conference. He has just been rock solid since he came here. He has a maturity beyond his freshman year.”

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Arizona's Sean Miller can find plenty to yell about these days. Photo by Peter G. Aiken-US PRESSWIRE

Arizona Wildcats coach Sean Miller was so worked up that he discarded his jacket before the game was five minutes old. He entered his postgame press conference with his jaw set and his tie loosened, hanging askew.

It was only an exhibition, but Miller meant business.

“It wasn’t like this was a practice game that was OK to lose,” he said.

Miller isn’t tolerating any nonsense.

His team lost an exhibition game to Division II Seattle Pacific last week and then stumbled to a 12-point deficit in the first half Tuesday night against another D-II team, Humboldt State.

Arizona rallied to an inartful 60-51 victory at McKale Center in a game in which the Cats clumsily committed 20 turnovers.

“We all realize our starting point isn’t very high,” Miller said.

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Kyle Fogg has had the ball in his hands a lot in three seasons, starting 85 games. Photo by Chris Morrison-US PRESSWIRE

The Arizona Wildcats basketball team held its media day Wednesday, a chance to learn more about the team’s four talented freshmen and to catch up with old favorites, like senior guard Kyle Fogg.

Fogg, who arrived as mostly a recruiting afterthought in the spring of 2008 after Lute Olson had returned briefly as head coach, has been a stalwart. He has played in 104 games, starting 85, averaging 8.4 points.

Fogg made headlines this summer when he took 39,132 jump shots, making 67.5 percent, as charted by team managers.

“He’s as prepared as any senior I’ve ever seen to have a good year,” said coach Sean Miller.

Said freshman guard Nick Johnson, “Trust me, my first few weeks, I got up a lot of shots. I was on pace with him, but I don’t know how he did it.”

Fogg will be one of the team leaders this season and has especially been a role model to Johnson.

“He just said follow me and I’ll take you there,” Johnson said.

Here is a sampling of five questions and answers from Fogg at media day:

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Solomon Hill finished the regular season with two good games.
Photo by Chris Morrison-US PRESSWIRE

Arizona Wildcats sophomore forward Solomon Hill, with more-aggressive moves on offense, put up 10 shots against Oregon. That was the first time all season he led the team in shot attempts.

He took nine shots on Thursday against Oregon State.

Hill had a combined 24 points in the two games. He had five points on 2 of 7 shooting a week earlier, when the Wildcats were swept on the road by USC and UCLA.

“Solomon Hill has taken some big steps this season,” coach Sean Miller said.

“One of the hardest things to do as a young player is to put behind a bad performance, like his experience in L.A. He didn’t do well, but he worked hard in practice this week and really did leave it behind him.

“At times, he was the best in the game against Oregon State, and he is a big reason that we got both of these wins.”

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Arizona's Kevin Parrom celebrates at the end of regulation against Arizona State.
Photo by David Kadlubowski/The Arizona Republic

TEMPE — A trio of Arizona players walked into a weight room, serving as a postgame interview area, following a 67-52 victory over Arizona State on Sunday night.

There was the Derrick Williams, the All-America candidate. There was Jesse Perry, the hard-working, lunch-pail forward. And there was junior guard Kyle Fogg.

As the players separated to give the media some interview elbow-room, the camera-carrying, voice-recording throng followed Fogg.

Williams, at least on this night, was old news.

“Fogg’s the big guy,” Williams said to no one in particular. “They all want Foggy.”

Yes, it’s true. We wanted Foggy. In an otherwise unremarkable rivalry game filled with cold stretches that could shatter pipes, Fogg was the story, the headline, the man, the guy that saved those scribes on newspaper deadlines … or even those on the never-ending internet deadline.

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Kevin Parrom (left) helped lead the overtime effort after Derrick Williams fouled out.
Photo by Chris Morrison, US-PRESSWIRE

Nothing helps a team’s confidence, its chemistry, more than winning a close game on the road against a good team.

Not to mention winning in triple overtime.

With your star player on the bench.

The Arizona Wildcats, playing their craziest, most blood-pumping game of the season Saturday night, pulled out a 107-105 victory at Cal behind the New York swagger of point guard MoMo Jones and wing Kevin Parrom.

Arizona, back in the AP rankings for the first time in more than three years, is still climbing … and so much more seems possible than you might have dared to dream a few weeks ago. The Wildcats have won five in a row — three on the road — and are 20-4 overall. They lead the Pac-10 at 9-2.

“Sometimes in the long season that we go through, wins like this are very meaninful,” coach Sean Miller said in his postgame radio interview on KCUB 1290-AM. “Tonight, that’s certainly the case.”

Parrom scored 13 points through the overtime periods and had a career-high 25 points. Fellow sophomore Jones had 27 points, including 12 in the overtimes. He extended the game with a 3-pointer near the end of the second overtime.

Derrick Williams fouled out late in regulation with 12 points and 18 rebounds.

“I don’t think I have ever — nor has any of us — felt that we a one-man show,” Miller said.

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Sean Miller and the Wildcats return home this week for games against the L.A. schools.
Photo by Chris Morrison-US PRESSWIRE

Arizona was down 10-2 and looked discombobulated. The Wildcats scored only 10 points in the first 12 minutes. They trailed 45-37 in the second half after a 9-0 Washington State run.

Arizona’s game in Pullman on Saturday night was rarely pretty. That’s fine. Coach Sean Miller isn’t much about pretty anyway. He’d prefer gritty. Are the Wildcats tough enough?

For one night, they were.

They found a way to win 65-63 through defense (Pac-10-leading scorer Klay Thompson was held to nine points, his lowest output of the season), rebounding (a 40-30 edge) and a certain resolve at the end of a long Pac-10 road trip.

“One of the things I told the guys after the game — and I really mean this — if we wouldn’t have won, the message for me would have been the same. I was very proud and really happy to see us fight,” Miller said in his postgame interview on 1290-AM.

“We were behind but we kept fighting.”

The loss ended a three-game losing streak to Washington State. Arizona (16-4 overall, 5-2 Pac-10) tied UCLA for second place in the conference behind 7-1 Washington.

Here are four things that went right for the Wildcats at Washington State:

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It's OK to open your eyes; Derrick Williams is Lindy's Pac-10 Player of the Year/Photo by WildcatSportsReport.com

Just as the Arizona football season is ready to kick off, the college basketball preseason magazines begin to hit the stands.

As a contributing writer and editor for Lindy’s college basketball edition, I’m biased in that direction and would encourage everyone to pick up a copy for you and five more for your closest friends.

But, here, Arizona fans, beyond all the team previews and cool features, is the nitty-gritty of what you’ll probably be talking about:

The Wildcats are ranked second in the Pac-10 behind Washington and 30th in the nation.

Sound about right to you?

It does to me. Arizona can aspire for the league title, the Top 25 and a decent run in the NCAA Tournament, but those preseason rankings are probably at the high edge of what the Wildcats can realistically expect after a 16-15 season. No disrespect in those preseason judgments.

And here’s more — Lindy’s Pac-10 first-team:

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