Poor rebounding in exhibition loss
by Brad Allis on Oct. 28, 2011, under SportsOne of the key factors in Arizona’s 69-68 loss to Seattle Pacific University was rebounding. The Wildcats were out-rebounded 29-20, but that was hardly the whole story.
The Wildcats’ four big men combined for just four rebounds, two less than starting small forward Solomon Hill and only two more than guard Brendon Lavender had in just eight minutes of play. In fact, Lavender had more rebounds than three of the bigs and had as many as starting power forward Jesse Perry.
“Tonight I look at our five position and I think we had one defensive rebound,” said Sean Miller. “It’s petty hard to win when you have just one defensive rebound from your five.”
When asked if the lack of rebounding success was due to the lack of size or a lack of effort, Miller said he was “not sure.”
Perry lacked answers as well.
“I can’t really explain what it was, it was just one of those days,” said the senior. “There is no excuse why we didn’t rebound. I did not have any rebounds, I think I had like two.”
Miller did stress that the Wildcats lack size in the frontcourt. Just one of Arizona’s four frontcourt players are over 6-10, while the Falcons had two players over 6-10, including former Arizona recruit Andy Poling.
“We just aren’t a very big team,” noted Miller.
Perry was also confused to the Wildcats’ lack of success on the boards as he told the media that rebounding is stressed in every practice.
“Every day in practice that is one of the main focuses of what we do,” explained Perry. Rebound, offensive rebound, defensive rebound, tonight we just didn’t come out and do the job.”
The lack of rebounding was a concern to Miller who admits he is trying to figure out rotations and playing time. One move we could see is a freshman seeing more time inside.
“I ask myself, maybe Angelo Chol can help us there,” said Miller. “Before tonight I wasn’t sure we needed to do that.”
In the end it may have nothing to do with a lack of height, a lack of practice time or even a lack of scouting. Miller mentioned all three, noting that the team is having the exhibition games earlier than ever since the season starts so early and the team spent less than 10 minutes per practice preparing for Seattle Pacific, because the staff felt further learning of the system was more important right now.
Despite those issues, Perry believes it could come down to good old effort.
“I think we just have to go at it some more,” Perry explained. “Crash the boards ever more.”
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