With One Hand Tied Behind Our Back

The Arizona Wildcats shot the lights out against the USC Trojans to finish the toughest stretch of their schedule 4-1. Over these five games the Cats shot 48% (56% against the LA schools). They rank 31st in the nation in field goal percentage, 14th in 3 point %. They are doing all of this without any great shooters. Certainly D-Will has had an enormous impact on these percentages. He is shooting 62% from the field and 70% from the 3point line both team bests (He is 2nd in the nation in field goal %). With numbers like these, Arizona fans are going to have to pray for an NBA lockout to keep D-Will in Tucson. In addition to these numbers, he dominated on the national stage against UCLA and proved his toughness by recording his 10th twenty point game of the season on an injured hand.

Putting D-Will aside for a moment, the rest of the team is still shooting 45% over the past five games. How are they doing this without any great shooters? The answer may be Sean Miller. Over the past two years, I have grown to trust him as a recruiter and question his game strategy. His clock management and use of timeouts is almost as infuriating as Mike Stoops'. I can only hope that he will not have such a quick timeout trigger when he has more upper classmen. But these concerns were temporarily allayed when watching the Cats get one good look after another this afternoon. I began to think that perhaps Miller's coaching genius is found in his ability to exploit match ups and get his guys good looks. Momo seemed to know that he was going to be able to get his shot off against the trio of tiny guards the Trojans ran at him. He shot the ball more confidently and scored 17 points. I went back to look at Miller's teams shooting percentage at Xavier and discovered that in his final three seasons his teams ranked 19th, 36th and 32nd in field goal percentage. Can you name a great Xavier shooter? Me neither. Perhaps getting his guys in the right position to score is his coaching strength.

Right now his offensive design is working and the Cats are a definite tournament team. Remaining on their schedule is a trip to the Bay Area which should be at least a split (8-3, 19-5), then a trip to ASU should be a win (9-3, 20-5), home for the Washington schools a split (10-4, 21-6), to LA a split (11-5, 22-7) and finish with the Oregon schools at home a sweep (13-5, 24-7).