No Losers Here?

It was said at the end of the epic battle between Arizona and Arizona State this past Sunday, that "there were no losers here tonight.” Sitting here in the aftermath, I am having a really hard time digesting that. In a game when winning ment taking huge strides towards capping off their 25th consecutive run to the Big Dance in impressive fashion, losing could lead to the Cats being a no show at the NCAA Championships for the first time since Ronald Reagan was the Commander-in-Chief.

There are a couple things that happened as a result of the Sun Devils back-to-back season sweep of the Wildcats that can be interpreted as “losing”.

Right off the bat, UofA is again in the middle of Pac-10 with only a very out side shot of claiming the regular season title. Arizona faces tough road games against Wazzu and Pac-10 leading Washington. Then the Wildcats come back home to face Stanford and California, both whom defeated Russ Pennel’s club in the first week of January. The Wildcats will have to win out and have a lot of help from UW and ASU down the stretch.

Aside from that major stumble, Arizona may have lost its wave of momentum that had been building for the last month. Ever since the Aubrey Coleman incident, the Wildcats had been playing like a team possessed. Scoring over 80 points five times during a seven game win streak that brought them from 2-5 in conference play to a commendable 8-5. It was assumed that if the men from Tucson kept winning they could ride this “wave” all the way to a regular season Pac-10 title, maybe a Pac-10 tournament championship and even a possible top five seed in the end of season NCAA National Championship tournament. Now the Cats will have to pick up the pieces from the heartbreaking loss to State that saw UofA blow a lay-up, a put back, and commit a turn over in the last 14 seconds that would have given them a chance to tie the ball game. If Arizona can learn from their mistakes (i.e. failing to close out shooters on three point shots) and play like there is no tomorrow then I believe that they can finish out the season in a respectable manner and set themselves up to return to the tournament once more where they belong.

All that aside, I don’t want people to believe that the Arizona Wildcat season is over. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. The Wildcats are lead by a veteran core in Chase Buddinger, Jordan Hill and Nic Wise. All of whom will probably go in the first round of the NBA draft this June. They have been there before and they can pass along their knowledge and experience to guys like Kyle Fogg and Zane Johnson, who have both proven to be very effective role players. Don’t lement Wildcat faithful, the best of the Wilcats push to extend the nations longest active streak of tournament appearences has yet to come.

Bear Down