BOULDER, Colo. After his 14th-ranked Wildcats fell apart so acutely Saturday that it reminded him of the trip to the Bahamas, coach Sean Miller had any number of excuses to pick from.
In an 80-77 loss to Colorado that wasnt really as close as the score indicated, the Wildcats were playing at over a mile-high elevation. They had to fly in after a tough win at Utah, then turn around to play Colorado 39 hours later, at the early hour of noon. And they had to do so against an increasingly confident group of Buffaloes that upset ASU on Thursday.
Miller chose none of the above. Instead, the coach says hes to blame for the entire thing the 54.7 percent shooting the Wildcats allowed, UAs disjointed zone offense and its overall lack of will.
Sometimes when you lose, all of a sudden the coach starts blaming the players. Thats the furthest thing from what Im gonna do, Miller said. Im gonna take all the responsibility. When you have a team like ours and you win a game like we did in Salt Lake City, its such a quick turnaround on a road trip like this that its your job to have your team ready.
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I did a terrible job of having them ready. We werent ready. We didnt play with any any emotion, any togetherness. And I didnt know really what button to push other than maybe just dont play the guys who werent playing hard.
The loss dropped UA to 12-4 overall and 2-1 in the Pac-12, where all teams have at least one loss after just two weekends. It also was the first Arizona loss in the United States and snapped a streak of nine straight UA wins, dating back to the Wildcats three-loss showing in the Thanksgiving week Battle 4 Atlantis event.
Colorado improved to 10-6 and 2-2, having also upset fourth-ranked Arizona State in overtime on Thursday at Coors Events Center.
While Arizonas loss at Colorado was closer than those in the Bahamas, especially its 89-64 loss to Purdue, Miller said he found it similar to all of them.
As UA guard Allonzo Trier noted, there were also similarities to Arizonas second-half effort at Utah on Thursday. The Wildcats allowed Utah to hit 9 of 14 3-pointers in the second half, but held off the Utes for a 94-82 win largely because Deandre Ayton was unstoppable after halftime, collecting 19 points and eight rebounds in the second half.
Ayton couldnt bail the Wildcats out Saturday, even as he tried with 21 second-half points, including two dunks and a jumper over the final 1:44, while UA tried one last time to get back in a game that Colorado led by 20 points in the first half and by 10 with 4:35 to go.
Considering that the Wildcats also struggled on the other end against a mostly zone defense from a CU team that normally plays a UA-style man-to-man, shooting just 38.4 percent for the game, it just wasnt enough.
I just feel our effort and concentration level just wasnt there in the first half, said Trier, who had eight points with 2-of-8 3-point shooting. It actually really started in the second half of the Utah game and carried over to today. We basically played a full game of really poor basketball (between the second half at Utah and first half Saturday).
We had a great second half but when you dig yourself that deep of a hole, its really hard to come back and win the game.
UAs problems were rooted in some early defensive struggles that were obvious shortly after tipoff.
The Wildcats fell behind 7-3 early and struggled to defend the Buffs throughout the first half. Among UAs bigger problems was finding 7-footer Dallas Walton, who averaged just 4.1 points entering Saturdays game but took advantage of light coverage to score inside and out through the middle of the half, helping the Buffs push their advantage to 20 points.
Walton hit a 3-pointer and later an unguarded 18-footer that gave Colorado a 21-12 led, then later scored twice inside to help Colorado go ahead 34-20.
UA also left alone another light scorer, DShawn Schwartz, alone in the right corner and he hit a 3-pointer with 3:33 left in the first half to give the Buffs a 42-22 lead, their biggest of the game.
The Wildcats defense was so bad early that Miller called three timeouts in a five-minute span over the middle of the first half and even inserted Emmanuel Akot the freshman he once declared UAs likely defensive stopper after not playing Akot at all in the Wildcats previous two games.
Miller said Akot played well, but he didnt elaborate. What he did elaborate on was himself, his team, and the contrast to what the Buffs were doing.
Colorado took a different approach offensively they played really fast, a shoot-quick, thrive-in-transition, and do a great job on the offensive glass approach, Miller said of the Buffs, who had 11 fewer offensive rebounds than UA in part because of their better shooting. I think once they saw our guys were struggling, they stayed with it.
But we had a lot to do with that. You always want your team to play for you as the coach and they really struggle playing for me, they really do.
Miller was asked what he meant by that statement, so he elaborated some more.
I cant get them to play hard. I really cant, he said. We do it for a while. I know weve had a win streak but weve also had a good team we have a lot of talent. A lot of times our offense can get us to the finish line but you have to be able to play both offense and defense with our team, man, its really hard to get our guys to run as fast as they can and thats not them, thats me. I have a hard time reaching our guys.
The Wildcats did come out of halftime with a strong effort, however. Down 45-29 at the end of the first half, the Wildcats kept Colorado scoreless for 5 minutes and 16 seconds early in the second half to pull within 49-46 on a layup from Trier with 12:17 remaining.
On one notable CU possession, the Wildcats successfully defended a 3-point try and layup attempt from George King and then went downcourt to feed Ayton for a dunk that he converted to a 3-point play by hitting a free throw after a foul from Tyler Bey.
But Colorado never let the Wildcats tie or take a lead in the game, and instead took a double-digit lead back, 65-55, with 5:39 left after layups by Dom Collier and McKinley Wright. Later, a three-point play from Dusan Ristic cut Colorados lead to 68-61 entering the final media timeout (3:48) of the game.
A layup from Walton gave the Buffs a 72-63 lead with 1:58 to go, and they hung on from there.
Walton finished with 15 points on 7-for-7 shooting while reveling in the chance to play against fellow 7-footers Ayton and Ristic. He was one of five Colorado players scoring in double figures, with Wright collecting 16 points and 10 assists.
I cant put into words how fired up I was, Walton said. The opportunity to match up against two pros is something you dont get every day.
Miller can only hope his future pros get that excited.
After the game, Miller said his staff would either fix the problem or continue to get our asses kicked and said he didnt know if there was a personality issue that was preventing him from getting through.
I can only go on what I know, Miller said. You know when team is really trying, giving everything they have.
We played against a team thats doing a great job, so you have to give them credit. But with our credit that we give Colorado, this team, man, I cant reach them. I really cant.
