ASU Basketball: 2019 Pac-12 Week 17 Power Rankings
By Trevor Booth
10. Arizona Wildcats (16-12, 7-8 Pac-12) LW: 11
For any historians out there, the last time Arizona lost as many as seven consecutive games came in 1983. The Wildcats, coached by Ben Lindsey at the time, dropped 14 straight and finished the year with four wins, prompting the hiring of Lute Olson in the offseason.
Under current coach Sean Miller, expectations in Tucson mirror the bar set during the peak of Olson’s tenure. For much of his career, he’s been on par with those expectations, turning Arizona into a juggernaut in the Pac-12.
Miller checks off just about every box, bringing in high-caliber recruits (turned first-round draft picks), restoring the program to its former glory after Olson’s retirement and making deep runs in the NCAA Tournament, albeit a Final Four appearance has continued to elude Miller.
Now, it seems as though he may not get another chance at the Big Dance, at least not at Arizona. On Monday, he was subpoenaed to testify in April at a federal corruption trial that has rocked college basketball to its core.
On Sunday, prior to the Miller news, the McKale Center crowd roared with excitement after a sweep of lowly California and Stanford, the program’s first wins in over a month. The reaction should be more in line with a collective sigh of relief as both teams would be generally regarded as routine victories for the Wildcats.
While the ‘Cats won both games handedly, there’s not a whole lot to take away from the weekend. They kept Cal winless, routing the Golden Bears by 25 before managing a 16-point win over Stanford.
One positive for Arizona was that it held opponents to 30 and 40 percent shooting in its two games, looking more like a typical Miller-led defense, a factor of its game it’ll look to uphold when the Wildcats travel to Oregon State and Oregon this week.