Wearing '97 jerseys, Arizona Wildcats return to city where they won title that year

Almost all season long, en route to the national semifinal game they will play Saturday against Michigan, the Wildcats have worn uniforms modeled after the ones they wore in 1997.

The uniform that Miles Simon cradled the ball against as the final seconds ran out of the championship game that year. The uniform that Bennett Davison wore when he messed up Lute Olson’s hair after it was over.

The uniforms they wore when they won the national championship.

In Indianapolis.

“No, no, no,” Brigger said, denying he was trying to align the Wildcats' planets. “I’m not that smart. I wash clothes for a living.”

The truth of it, Brigger says, was that '97s arrived first and the players stuck with them.

Fans like them, he said, and players do, too.

“They look great,” said German/Russian freshman Ivan Kharchenkov, one of several Wildcats who said Thursday they had no clue the uniforms were based on a 1997 version.

While UA coach Tommy Lloyd has repeatedly expressed an interest in Arizona basketball program history, even he didn’t make much of the '97s, and the fact that his team will be wearing them at an Indianapolis Final Four again.

“I know where you're going with this, but I must have a blind spot when it comes to fashion or uniforms or headbands or shoes,” Lloyd said when asked about the parallels. “ I just never really notice that stuff. I couldn't even tell you what uniforms our guys have been wearing.

“I just usually know if a team is in the dark jerseys or the lighter jerseys. I don't go much before that.”

Lloyd joked that maybe Brigger could hold his own press conference to explain it all, but Brigger kept it simple during a brief conversation during UA’s open locker room interview session.

Brigger noted the Wildcats did wear their "1988" home uniforms for a game, the ones modeled on UA's first Final Four team, and the Wildcats wore "Galaxy Slam" gear for a Feb. 18 game with BYU as part of a campus-wide promotion.

But other than that, just the "97s.” Navy '97s. White '97s.

They worked.

“It’s just how Nike ships them,” Brigger said. “They arrived first this year, and the new '88 ones didn’t come 'til later. And we were winning games. When you're winning those games, why change things up?”

They won so many games that the Wildcats won the Big 12 conference by two games, then plowed their way through the Big 12 Tournament and NCAA Tournament West Regional to reach the Final Four.

During a postseason run in which they’ve worn only the home white ‘97s, the Wildcats have won six of eight games by double digits, all except their 82-80 win over Iowa State in the Big 12 Tournament semifinals and their 79-74 win over Houston in the conference tournament final.

Then they showed up at Lucas Oil Stadium on Thursday, just south of the train tracks from where Arizona won the 1997 title at the now-demolished RCA Dome, and wore their 1997 whites for pregame promos.

All of them born well after 1997, of course, they had little reason to see a parallel, though Phoenix-area native Koa Peat knows of one.

“I'm pretty cool with Mike Bibby,” Peat said of the former UA standout point guard. “He was on that team and he’s definitely a mentor I look up to.”

Peat said Bibby didn’t really tell him stories about 1997, though he said he learned about that season by doing research when the Wildcats were recruiting him.

Others heard stories, loose stories about what to them was a distant past. The past didn’t always strike them, but the immediate future could stay with them forever.

They are in Indianapolis, after all.

“I knew they won it here. Someone had mentioned that to me,” Aussie wing Anthony Dell'Orso said. “But I didn’t know we were actually wearing their jerseys. I don’t know a whole lot about the '97 team but I know the stories of what Tucson was like after the fact. We’d love to bring it back to Tucson.”