Sean Miller: Georgia Southern brings 'one of our biggest challenges' of Wildcats' season

The line between power conference teams and mid-majors can get pretty blurred in college basketball, and Sean Miller apparently doesn’t think you should see one at all Thursday.

Because Georgia Southern will show up at McKale Center.

“Georgia Southern is gonna be one of our biggest challenges all season, not just in nonconference, but in our conference,” Miller said. “I’d like to use the word alarming when describing their talent but it’s exciting because if you’re a team that’s playing Georgia Southern, you’re trying to beat an excellent team. It’s a game that in March will have great meaning for all of us, not just Arizona …”

“We’ll have to play better than we played in Maui for 40 minutes to beat them.”

Alarming? Excellent? Exciting?

He’s quite serious. Miller is not a habitual sandbagger. His UA teams rarely suffer big regular-season upsets, maybe because he does make it extremely clear of what is really ahead.

Miller even told co-captains Chase Jeter and Justin Coleman on a UA-released video this week that they better be ready for the Eagles “because they’re a really, really good team.”

They appeared to fully grasp that warning.

“Yes, sir,” Jeter said.

“Yes, sir,” Coleman said.

Georgia Southern lost its first game of the season on Tuesday, 69-64 at home to East Tennessee State, a circumstance Eagles coach Mark Byington attributed not only to ETSU’s talent but also his team’s transition in working a number of injured players back in the lineup while also dealing with the disrupted routine of a nine-day layoff.

But the Eagles are a contender for the Sun Belt title, led by a point guard, Tookie Brown, who helps them run one of the 10 fastest tempos in college basketball.

Here are a few other things worth noting about the Eagles:

While Georgia Southern played in a lesser tournament than the Battle 4 Atlantis, in which UA went 0-3 last season, the Eagles did go 3-0 in the Islands of the Bahamas Showcase earlier this month.

They beat Florida Atlantic in the first game, then took care of former UA coach Lorenzo Romar’s new team, Pepperdine. In the title game, Georgia Southern beat Montana, which is also expected to be one of UA’s toughest nonconference opponents this season (the Griz will arrive at McKale on Dec. 19).

“The Bahamas was great for us,” Byington said. “You learn a lot in a couple of days. We were dealing with a ton of injuries and foul trouble.”

The Showcase also revealed that the Eagles were able to successfully mix two freshmen, guard/forward Elijah McCadden and guard Calvin Wishart, into what is otherwise a veteran rotation. Not only is Brown a three-team All-Sun Belt pick already, but the Eagles also have another senior, guard Ike Smith, nearing 1,500 points and 500 rebounds for his career.

Together, the Eagles might be Byington’s best overall group since he arrived in Statesboro in 2013.

“I think we’re longer, and more athletic,” Byington said. “I have three seniors who have started since they were freshmen. They’ve been through it. I’ve got eight guys who didn’t play last year so we’re a work in progress. But I think we’re pretty good right now.”

Arizona initially had Texas Southern penciled in for this game, but the Houston-based school backed out after rugged-scheduling coach Mike Davis departed. Arizona went looking for a replacement and found Georgia Southern, which was still searching for a lucrative guarantee game to help its budget.

The Eagles had to play ETSU at home on Tuesday, but the $90,000 that UA offered was too much to resist. Besides, Byington said his players also enjoy playing historically successful high-major teams.

But the reality of the schedule hit the Eagles this week. They had to play a home game Thursday night at 7 p.m., try to get to sleep by midnight or so, then wake up at 5 a.m. on Wednesday.

They caught an early morning flight from Savannah, Georgia, to Atlanta, then a connecting Atlanta-to-Tucson flight. Not long after arriving, they had lunch, then study tables and were scheduled to practice at McKale Center later Wednesday.

There wasn’t much time to rest.

“Hopefully, they got a nap on the plane,” Byington said.

The Eagles collect only 21.5 percent of their offensive rebounding chances, the 20th-worst rate in Division I, but are still outrebounding opponents by an average of 3.4 per game. They also have one of the country’s better offensive rebounders (3.2 per game) in the 6-foot-8 Montae Glenn.

Arizona, meanwhile, was outrebounded by an average of 5.3 per game in the Maui Invitational, and had only 19 collective offensive rebounds compared to the 29 offensive rebounds that Iowa State, Gonzaga and Auburn picked up against the Wildcats.

UA forwards  Jeter (7.3) and Ryan Luther (6.3) both rebounded well in Maui but Jeter limited himself when he  fouled out of the Gonzaga game on a technical and personal foul with 12 minutes left, while Luther was playing with what Miller said was a hand injury suffered against Iowa State.

Their two fates illustrated again how precious each rebound can be for the Wildcats this season without Deandre Ayton and Dusan Ristic around.

“We just have to do it as a unit,” said UA forward Ira Lee, who averaged 3.0 rebounds in Maui. “All of our guys have to box out. It can’t be two or three of us boxing out. It has to be all five. We don’t have as much size as we’ve had in the past. This year, there’s no room for error.”