Maui experience could be teaching tool for Arizona Wildcats roster that's still in flux

LAHAINA, Hawaii — In the big picture, the Arizona Wildcats have little to complain about from their Maui Invitational experience.

Sure, the Wildcats only went 1-2, but they were a completely retooled team playing two games against murderous competition — and still did better than the then-No. 2-ranked Wildcats managed against a weaker field during their Battle 4 Atlantis oh-fer last season.

Nobody knows that better than UA coach Sean Miller.

“Thank God we took one win home,” Miller said after UA lost 73-57 to Auburn on Wednesday. “Very easily you can leave this tournament 0-3. And we knew before we ever took off from Tucson that the field was incredibly strong.”

That’s the other good point for Arizona. While their comeback win over Iowa State on Monday showed some heart — and Justin Coleman’s heroics — their two losses came against top-10 teams. That moved their kenpom.com schedule strength of games to date from one of the 25 worst in college basketball to No. 116 of 353 teams.

UA missed a chance to get a signature win that could help significantly on Selection Sunday — especially since the rest of their nonconference schedule and Pac-12 games may not have many such opportunities — but the boost to its schedule strength can’t hurt.

Most importantly though, the Wildcats received some game video to review this week that might be as valuable as any teaching tool they’ve had since assembling in July.

Here are five things they can chew on before their next game on Thursday against Georgia Southern:

By all accounts, the Wildcats like and respect each other, with little of the individual agendas that appeared to fracture last season’s team. But that didn’t translate into effectively sharing the ball in Maui.

The Wildcats averaged just 7.3 assists while turning the ball over an average of 15.0 times in three Maui games. Their ratio of assists to made field goals was just 33.8 percent — a mark that would be the fourth-worst in college basketball if based on Arizona’s entire season. Factoring in their three home wins, UA’s assists-to-made-field-goals ratio is 40.3, still the 31st-worst mark in Division I.

Their ball movement was the most glaringly deficient in their 91-74 loss to Gonzaga on Tuesday, when the Wildcats managed just three assists for their 21 field goals. They shot 41.2 percent from the field but took 13 fewer shots than the Bulldogs and saved themselves from a blowout loss by hitting 25 of 30 free throws.

“Three assists, that's tough, man,” Miller said. “There's not a lot of good basketball being played when you only have three assists.”

The Wildcats managed only nine assists a day later, with 19 turnovers, against Auburn. But Miller found his guys’ willingness to just take the ball and drive against Gonzaga in turn drove him nuts. He said the three assists against the Zags “really blows my mind.”

“I think what their defense did is they created a drive out of desperation, drive to shoot, drive to score” mentality against them, Miller said. “And you have to move the ball, you have to share the ball and you have to be able to find open teammates. But that's as much to Gonzaga's credit as it is to our detriment.”

Point guard Justin Coleman agreed. He said Gonzaga made it tougher in the second half by starting to switch defensively on nearly every player.

“It was hard for to us run our offense,” Coleman said. “We started to drive and not, like coach says, drive to kick for others. We started to drive and kick for our own, which we shouldn't have done. That's what got us in the hole we were in.”

Arizona received an average of just 6.3 points per game from its reserve players, or just 9.4 percent of its overall scoring.

Most notably, Dylan Smith scored just two points while missing all eight field goals he took (seven of them from 3-point range), while Emmanuel Akot scored just four points on 1-for-8 shooting while missing all four 3-pointers he took and Alex Barcello was scoreless in all three games.

Meanwhile, freshman guard Devonaire Doutrive played only a minute against Auburn and not at all in UA’s other two games.

All that meant even with Coleman’s all-league heroics — 20.7 average points on 57.1-percent shooting — the Wildcats could only go so far.

Arizona had only four bench points against Auburn, contrasting to the Tigers’ 33 points, and had just nine against Gonzaga. Of those nine against the Zags, five were free throws made by Ira Lee, who also made the bench’s only field goal against eight collective shots from reserve players.

With Jeter fouling out with 12 minutes left against Gonzaga, Miller played Lee and Akot for 17 minutes each, while Smith played 14 and Barcello five.

“We played our bench quite a bit and … when you sub like that you need some production,” Miller said after the Gonzaga game. “They're better than they played, but I think firepower off the bench and a little bit more balance inside and outside will help us.”

After the Auburn game, Miller also vowed to play Doutrive more often. The freshman guard has played in just 22 minutes over four appearances so far this season.

“I think it's up to us to get him in the game now, give him a try,” Miller said. “Sometimes a young guy like that will come in with confidence and maybe bolster what we have.”

With only four players available for UA’s two post positions, keeping the Pitt grad transfer from repeating the foot issues that sidelined him for much of the previous two seasons is critical for the Wildcats. So far there’s been no sign of any such trouble this season … yet Luther was only a minimal factor in UA’s two losses for other reasons.

After Luther took just two field goals against UTEP on Nov. 14, Miller vowed to get him more involved, and he was against Iowa State. Luther’s 12 points, eight rebounds and three steals, including two corner 3s, were a big reason why the Wildcats beat the Cyclones 71-66 in their opening game.

But Luther took just five shots over the next two games and hit none of them. He averaged 5.5 rebounds against Gonzaga and Auburn but, with Chase Jeter averaging 8.5 points over those two games, the Wildcats could have used more inside scoring against teams that didn’t have size advantages over them.

While the lack of bench help put more pressure on the Wildcats’ starters, Jeter indicated in two postgame interviews that more a consistent mental approach could make a difference for everyone.

Arizona led Gonzaga by 13 points early in the second half before losing by 17, and trailed Auburn by only two with 10 minutes left before losing by 16.

Jeter said after the Auburn game that the Wildcats need to work on “not getting too excited” when things go well, and keep a consistent fighting mentality no matter what is going on.

Earlier in the week, after Arizona came back from a 10-point second-half deficit to beat Iowa State, Jeter said the Wildcats were “intimidated” early by the Cyclones’ deafening fan base inside the Lahaina Civic Center and needed to avoid letting the crowd dictate their response.

“We knew what we had to do defensively, we knew what we had to do from the jump,” Jeter said. “I think we came out a little bit lax in the beginning and then kind of we got caught up in the atmosphere.”

Over their first three home games, defense and ballhandling were UA’s strong points. The Wildcats allowed opponents 55.7 points and 34.5 percent field goal shooting while averaging 3.0 blocks and 7.3 steals.

Over three games at Maui, UA’s opponents shot 49.4 percent from the field (though only 27.8 percent from 3-point range) while averaging 76.7 points. Meanwhile, UA’s average turnovers ballooned from 8.6 at home to 15.0 on Maui.

The competition on Maui had a lot to do with those dips, since the Wildcats aren’t exactly the Final Four contenders they were the last time they competed in the tournament, back in 2014-15 en route to a 34-win season.

So maybe the best they can do, the way Miller explained it, is offer a consistent effort.

“When you're around our team every day you really get the same look,” Miller said after the Iowa State game. “We have very few ups and downs and that consistency, if we can keep that up, that will take us as far as we can go. And that's really what we're trying to do, can we become the best team that we can be? This isn't a year ago, three years ago, five, six, years ago, when we were here four years ago, (when) all that we were asked about was National Championship, Final Four.

“That was much different. For us right now, it's can we get better? What will we be like tomorrow? And can we stay on the right track?”