First, in case you missed any of it:
The official boxscore and play by play for UA's 85-74 win over UCLA.
Our coverage: A main story on the big and little pictures, a sidebar on UA's point guard play, and seen-and-heard notes.
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Also, the Republic had this story about USC's win over ASU, the Sun Devils' sixth straight Pac-10 loss.
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In a game on ESPN2 that actually ended before midnight Eastern Time, the Wildcats may have actually won over a few more people Thursday.
Or did they already?
“We’re here,” guard MoMo Jones said. “A lot of people knew about us, more than a lot of people think. A lot of people knew about us and just coming out here tonight showed people that we can play and we can compete with some of the best teams in the country.”
Sean Miller said he believed the Wildcats’ win at Washington State was actually more of a “statement game,” coming on the road after a tough loss at Washington, but he wasn’t discounting Thursday's win, either.
“It’s a great moment for us,” Miller said. “Our crowd was great, our students were great. We had an amazing crowd and I really felt like our team fed off of that. We did a lot of good things -- our three-point percentage defense continues to be excellent and that’s one of the things that’s allowed us to have the success we’ve had over 21 games.”
The Wildcats held UCLA to just 2 for 15 shooting from three-point range and just 41.4 percent overall. If you take out Reeves Nelson’s 10-for-12 shooting, the Bruins shot just 30.4 percent.
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One common psychological coaching strategy is to correct a team when it wins – and is presumably paying attention – and boost it when it is down.
So maybe that was part of the reason that Miller interjected a few complaints into all the postgame giddiness.
Particularly, Miller was upset about the way UA handled the latter minutes of Thursday’s game, when it could have blown out UCLA but kept the Bruins hanging around.
“Our team really has a lot of growing up to do maturity-wise,” Miller said. “We didn’t handle the last four minutes well at all. At all. You’re up 16 points and you’re not trying to score. Not going to quick shoot and foul. Not going to throw the ball to the other team…
“As excited as I am about our win – and we did do a lot of great things –the growth and maturity has to continue to move in that direction so if the score is four or five points we can leave with a win and not lose because of things we can control.”
Miller was also upset that the Wildcats had 17 turnovers at home against a team that isn’t focused on forcing turnovers.
“UCLA turning the ball over (19 times) really helped us because it negated the fact that we turned the ball over,” Miller said. “We’re getting close to February, and 17 turnovers at home, we have to be better than that.”
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Alex Jacobson finally was able to play a role Thursday, entering the game in the second half after Kyryl Natyazhko had struggled and UA needed another body on Josh Smith.
Almost immediately, Jacobson grabbed an offensive board and dished to Kevin Parrom, while he also defended Smith.
Jacobson had not played since Dec. 5 against Oklahoma, partly because of back issues but mostly because he trails the other players in the rotation.
“Tree did a good job,” Miller said. “He made a really big play at a key moment in the game, a hustle play. He has a good feel around the basket. Josh Smith is such a load. Tree gives you a feeling like you have a chance to maybe prevent a basket. So we’re going to continue to mix him in and hopefully he’ll be able to help us.”
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Miller did not play Derrick Williams for the final few minutes.
“We went with a smaller lineup and he got his hand banged-up a little bit,” Miller said.
Williams was not available for the postgame interview session though a team spokesman said he did play with the injury earlier in the game.
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Five days after he missed two free throws that
nearly let Washington State win or tie the game in the final
seconds, Kyle Fogg returned to hit 12 of 14 free throws Thursday.
He made four in a row after a technical by Lazeric Jones,
too.
But Miller said Fogg didn’t necessarily need a confidence builder.
“I don’t worry a whole lot about Kyle,” Miller said. “The one thing I know is he’s doing everything we’re asking of him on defense. He takes care of the ball and makes good plays. He was 1 for 5 (from the field) but I thought he had some great looks. He was on the verge of having a great game.
“He’s doing fine. His attitude’s great. He’s improved so much on defense that it’s one of the many factors that make us a better defensive team than we were last year.”
