Arizona basketball: Wildcats overcoming injuries

After losing another important piece on Wednesday night, injuries are starting to impact this season.

It seems Arizona Football's bad luck with injuries have been passed on to the basketball team.

"This is my 12th year as a head coach, in the other 11 years combined I have never seen this many injuries from the beginning of school to right now" Sean Miller said in his post game press conference after the Fresno State victory.

So, how many injuries have the Arizona Wildcats had this season?

"As many as 15" according to Miller.

Kaleb Tarczewski has an ankle/foot injury and he is expected to miss about 2- 4 more weeks. Kadeem Allen went down on a non-contact play Wednesday night. Miller said in his post game press conference Wednesday that Gabe York was banged up in the second half and didn't seem to be moving as well as he is capable of. Then arguably the most impactful injury of the season is Ray Smith going down with a torn ACL in the pre-season, which will keep him out of the 2015-2016 season.

With this many injuries it could be easy for a team to fall apart, but not this team. Ever since Zeus went out, Arizona has only missed one beat, the loss to Providence (who is now ranked 15th in the AP) and beat a very good Gonzaga team on the road.

As my grandma says, everything is a blessing, you just have to change your perspective. While injuries are a sad part of sports, this could be a blessing for Arizona because more guys are seeing playing time (Chance Comanche, Justin Simon and Dusan Ristic). This means that when conference play rolls around, Arizona will have a deeper bench, and those three guys will be more comfortable in games that matter.

Injuries are an unfortunate part of the game, but the way the Wildcats have handled it is something to be commended. Not only do the 'Cats have new pieces to integrate into the team, but now Miller has to change the lineups as a result of the injuries. Arizona has responded extremely well, which shows the maturity of this team.

This bodes well for the rest of the season.

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