Arizona basketball: Five takeaways from the Wildcats’ Red-Blue game

That Lauri Markkanen guy is pretty good

Friday night started with the honoring of the 1997 championship team and ended with Miles Simon’s jersey being placed in the McKale Center rafters.

But, in between the two festivities, fans got their first glimpse of this season’s Arizona Wildcats team in their Red-Blue game scrimmage (there was a dunk contest too, where Sean Miller got dunked over).

The Red Team — featuring a starting lineup of Parker Jackson-Cartwright, Dusan Ristic, Rawle Alkins, Allonzo Trier and Keanu Pinder — defeated the Blue Team 53-49, which featured Lauri Markkanen, Kobi Simmons, Kadeem Allen, Chance Comanche and Ray Smith.

As Miller said after the game, you have to take what you see in a scrimmage like this “with a grain salt,” but there were still few interesting things that took place, nonetheless.

And here they are:

Markkanen Marvels: Miller called Markkanen the “real deal” a few weeks ago, and he wasn’t kidding.

Markkanen dropped 14 points, scoring from all over the floor. He hit a pair of 3s — displaying a smooth and confident jumper — and had two put-backs, as well as four free throws, which he created by attacking closeouts off the dribble.

Markkanen also grabbed seven rebounds, three of which were offensive rebounds.

It might have seemed like an exceptional performance by the freshman, but Miller said a 14-point, seven-rebound night is “pretty much to be expected from him” moving forward.

He’s just that good.

“He’s so versatile, he can step out and hit the jump shot and pick and pop,” said Jackson-Cartwright. “It’s really dangerous, it’s really special. If he’s open, it’s pretty much going in every time so you gotta get a hand up.”

Arizona hasn’t had a player like Markkanen for a while.

“He has the ability to step away from the basket as a front court player and we really haven’t had that since Derrick Williams maybe, or Jamelle Horne in our first couple years,” Miller said of the Finnish forward. “So that helps spacing.”

Defensively, Markkanen showed that he’s mobile enough to effectively maneuver around screens and cover ground. He’s also a legitimate 7-footer and has the length that goes along with that.

His rim-protection was iffy, and that could prove to be a persisting problem, but in this game, who really is going to go out of their way to challenge shots at the rim?

Which gets me to my second point...

Ragged rim-protection: Arizona’s guards and wings attacked the rim at will and found a ton of success. Allen scored 14 points, Smith scored 10, while Alkins and Trier dropped 15 and 16 points, respectively.

The amount of athleticism on the floor was a noticeable upgrade from last season, and points in the paint were coming in bunches.

Arizona’s perimeter players had no trouble getting to the rim, and when they got there, there was usually no one there to alter their shots.

Comanche did have two blocks and Smith had another, rotating from the corner for a weak side rejection on Ristic. However, other than a play here or there, Arizona’s interior defense was lacking.

Ristic — who will presumably start at center on opening night — had a very familiar-looking game.

He scored 16 points on 7-of-10 shooting, but didn’t make much of an impact on defense or the glass, finishing with just three rebounds.

Ristic has gotten himself into better shape, dropping his body fat from 20 percent to 10 percent, but it remains to be seen how much better that’ll make him as a defender.

“We’re going to learn as we play against different players,” Miler said. “You don’t really know because you’re playing against yourself constantly right now, but I think moving forward Dusan has prepared himself to be better. He’s prepared himself to move easier. He’s in the best shape of his life. He’s smarter. Now’s his time. I think we have an incredibly gifted offensive player that’s going to be an improved defender. It’s up to us to continue to teach him.”

It seems like Ristic still has plenty to work on, then again maybe the effort level would’ve been different if it wasn’t a scrimmage.

Point guard Parker: The two point guards in this game were Simmons and Jackson-Cartwright, as expected.

The latter was phenomenal.

Jackson-Cartwright only had four points, but he dished out seven assists and grabbed four rebounds, all without committing a single turnover.

Sometimes in scrimmages like these, players either try to force passes that aren’t there, or they’ll throw errant passes because two players aren’t on the same page.

Jackson-Cartwright avoided both, playing a near-perfect game while leading the Red team to victory.

“I’m really excited watching Parker,” Miller said. “Not just because of how he played today but how he’s played everyday. He’s at a higher level as a basketball player right now than he’s been at his time at Arizona.”

It’s all about experience.

“I think back to Parker maybe a year ago in this game or maybe two years when he would’ve been playing head-to-head with TJ… and, man, he’s really gotten better,” Miller said. “I think that’s really obvious to see. He’s stronger, he’s faster, more sure of himself.”

At the same time, Simmons was in the situation Jackson-Cartwright was in two years ago, making his first appearance at McKale Center.

He finished just 1-for-6 from the field with two turnovers and two assists.

It’s nothing to worry about, though.

“It’s tough to judge Kobi right now because we’re asking him to play two positions,” Miller said. “He’s not going to look as good playing in this game as he otherwise would have if I gave him one thing to learn. He has a lot going on but I think for his career and also the depth of our team, we’re trying to move him back and forth right now.”

Shooting struggles: It was an ugly night from the perimeter.

If you take away Markkanen’s shooting stats, Arizona was 3-for-16 from behind the 3-point line. Trier was 1-for-4, Alkins and Jackson-Cartwright were 1-for-3, while Simmons and Allen were both 0-for-2 from that range.

There were a lot of bricks and even a couple airballs.

The potential is there for Arizona to be good shooting team, yet only two players on the roster — Jackson-Cartwright and Trier — are proven high-percentage shooters at the collegiate level.

In order for Arizona to be that team, the newcomers are going to have to make their fair share of 3s.

And it wouldn’t be surprising if they do, considering many of them have nice shooting strokes and have been praised for their capability, but sometimes jump shots don’t instantly translate to a new level or a new team.

T.J. McConnell, for example, shot over 40 percent from 3 in his two years at Duquesne, yet barely cracked 36 percent at Arizona. His senior year, he was only at 32 percent. Gabe York is another example as he only hit 34.8 percent of his 3s as a freshman, then saw his percentage rise each year after.

In other words, newcomers are prone to shooting slumps, and since Arizona has quite a few of them, it could prove to be a problem.

The Red-Blue game demonstrated what a typical shooting night could look like if that’s the case.

Things are about to get serious: Miller quickly reminded his team that performances in the Red-Blue game aren’t indicative of much.

“I told our guys after the game that I’ve watched players in this game in the last seven years be the highest scorer and a month later, not be good enough to even play in a regular season college game,” Miller said. “I’ve watched guys struggle in the Red-Blue game, usually the first-year players, and become first round picks that summer. You have to take what you see out there with a grain salt.

“The role they have at the beginning of the year might not even be close the role they have at the end of the year.”

That doesn’t mean the Red-Blue game isn’t beneficial, though.

“Tonight is usually the first test,” Miller said. “It’s just good for our guys to get out in front of the crowd, 14,500 [people]. It’s not as easy for them to play as you would think and it’s a trial run of things to come.

“Once you see how they react to the Red-Blue — if they have problems, they’re never making it here.”

And now that it’s over, it’s time for Arizona to buckle down until the regular season. Right now, the Wildcats practice three days on, then have two days off. Soon, they’ll practice four to five days in a row.

“Once the Red-Blue closes, now it moves to a different chapter,” Miller said. “That is about the next three or four weeks... and you learn more and more about yourself every day and I think it’s going to be an exciting journey.”

The season opener is on Nov. 11 when Arizona travels to Honolulu to take on Michigan State.

---

You can follow this author on Twitter at @RKelapireUA

from Arizona Desert Swarm - All Posts http://ift.tt/2diGYja
via IFTTT