Arizona basketball: Sean Miller expects Allonzo Trier’s assist numbers to improve in his sophomore season

Trier had 21 more turnovers than assists as a freshman

Allonzo Trier did a lot of things well for the Arizona Wildcats in his freshman season.

The shooting guard averaged 14.8 points per game — the most among all returning players — got to the free throw line at a high rate, and posted efficient field goal percentages at both the 3-point line (36.4) and the rim (68.0).

Trier continually improved as his freshman campaign went on, and Arizona head coach Sean Miller expects him to pick up right where he left off in his sophomore season, saying at media day that Trier “could be in for a big, big year.”

And it’s not just Trier’s scoring numbers that Miller expects to improve.

“He's going to add to what he did very well as a freshman, and I think the one stat we always talk to him about is he had 31 assists as a freshman,” Miller said at Pac-12 media day. “And he's a much better passer. He knows how to play the game with his teammates better now than ever before. We've seen that in practice. But I think he's poised to have an excellent season.”

Distributing was not a strength of Trier’s last season, to say the least.

He recorded just 31 assists in 27 games to go along with 52 turnovers. Meanwhile, his assist percentage — an estimate of the percentage of teammate field goals a player assisted on while he was on the floor — was 7.6 percent. Only big men Chance Comanche, Kaleb Tarczewski, and Ryan Anderson had lower percentages.

Given Trier’s ability to get to the rim and break down defenses, the ability to create shots for teammates can transform him from being a ‘good scorer’ into a more complete player — one that Arizona can run its offense through.

And if Arizona’s Red-Blue game is any indication of what’s to come, it’s good news for the Wildcats. Trier scored 16 points on 7-for-11 shooting, while dishing out three assists in the scrimmage — an assist total he reached just three times as a freshman.

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