Poor rebounding, stagnant offense dooming Arizona in close games

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The Arizona Wildcats rank eighth in NET and 13th in KenPom, yet they are 19-8 and were recently dropped from the AP Top 25 for the third time in six weeks.

In other words, the numbers say the Wildcats are an elite team but their record doesn’t come close to reflecting that.

That discrepancy can partly be explained by Arizona’s inability to win close games. They are 3-6 in games decided by five or fewer points this season.

Why have things gone wrong in those closing moments?

The offense breaks down

The Wildcats have one of the best offenses in the nation—16th in KenPom—but they generally struggle to hit shots down the stretch and/or get too careless with the ball when the game slows down at the end.

Here’s how Arizona has fared in the final five minutes (plus overtime when applicable) of games decided by five points or less. Losses are in bold.

• vs. Pepperdine: 5-6 FG, 3 turnovers
• at Baylor: 2-8 FG, 1 turnover
• vs. Gonzaga, 8-15 FG, 0 turnovers
• vs. St. John’s: 2-6 FG, 0 turnovers
• at Oregon, 6-12 FG, 6 turnovers
• at ASU: 1-6 FG, 2 turnovers
• at Washington, 2-5 FG, 2 turnovers
• vs. USC: 0-4 FG, 0 turnovers
• vs. Oregon, 4-10 FG, 4 turnovers

Arizona had a chance to win four of those losses with a last-second shot, but came up empty each time. In all four instances, the ball was in the hands of Nico Mannion or Josh Green, who drove to the rim.

Mannion missed a floater against St. John’s off a pick-and-roll and missed another one at Oregon on an isolation play.

Green got blocked at the buzzer against ASU on a desperation play, and drew a foul vs. Oregon after a dribble handoff but missed two free throws that would have given Arizona the lead.

When asked why Zeke Nnaji, the team’s most efficient scorer, has not been fed the rock in those situations, Sean Miller said “at the end of the game a drive is just really big.”

“Most of the time the game is going to be won not on the first shot, but the second shot, as evidenced by what Oregon did to us,” Miller said, referring to Will Richardson getting the offensive rebound and dishing to Shakur Juiston for the game-winning layup. “You want to put your team in a position to, A, get a good shot. A drive a lot of times creates rotation, it sometimes forces a big guy to come over to help, which then opens the floodgates up for an offensive rebound or put back. But we couldn’t have gotten a better opportunity than the one we got (against Oregon). Straight line drive foul at the rim.”

Green missed the resulting free throws, though, highlighting another thing Arizona has lacked in these late-game situations: confidence.

It helps explain how a team that is the best in the Pac-12 at limiting turnovers can get so shaky with the ball when the game is on the line.

Same goes for how a pretty good free-throw shooting team can got 10 for 21 from line in the most important regular-season game of the season.

So it goes when your three best players are freshmen and three of your key role players are transfers in their first seasons in the program.

“That falls on me,” Miller said. “I mean, you want them to believe they’re going to win at the end of the game. And we’re going to continue to be hard at that part of coaching and that part of our practice, that want to give our guys the most confidence they can have, so that when we’re in those tight games, that they feel like they can deliver.”

Allowing too many offensive rebounds

The bigger problem is Arizona hasn’t been able to finish its defensive possessions with rebounds, obviously the big example coming against Oregon on Saturday when the Wildcats failed to corral Payton Pritchard’s missed 3 and the Ducks got the rebound and turned it into the game-winning bucket with 1.4 seconds left in overtime.

Here are Arizona’s rebounding differentials in the final five minutes (plus OT) in close games this season. Losses are in bold.

• vs. Pepperdine: 6-2 (allowed 2 offensive rebounds)
• at Baylor: 5-6 (allowed 3 offensive rebounds)
• vs. Gonzaga 8-8 (allowed 3 offensive rebounds)
• vs. St. John’s 5-10 (allowed 4 offensive rebounds)
• at ASU: 5-8 (allowed 3 offensive rebounds)
• at Oregon: 9-9 (allowed 4 offensive rebounds)
• at Washington: 9-6 (allowed 2 offensive rebounds)
• vs. USC: 11-6 (allowed 2 offensive rebounds)
• vs. Oregon 7-13 (allowed 6 offensive rebounds)

If you are keeping count, Arizona allowed 29 offensive rebounds in 55 minutes, roughly 21.1 per 40 minutes. That is a ridiculously large number considering Arizona only allows 9.4 offensive rebounds per 40 minutes on the season.

“We have a hard time securing rebounds at the end of games. It’s plagued us as far back as early December,” Miller said. “The one common theme with our team, and I’m not going to run from it, when you have the ball in the hands on a defensive rebound or the shot hits the rim and you’re up four, you’re up two, there’s 1:30 left, there’s 45 seconds left … you go up above the rim, you get it, you land and then they foul you. The ball doesn’t go off your hands, the guy doesn’t run around you, you don’t forget to block out, you don’t let the guy run and get it. Those are the plays that really drive you crazy because that’s just absolute toughness and effort. I wish we were better in that area, we’re not, and that’s why we have the number of losses that we do.”

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