Not sure what to say. . .

[Nickelback]

but the better team won and Arizona flat out choked in the final minutes. How can anybody say different? Their missing piece this year has clearly been a player that can handle the ball and get it up the court. They had it in 97 when they won it all and handled Kentucky's pressure. Not this year.

And its definitely Illinois year. . . sure hope they finish it off now

 

[genosays]

Tough loss for the AZ nickle, hopefully you at least won some $$ on them .... felt sorry for those kids who played such a great 2nd half until crunchtime run by Illini .... utlimately Stoudamire didn't do enough, although realistically they should have won anyway .... not totally bagging on your coach, but Lute didn't seem to try enough things at the end to hang on ... was still a nice run by AZ overall to get to regional final.

 

[Nickelback]

Difficult loss to be sure. . . Illinois simply put on the pressure at the right time. . . maybe they knew Arizona was weak with ball handling. . . maybe not and just got lucky under their desperation mode.

And yeah, Stoudamire didn't get it done to be sure but everyone else clearly stepped up especially Adams. I still don't know exactly what Lute could have done except maybe go small on the court and get ball handlers in there that wouldn't turn it over. . . especially the final minute.

Oh well, the best team won and Illinois had the best season so I can't feel completely awful for Arizona

 

[Albino14]

smaller programs such as west virginia are not meant for the final 4...no matter how hard they try, the better team will always win even if they are up 20. looks like illinois is a team of destinty, they just can't lose.

 

[gjn23]

Nickel

I know I will get called a homer...but the better team did NOT win yesterday. Arizona carved up Illinois (esp in the second half) with frye/adams/jmac/ivan destroying their defense and we were CLEARLY the better team.

However, you are correct in your assessment of our PG...Shakur has been and still is a weak point guard...he does not DEMAND the ball on an inbounds play nor does he have the confidence to bring the ball up court. Do you think Damon, Geary, Bibby, JT or Gardner let any of what happened in the final three minutes occur???? NO WAY IN HELL....so from that perspective I dont blame Lute the coach, i blame him a bit more from a recruting standpoint (however shakur was THE PG coming out of HS 2 years ago...a total bust thus far).

Now....to add to my homerism...there were two blatant NON-CALLS during the Ill "run". Once when Brown hacked away at Shakur and finally stripped the ball for a layup and another when Frye passed to Adams for another hack job turned steal-layup. To say the crowd had no influence on the refs would be inaccurate. Home teams usually get calls like Ill got...not neutral court teams.

Since I was there, I will add this.....not many of their fans left and not many had any influence for 36 mins....however when Williams hit that three to tie the game...the place was the loudest venue I've ever been in (nice neutral court) for any sporting event.

Where I will give credit to Ill is this:
1) they realized (more likely dumb lucked) into the fact that our PG struggles to get that ball up court. In their desperation, the refs swallowed their whistles and Ill took advantage.

2) more importantly...they hit every shot during the final 3 mins....EVERY SHOT. Arizona should have been in a position to shoot 15-20 FT in the final 2 mins and we shot 4...none in the last minute.....nice inbounding and nice TO.

I will also say that it was obivous to me that Salim was totally gassed, he had nothing left. That said, I put my three best players in their best spots to win the game at the end of OT

1) salim with the ball, iso, top of key
2) frye down low
3) adams on the wing cleaning up the garbage, missed shot.

I love Hassan, but him with the ball on an iso play is NOT in my top three plays to call....why lute went with this is beyond belief and I love hassan and he was playing amazing...but still....it's salims team, salims year and frye cant be stopped by Ill.

Now that I have that off my chest, I will go back to the bottle.......the hardest loss I've ever had to endure, may take a while to get over this one.

Bear Down

 

[johnnyb.]

you were missing a 4 man, lute told me in airport (lax) that fox was his man coming out of school with kid at san diego st.
fox lost the weight but never developed, look he played a frosh during last game instead of playing fox. also hassan adams played a lot in the key looking to help channing frye...

still a great season for your az wildcats!

 

[Nickelback]

gjn, no question the most difficult loss ever in terms of having the game in hand so convincingly only to lose focus and the game the last few minutes.

I think this will always be one of those "what if" losses because if Arizona was capable of getting up by 15 on Illinois in that particular venue that late in the game, they could have done it against anybody.

Just not meant to be. . . its Illinois year and hopefully they finish what they started.

 

[vyrus858]

sorry about your loss boys, I feel the pain as about half my good friends graduated from U of A and they won't even talk to me yet lol...something to look forward to though, Stoops running the football program next year after a solid rookie campaign, that should give you guys a bit of a boost and something to look forward to

 

[pt1gard]

gjn,

great write-up ... only thing i differ with is that shakur's rip looked clean BUT Frye's was def. a hammer (replayed both a # of times this morning) ... they call one for Frye and UA goes up 79-68 with app 1 min left (close to that need to check) and game's over ... instead its 77-70 and u know the rest ... shakur was bad tho in end, tho he did score (i believe) more than he had in last 4 games total ...

sorry about your loss, it was brutal

take care
gregg

 

[Nickelback]

Yeah, life is ok. . . it would be worse if we had the season that Illinois had then lost it the way Arizona managed to lose. Wildcats this year just never seemed to be able to seize the moment. What do I mean by this? Well, the Pac-10 championship game was clearly taylor-made for them (given Arizona's easy wins versus Washington's struggles) as I've said before yet they lost to Washington. Then being up by 15 to the #1 team in the country and having a lapse was just the icing on the cake.

Maybe football season will be a surprise. . . don't we get USC at home this year??? LOL

 

[gjn23]

football? not interested.....yet (sc is in la this year so no chance)

shakur did manage to play well (although i did win a wager predicting he would be yanked prior to the 1st tv timeout) but he was WEAK when it mattered in the last 2 mins.....the reason we struggled to inbound the ball so many times was because HE didn't go get the ball.

as far as it being Ill year....BS.....wasn't it our year in 88, 89, 98, 03? Never worked out....gotta win 6 games in March....This was the perfect team to beat Ill...saw it coming 3 months ago, their interior weakness was exposed in the # of layups and inside game that we destroyed them on (see the shooting % of frye, adams, ivan)......it should have been a FT shooting contest (we shoot 77%) and we couldn't even get it to that point.....a total disappointment.

still in shock and didn't watch yesterday ( was on a plane) and will likely not watch next weekend.

And no, I wont be rooting for Ill....while i dont mind this coach and this team (not the case in 01, self and those clowns were a-holes)...their fans are a piece of work...as a group, they deserve to lose!