Tournament Notebook
March 20, 2008 11:31 AM | General
March 20, 2008
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Arizona coach Kevin O’Neill is finally got a full deck of cards to play with. Power forward Bret Brielmaier was injured on Dec. 22 and missed 13 games, freshman guard Jerryd Bayless missed four games right after Christmas and point guard Eric Wise was absent for eight games during the Pac 10 season. All three are back and ready to go.
“All of those hit us pretty hard, especially the guard play,” O’Neill said. “Those are really our only true point guard/two guard type players on the roster. It was a little bit difficult without one of those guys – the other guy was under a little bit too much pressure or strain, whatever.”
“We don’t play anybody that’s not full strength,” Huggins said. “As soon as they see us come up … I told one of your radio stations today we’re like Ernest Ainsley, we just heal everybody. Obviously Wise makes them a lot better because he can make shots and he runs. He gets those other guys off the ball.”
Quick Hitters
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| Joe Alexander works on a reboundind drill during yesterday's public workout at the Verizon Center.
AP photo |
“I think Bob and I believe the same things that playing hard, not turning the ball over, sharing the ball are all really important things,” O’Neill said. “We’ve known each other for a long time. I was obviously gone to the NBA for seven years and didn’t spend much time around the college game, but I’ve always stayed in touch with Bob.
“I think he’s done a wonderful job with his West Virginia team,” O’Neill said. “They appear to be a team that’s improved every month and that says a lot about him and his players.”
“What they’ve done with Bob’s five-out motion, I don’t know what he calls it, what he’s done is different points during the season he’s got his hot hand and gotten guys like Alexander now and he’s playing great – he goes to those guys.
“The basic principles about the offense are about the same, they’re more set oriented it looked like early on. If you watch their games during the year, especially from the middle of the year on, I thought it probably isn’t just Bob, but the players if somebody is hot they find them.”
“I’d like to have (Stanford’s) Brook Lopez – that would make our inside game better,” O’Neill said. “It’s just everybody is a little bit like that. It doesn’t stop them from being a very good basketball team. They’re stronger as a group than they are individually. And that says a lot about their players and their style and their system.”
“There’s been days I thought we were really ready to play and we came out and didn’t play. And there’s been days I thought I didn’t think we had a chance and we came out and played really, really hard,” Huggins said. “We’re like everybody else. We don’t have a post guy and we don’t have a whole lot of people who can break you down off the dribble, so we rely on making jump shots.
“When you rely almost solely on jump shots you better make them. When we don’t make jump shots we’re not very good,” Huggins said.
