 |
| |
|
 |
 |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The real Arizona Confident, experienced Wildcats play their best game yetPosted: Friday March 28, 2003 2:07 AM
ANAHEIM, Calif. -- They were the No. 1 team in the country for 13 weeks, but more recently they’d lost to UCLA, barely survived Gonzaga and watched as the same masses who were set to hand them the national title back in January went fleeing over to the Kentucky bandwagon. On this night, though, the former No. 1 looked every bit as deserving as the present, and they weren’t afraid to say so. "We don’t care about what people think," said guard Salim Stoudamire after the Wildcats’ 87-71 victory over Notre Dame. "We know we’re the best team in the country, and that’s that." Excluding a first-round laugher against 16th seed Vermont, it had been well over a month since Arizona took anyone to the woodshed the way it did in Thursday’s Sweet 16 game. While those other Wildcats got taken to the limit by fifth-seeded Wisconsin, these Wildcats treated their five seed like an overmatched sparring partner, a major accomplishment considering the Irish are about the furthest thing from a pushover. Reminiscent of its vintage January performance against Kansas, Arizona exploded about eight minutes into the first half, going on a 22-3 run in which it seemed like every player on the roster contributed.
Center Channing Frye was a force inside, scoring on four of five possessions at one point and finishing with 14 points and 12 rebounds. Rick Anderson and Luke Walton crashed the boards for put-backs, producing a combined 25 points and 19 rebounds. Jason Gardner and Hassan Adams penetrated, and Adams made several key plays defensively. Even reserve Andre Iguodala hit a jumper early on that helped get the momentum going. "When we have people coming off the bench like Andre and Hassan, guys who could start for any other team in the country, I think that's kind of amazing to some people," said Frye. The Wildcats shot 53.5 percent in the first half, but it seemed "like they shot 80 percent," said Notre Dame's Chris Thomas. At one point, they made 12 consecutive field-goal attempts. They also committed just one turnover. "When we are playing on top of our game, we are a very hard team to play," said Walton. This was the Arizona team the pundits had in mind when they predicted greatness last autumn, not the one that got beat by an eighth-place UCLA team or needed a miss at the end of double-overtime to stave off ninth seed Gonzaga. Their confidence, which trickles down from three seniors who have seen and done it all over the course of their careers to the talented but less consistent freshmen and sophomores, oozed from start to finish. "We were struggling a little bit," Walton said of the UCLA and Gonzaga games. "This game felt good the whole way." Not surprisingly, their "best game" paralleled an improved outing by senior leader Gardner. After hitting a low point against UCLA, when he shot a ghastly 2-of-20 from the field, and following it up with a combined 8-of-24 against Vermont and Gonzaga, Gardner hit consecutive 3-pointers toward the end of the first half that put a dagger in the Irish's comeback hopes. He finished with 19 points, including 3-of-5 3-pointers, while helping open the floor for his teammates with his usual crisp passing. "Right before the game, in the locker room, we talked about family and we talked about moving the ball, and I think we did a great job making the extra pass," said Gardner. "It got everybody involved in the offense and making shots." After scoring a season-high 53 points in the first half, the Wildcats cooled down offensively in the second but held the Irish to 8-of-24 shooting and never let them get closer than 10. "I'm very impressed with Arizona," said Notre Dame coach Mike Brey. "We were going to have to score more than 71 points to make it interesting." So will anyone else the Wildcats encounter between now and whenever this run of theirs winds up, starting with Kansas in Sunday's Elite Eight game. It's interesting that the Jayhawks would stand between Arizona and the Final Four. It was the teams' first matchup in Lawrence, when the Wildcats obliterated a 20-point deficit to win by 17, that the seeds of a possible title team were planted. They'll have to play their best game to beat Kansas or Kentucky or whoever else might present themselves from here. But, as Walton said, "I give ourselves a big advantage when we're playing our best game." Stewart Mandel covers college sports for SI.com.
Got a comment, question or scoop for Stewart? Click here.
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
