Pac-12 Network analyst: Arizona basketball’s top-6 players as good as any in the country
Nov 14, 2014, 3:30 AM | Updated: 3:30 am
The college basketball season is set to begin and expectations are sky-high in Tucson.
The Arizona Wildcats begin the year ranked second in the AP Poll, and after last season ended in a close Elite Eight loss, the returning stars will be looking to improve upon that finish.
Pac-12 Networks analyst Matt Muehlebach sees a team that can compete with any group in the country.
Muehlebach was a guest Thursday morning with Doug & Wolf on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM, and he said the Wildcats’ starting lineup and sixth-man justify the high hopes.
“Their top-six, I think, could match just about anybody,” said Muehlebach. He added that Arizona’s talent compares well to top-ranked Kentucky, but the difference for both teams could come from their returning players.
“You think of these one-and-done teams and guys and all that, and Kentucky has some experience, but so does Arizona,” said Muehlebach. “They’ve got a lot of guys that, for the era we’re in, you don’t see, and you think of these one-and-dones, but they’ve got the experience.”
Arizona returns 65 percent of its minutes from 2013-14, with five players who started five or more games during the season. Arizona also returns big-game experience with five players who played in last season’s Elite Eight, not including forward Brandon Ashley, who started every game before his season-ending injury in February.
But despite returning so many key players and adding three players ranked in the top-100 of ESPN’s 2014 recruiting class, Muehlebach suggests that fans hold off on prematurely buying their tickets for the Final Four.
“I think when you have a top-10 team, and maybe even top-15, I think what you should expect is to get to the second weekend of the tournament,” he said. The analyst explained that random circumstances, such as cold nights from stars or a hot-shooting night from an opponent can upend any team in the tournament.
“It’s like 25 percent of the one seeds or less get to the Final Four, so statistically you shouldn’t really expect it,” said Muehlebach. “You should say, ‘Yeah, there’s a good chance, but if we don’t, not a big deal.'”
Arizona’s regular season starts on Friday at 6 p.m. against Mount St. Mary’s in Tucson.
