Brad Cesmat
Random Three Dot Thoughts on another early Arizona elimination from March Madness.
They didn’t get to Glendale. Shoot they didn’t even get out of San Jose. A team that won 30 games, took the Pac-12 and Regular Season titles, is sent to the airport after the Sweet 16. Blowing an 8 point lead, with four mins.to play, against the #11 seed simply can’t happen if you’re an elite program. Of course there will be those who disagree, and that’s fine. The beauty of fandom is blindness.
I’ve always said that Sean Miller is a good coach. Anyone who questions his coaching acumen isn’t very smart. He handled himself with class afterwards, shaking hands with the Xavier players and owning his nights shortcomings in the postmortem meeting with the press. He got beat by the better team Thursday night.
But sometimes you have to bring the sledgehammer, rather than the fly swatter. Not making it past the Sweet 16 with this group of players means some hard swings on the cement need to take place. Miller had a loaded roster. One likely NBA Lottery pick and several other players who the University touted as Four and Five star recruits. In recent recruiting cycles, Miller is nabbing top-ten players right and left. Not one Final Four appearance to show for it. He deserves SOME of the criticism, just not the cheap shots I’ve seen since the final horn, late Thursday night.This isn’t the Lute Olson Wildcats,we all know that, but just like UCLA coaches that followed the late John Wooden, the expectation of a Final Four or greater is always in place. I sat with some big-cigar Arizona boosters in row 2 right behind the Wildcats bench in their regular season finale against Arizona State. There were some impatient fans in the first half of that game who were directing their anxiety towards Miller. It comes with the territory of being the big program in market-size #61, especially with Rich Rod having a tough-go with football.
Miller is only 48. He’s a national brand, who’s won a ton of games between November and Mid-March. He’s recruited lots of players ranked with five stars by their names, but he hasn’t gotten his team to the ultimate measuring stick of success. A Final Four. For that reason, fans and media have EVERY RIGHT to fairly scrutinize, criticize and critique what’s going on in Tucson around him and his program.
