Early Looks at Arizona
For those of us eagerly awaiting the beginning of the 2011-2012 college basketball season, which should be everybody, one of the first teams we will get to see is Arizona. The Wildcats are participating in the 2K Sports Classic benefiting Coaches vs. Cancer. The early part of that tournament takes place prior to the unofficial beginning of the season on Friday, November 11th. Arizona is one of four host teams for that tournament and will play on Monday, November 7th and a couple days later on Wednesday.
The other host schools are St. John’s, Mississippi State and Texas A&M. Those big host schools will meet up later in New York, but we will get an opportunity to see Arizona and some of the others a few days before we see everybody else. In fact, the first regular season games of the 2011-2012 campaign tip-off at 7:00 ET on ESPNU. The first game matches up William & Mary and St. John’s. After that, we get our first look at Final Four hopeful Arizona. The Wildcats are hosting a Valparaiso squad that they should out match and follow that up on Wednesday the 9th with a game against Duquesne on ESPN2 at 9:00.
So that means two of the first five nationally televised basketball games feature Arizona. What should we be looking for? First off, just how good is point guard Josiah Turner? The freshman is expected to make a huge impact, but whether or not that starts on day one of the season remains to be seen. The other big question for Arizona is in the post. Derrick Williams is gone after dominating the paint last season and leading this team to an Elite Eight appearance. Can Solomon Hill, Jesse Perry and Kryrl Natyazhko do enough to replace at least some of his production? Are the freshmen in the frontcourt ready to contribute too?
What we should learn from the first two games is that this is a very, very deep Arizona team. We should also get an idea if this relatively young team is going to struggle early in the year while players like Turner and Natyazhko adjust to their roles. If Coach Sean Miller has most of his players ready to go, this is an Arizona squad that could get off to a fast start and never look back. Even with some bumps in the road along the way, Arizona has the talent to win the Pac-12 and make a nice little run come March.
Read the in-depth men’s basketball preview for this team
