By
Keith Carmona
Arizona Daily Wildcat
DALLAS - Even though the Arizona basketball team didn't return home to Tucson yesterday with the National Championship trophy, they deserve recognition for an incredible season. Given the trials they faced this season, the Wildcats deserve the award for "Comeback Team of the Year," even though such an accolade doesn't really exist.
Soap-operatic at times, the UA players made it to the program's fourth Final Four despite Bobbi Olson's death, a midseason coaching shift, two undeserved suspensions and a travel itinerary that would leave even Jules Verne panting.
The Wildcats began the season just as they ended it, playing their best basketball. UA opened their schedule in November by capturing the Maui Invitational title after defeating Illinois, a team they'd later meet in the NCAA Elite Eight. By winning without Loren Woods, who was on suspension for receiving "inappropriate gifts" from a former friend, Arizona fulfilled their preseason No. 1 expectations early.
All that went up in a flurry rather quickly, though.
Following the trip to Hawaii, the Wildcats suffered several losses that may as well be marked with asterisks.
The team lost 72-69 to Purdue in the Wooden Classic just three days after playing in Hawaii. The UA players were operating five time zones away playing a game that Lute Olson scheduled to honor the great UCLA head coach John Wooden. Had it not been for Wooden specifically requesting the Wildcats' presence, Arizona wouldn't have made the hellish trek.
Two weeks later, the Wildcats lost to Connecticut 71-69 without Olson on the sidelines. The head coach stayed in Tucson to be with Bobbi as she underwent intensive surgery for her ovarian cancer. And if that wasn't enough for UA to cope with, the losing basket was the result of a questionable goaltending call on senior center Woods. Replays indicated that the block was legal, but referee Rich Ballesteros wouldn't reverse the call.
Beginning with the Connecticut game and continuing a week later with a loss to Illinois in Chicago, Arizona's season began a downward spiral as Olson was spending more time in the hospital with his wife than he was with the team.
The Wildcats' future took a decided turn for the worst on Dec. 30, when Olson took a leave of absence from the team in order to be with Bobbi in what would be the last two day's of her life. Receiving the news just hours prior to their championship game in the Bank One Fiesta Bowl Classic against Mississippi State, the Wildcats merely went through the motions that night, losing the game 75-74. Suddenly, basketball seemed less important to every member of the team.
When Bobbi Olson passed away on Jan. 1, a home date with the No. 1 Stanford Cardinal was only five days away. Though they lost the game and reached what many players consider the lowest point of the season, the ship would soon right itself.
Just two weeks later, Olson returned to the bench, and Arizona celebrated with a home sweep of USC and UCLA. That weekend - Jan. 18-20 - was the turning point of the season, as the oft-maligned Wildcats downed two streaking, ranked opponents.
With Olson back, their team at full-strength and spirits beginning to lift, the Wildcats steadily began to increase their margins of victory and before long, they were steamrolling through every team in their path.
Discounting two inconsequential bumps in the road - a UCLA team playing their best ball of the year, and a tough Oregon team on their home court - Arizona won 20 of their next 22 games, including those up to the NCAA Championship game.
In that stretch, they recorded nine victories, averaging 20 points more than their opponents. Though climbing back into the poll's top spot was difficult with Duke and Stanford rarely losing, the Wildcats rebounded from their No. 23 ranking in early January and beat the No. 1 Cardinal at home, earning a No. 2 seed in the Midwest Region.
Winning their regional came easy. In wins over Eastern Illinois, Butler, Ole Miss and Illinois, Arizona won with an average margin of 15.5 points per game to advance to the Final Four in Minneapolis.
Though the Wildcats were supposed to be outsized and out-rebounded, Arizona shook the notion that they were a soft team by massacring Michigan State 80-61 in the NCAA Semifinals, setting up an appropriate final game against Duke.
Arizona and Duke began the season ranked No. 1 and No. 2 respectively in most national polls, and while many UA players craved a one-game scrimmage for bragging rights with the Blue Devils in the fall, they would get the real thing five months later.
UA kept stride with Duke in the first half, but four three-pointers by Blue Devil Mike Dunleavy after the half and ice-cold shooting from the perimeter on UA's behalf secured the title for the ACC Champions.
There is a silver lining to the Wildcats' season, however.
Arizona came from the depths of personal tradgedy and team dissaray to prove the mid-season doubters wrong and play in the final game of the season.
Not a bad way to go out.
