By
Keith Carmona
Arizona Daily Wildcat
To borrow a phrase, "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times."
The UA basketball players made it to the program's fourth Final Four despite Bobbi Olson's death, a midseason coaching shift, two suspensions and an early travel schedule that forced the Wildcats to trek across five time zones.
Self confidence is something the Wildcats never lacked.
From the first day of practice, the players claimed that they'd make the Final Four.
But even though the end result was a loss to Duke in the NCAA finals, the season was not all a wash, said sophomore guard Gilbert Arenas.
"From the beginning of the season, we knew that we should have been here," he said. "We fought hard to be here, and even though we lost the game, we are still going to keep our heads up. We made it this far, nobody thought that we'd make it this far, but we just came up one game short."
Despite all the conflict, Arizona ended its season just as it started it - by playing its best basketball.
UA opened its schedule in November by capturing the Maui Invitational title and doing so without senior center Loren Woods, who was on suspension for receiving "inappropriate gifts" from a friend. After the first week of the season, the Wildcats were fulfilling the expectations that accompanied their preseason No. 1 ranking.
"At that time, we were the best team in the country and we were playing like it," junior forward Michael Wright said. "This season would have been very different if we kept that up, but we didn't."
The turmoil struck after the trip to Hawaii.
Arizona lost 72-69 to Purdue in the Wooden Classic just three days after playing in Maui. Then, two weeks later in a separate trip across the country, the Wildcats lost to Connecticut 71-69 without Olson on the sidelines. He chose to say in Tucson to be with his wife as she battled ovarian cancer.
On Dec. 30, the Wildcats would have to get used to life without their head coach when he took a leave of absence from the team in order to be with Bobbi.
Receiving the news of Olson's leave just hours prior to their championship game in the Bank One Fiesta Bowl Classic against Mississippi State, the Wildcats lost to the Bulldogs 75-74. It was the team's first loss in tournament history. Bobbi Olson died two days later on Jan. 1.
"She is one of the most caring, loving people that I have ever encountered in my life," junior forward Richard Jefferson said. "She was a mother to every player that came in and out of Coach O's program. Each time you saw her, a smile ran across her face, as if you were bright spot of her day. That's something that every guy on our team will certainly remember."
The Wildcats lost their following game to Stanford at home. Three months and one day later they would be playing for a National Championship in Minneapolis, but at the time, that seemed questionable for a team that had fallen to 8-5.
"That was definitely the low point of the season because we put forth a lot of effort but still couldn't win the game," Jefferson said. "There was no single turning point in the season, but after that day we grew from the adversity and just kept trying to build momentum."
The Wildcats were in a rebuilding stage. They needed to rediscover their on-court chemistry while mending the pain of losing Bobbi, many of whom refer to as the "mother of Arizona basketball."
Their efforts were gradual.
The Wildcats rebounded from the Stanford loss with a sweep of the Washington schools in Washington, and then returned home for two wins against USC and UCLA.
More importantly, Olson rejoined the team and said he was ready to remold the team into championship contenders.
"It's really been a work in progress all the way through, I think," Olson said. "By the middle of January, you could see certain things happening, and I think the primary thing was just getting into a stable environment. (The players) needed to know that the staff was going to be there for them and that they would be there for each other."
Wright said he sensed that the weekend sweep of the Bruins and Trojans helped guide the Wildcats through the rest of their Pacific 10 Conference schedule.
"The thought of being a National Championship team really began to take hold again," he said. "Not that we ever stopped wanting it to happen, but after the weekend at home against the L.A. schools, it became more of a reality."
The Wildcats won 20 of their final 23 games, playing their way into a No. 2 seed of the Midwest Regional bracket of the NCAA Tournament.
In wins over Eastern Illinois, Butler, Ole Miss and Illinois, UA advanced to the Final Four in Minneapolis by downing its opponents by a 15.5 point margin.
At the Final Four, the team was projected to be outsized and out-rebounded by Michigan State. Arizona bucked its "soft" reputation to pound MSU 80-61 in the NCAA Semifinals, setting up an appropriate final game against a Duke team that shared the preseason No. 1 ranking.
"I think fate had something to do with the fact that we were both playing in the title game," said senior forward Gene Edgerson. "There is no doubt that Arizona and Duke (were) the best teams in basketball this season. We are so evenly matched that I think we'd split a 10-game series 5-5, but (April 2) was their night and not ours."
No tears were shed in the UA locker room following the loss to the Blue Devils in the championship game.
Instead, Olson beamed at the job his team did this season given the circumstances of the death of his wife and the suspensions of Woods and Jefferson.
"This team has been so resilient, it's just been unbelievable what they've done throughout the season," Olson said. "They've been receptive, they've been coachable, they've been together. I think the adversity has made them stronger and even closer as a team."
As strong as that unit was during the season, it didn't take long for it to fracture following the Final Four.
In the week following the title game loss, all four non-senior starters - guards Jason Gardner and Gilbert Arenas and forwards Michael Wright and Richard Jefferson - declared their eligibility for the NBA Draft next month.
"It has been a lifelong dream of mine to play in the NBA, and I feel like the time is right for me to go," Jefferson said. "I have enjoyed every minute as a member of this program."
Olson doesn't fault the players for leaving, though.
"I have never discouraged a kid from going because I think that would be a huge mistake on my part," he said. "What if I talked them into coming back and then all of a sudden, he has a career-ending injury or he has a bad year? All I am concerned about is that they make a decision based on fact, not on rumors that are flying around or information they're getting off the streets."
Gardner has not hired an agent, which allows him to return to the Wildcats next season.
UA undergraduate assistant coach Josh Pastner said he expects Gardner to chose UA over the NBA.
"We knew it was in the works for a couple of days, so it wasn't an ultimate surprise," he said. "(Gardner's) going to test the waters, but we expect him to be back. We hope he'll come back, but everything's fine if you want to go test the waters."
