How unfortunate that the seasons for both Arizona football and men’s basketball ended within days of each other.
The former’s defeat at Texas Tech on Halloween and the latter’s loss to UCLA just two days later marked the end of the line for each program, because nothing that happens from here truly matters.
Nah, that ain’t it.
Losses are always disappointing and the two referenced here certainly left all of us at least bummed, if not angry. For football, the team had a golden opportunity to announce
its arrival as a true contender while remaining very much in the race to win the Big 12 and reach the College Football Playoff.
With hoops, the opening night loss to a hated rival offers a bad feeling for a fanbase that deep down knows a repeat of the previous season’s success is unlikely, with fears of a significant drop off lingering until proven otherwise.
So yeah, those games could have gone better.
The thing is, though, each team’s respective seasons could still turn out to be one that if not historical, at least worth feeling good about.
It’s all about perspective.
That we’re disappointed in football losing a game it was supposed to lose on the road against a team with a significantly greater roster budget because it could have won is in itself a positive. There are no moral victories when you’re trying to win a championship, but there’s a reason why the Cats were not favored to win the game.
Big picture, even if the playoffs are not in the team’s future a season with 10 or more wins very much could be. Should the Wildcats get there it would put this 4 stretch among the very best in program history. The most games Arizona has ever won over a 4-year stretch is 34, and the program went into this season having won 23.
Perspective.
As football defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales noted this week: “Being 6-2 at the University of Arizona, and people being disappointed is freaking awesome.”
It is, and while being 8-0 would be even awesomer the fact of the matter is no one really should have expected that of this year’s team, not with the schedule it was facing. That we can look back at losses to BYU and Texas Tech — both of whom are in the top 15 of the first playoff rankings — and feel like the Cats could have won each of those games shows us just how far the program has come and, unfortunately, how far it still has to go.
Football is much improved and heading in the right direction, and that’s a good thing. Whether it can ever reach the mountaintop is anyone’s guess, and if it couldn’t happen with Noah Fifita at QB then it’s fair to wonder if it ever can.
Basketball is different. Very different.
Tommy Lloyd’s team reached the Final Four just last season, ending a drought of more than two decades and solidifying Arizona as one of the nation’s best programs. An offseason that did not necessarily go according to plan still, as far as we know, produced a talented roster capable of winning a lot of games. Just, it didn’t win the first one and the program is now riding a 2-game losing streak.
The next time Arizona faces a team whose colors are some version of blue and yellow will be too soon.
Nevertheless, perspective is warranted given that this was just one of at least 32 games and the Cats were ranked 5th in the preseason poll for a reason.
“There’s no panic after one game,” Lloyd said after the loss. “These seasons are long, and I know everyone has high hopes and wants everything to go perfect.
“But when you’ve been doing this for enough years, you know you’re in a very imperfect business, so just get get comfortable being challenged. And so I’m honestly really looking forward to seeing how we respond.”
Fortunately there is plenty of time to respond.
While program history will likely help to paint this year’s football season in a positive light, men’s basketball is afforded no such luxury. In fact, playing in the shadow of last year’s team will undoubtedly impact how some people view this year’s. The team that went to the Final Four knocked off the defending national champs in its first game and also defeated ranked UCLA, UConn, Auburn, Alabama and BYU before suffering the first of its two regular season losses in February.
Ignoring that this year’s team already lost its first game, the kind of season Arizona had last year is historic and unlikely to be repeated by anyone anytime soon. That team was great. This team, we’ll have to see. Early returns are most likely to be mixed, though prospects would look a lot better if RJ Godfrey was ruled eligible to play.
The beauty of basketball season, at least when compared to football, is that one game or even a few games don’t eliminate you from championship contention. Whereas Arizona’s football team needs to keep winning and get help in order to win a championship, all basketball needs to do is win games, get to the NCAA Tournament and then play its best basketball of the season.
Nothing says it can’t happen. Nothing says it will.
Part of the fun though is watching to see if it does, and if recent history is any indication we should feel confident that Arizona will be in the running for a conference title and a high seed in the NCAA tournament.
Losses are never fun, and some matter more than others. But unless it’s the final game of the season, good teams can ensure they are not the final chapter in an enjoyable story.
