Along the Way: Arizona withstands Murphy’s Law in hectic season

It got there on gravel road, but the Arizona men’s basketball team has made it back to the NCAA Tournament.

If you have to ask what’s the big deal about all this, you haven’t paid much attention to the news — never mind the sports report — the past several months.

The Wildcats were without Hall of Fame head coach Lute Olson, who took a leave of absence that lasted the entire season.

Kevin O’Neill, brought back to UA from the National Basketball Association to coach defense and toughen up the team, wound up replacing Olson instead.

With no warning.

With a young team.

And with the toughest schedule in college basketball.

As if that weren’t enough, O’Neill, who was a Wildcat assistant from 1986-89 before becoming head coach at Marguette, Tennessee and Northwestern and then coaching several years in the NBA, had to deal with the loss of his best player, freshman guard Jerryd Bayless, over a stretch of four games. The Cats lost three of them.

Then he had to juggle the lineup for nine or 10 games without the services of point guard Nic Wise and power forward Bret Brielmaier.

Oh, and while we’re at it, O’Neill turned the team from offense-dominated to defense-first. Try that at any school in the country and prepare for close encounters with disaster.

Seeded No. 10 in the NCAA West Region, the Wildcats (19-14) will face No. 7 West Virginia Thursday in Washington, D.C.

Arizona’s string of 20 consecutive 20-win seasons ended this time. And the Wildcats (yikes!) were swept by Arizona State, losing twice to the Sun Devils for the first time since 1995.

Worse yet, the Cats, with an 8-10 conference record, finished seventh in the Pacific-10, a league they once owned. UA has 11 conference championship banners hanging in McKale Center.

So, you ask, how in the world did this team make it to the NCAA Tournament while Arizona State (19-12, 9-9), among others, didn’t?

Strength of schedule, that’s how.

And strength of character, which is even better.

Olson, who filed for divorce from his wife, Christine, in November and took the entire season off to deal with that and an unannounced health problem, not only handed the reins of the basketball team to O’Neill — he also presented him with an impossible schedule.

How does a lineup of Virginia, Kansas, Texas A&M, Illinois, Nevada-Las Vegas and Memphis sound? Not to mention 18 games in the Pac-10, arguably the toughest league in America.

Against this awesome lineup, the Wildcats, with all their woes, won 19 times.

That, said the NCAA Selection Committee, gets Arizona to the dance again.

Sure, they may not last long, because if the Cats can get past West Virginia, which will be playing what could almost be called a home game in Washington, they’ll have to deal with No. 2 seed Duke.

The Blue Devils open against No. 15 seed Belmont (it’s in Nashville, Tenn., and the enrollment is 4,765).

But considering what they’ve gone through this year, the Wildcats would be pleased to make it to the NCAAs even if it meant playing Duke, North Carolina, UCLA, Memphis and Kansas all in the same day. Almost.

There has never been a season like this one. And Wildcat fans hope there never will be another.

Everything that could go wrong, did.

Somehow, Arizona basketball is alive and well, though.

Without Bayless in the lineup Jan. 9, the Cats lost at Tempe and Sun Devil fans stormed the court.

But the Wildcats survived the greater storm.

Former Tucson Citizen columnist Corky Simpson writes Fridays for the Green Valley News. Comment on this column at www.gvnews.com.