Cats host Augustana in exhibition game

Think of running a college basketball team like owning a home. You have your solid foundation in place, which sets the tone for the rest of the structure. You then add all of the unique, individualized pieces that set your home apart from everyone else’s. After enough time and care, the house is no longer simply a collection of two-by-fours and drywall. It’s a home. This year, Sean Miller is essentially building a house from scratch.

Through the early part of his tenure at the University of Arizona, Miller and the players been forced to start from square one with each other. Whether it’s the way Miller teaches them to rotate on defense or what the team’s pre-game routine and meal will be, every last detail is a new undertaking.

Given this situation, it’s perfectly understandable when Miller says he hasn’t finalized a starting line-up yet. However, the regular season begins in a week and a half.

“We might rotate our best five guys, depending on how well they play together,” Miller said. “It might be a few weeks before we settle on a set starting five.”

Miller added that the five players who start tonight in Arizona’s exhibition contest against Augustana College (7 p.m., Wednesday) might not be the five who start when the regular season tips off on Nov. 15 against Northern Arizona.

“There will be more experimentation this year than ever before,” Miller said.

Even though Nic Wise has been out for the last week with a nagging ankle injury, there are little doubts as to his place on the starting five. Miller added that junior Jamelle Horne has “earned the right” to start, and that sophomore guard Kyle Fogg is one of the “anchors on defense.”

As for the rest of the playing rotation? It’s still yet to be decided.

Arizona fans got their first glimpse at the new-look Wildcats on Sunday afternoon during the annual Red-Blue game. While he liked what he saw from his freshmen on the offensive end (particularly Kyryl Natyazhko and Lamont “MoMo” Jones), he still isn’t exactly sure what to make of his young squad quite yet.

“When a basket went in, was it good offense or inept defense on our part?” Miller wondered.

The major focus for this team is clearly on the defensive end. Miller said his squad desperately needs to improve on team defense and that it’s “fairly alarming” that the Wildcats start the season so soon.

At Xavier, Miller had the added luxury of a handful of experienced upperclassmen who’d spent as much as three seasons (and all of those subsequent practices) learning the language and the details of his defensive philosophy. This year, even older players like Horne and Wise are learning as they go.

“The terminology is brand new for everyone, and there isn’t that advantage for our younger guys to look to a veteran to see how to do it correctly,” Miller said. “Nobody has done it before.”

On the bright side, Wise’s ankle injury has been the only setback, health-wise, for the Cats, and Miller even sees a silver lining in it. With Wise out, many of the younger Arizona guards have been thrust into action earlier than anticipated and have received added exposure to the system that they might not have seen with a healthy Wise in there.

His status for tonight’s exhibition contest is still uncertain, but Miller was “optimistic” that he might be available.

Augustana is a small liberal arts college in Sioux Falls, S.D. that has won three out of the last four College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin basketball titles.

Tonight’s game will be the squad’s first opportunity to play in front of the McKale Center crowd on the same bench, which will present a new set of challenges.

“It’s always a reality check,” Miller said. “Not everyone is going to be playing 40 minutes. The word chemistry comes up in these situations, and I think it’ll lead to more competition in practice for those minutes.”

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