Raising Arizona: Olson's Wildcats ascend again

Sporting News, The, Dec 23, 1996 by Mike DeCourcy

This time, Lute Olson chuckled when he glanced at the preseason top 25. This time, the Arizona Wildcats were in there. "There was no reason in the world for that," he says, because the 1996-97 Wildcats opened the season lacking proven players, senior leadership and frontcourt muscle.

There was, however, one good reason Arizona was ranked by virtually all the preseason publications, as well as The Associated Press: We all learned our lessons.

Last season, the Wildcats made a cause of their preseason snubbing and wound up 26-7 with a narrow Sweet 16 loss to Kansas. Arizona has won at least 23 games each of the past nine years It has not missed the NCAA Tournament 1983-84 (Olson's first season), which gives the Wildcats the second-longest string of appearances behind North Carofina's 22.

Olson has done this a variety of ways, depending some years on great guard play, others on inside strength.

He has done it this season with a lineup featuring freshman Point guard Mike Bibby and junior small forward Michael Dickerson. He has done it without two academic casualties expected to be a major contributors: forward Stephen Jackson, one of the nation's premier recruits, and junior shooting guard Miles Simon, the team's only returning starter and leading returning scorer.

"The biggest concern is, with a young team, if you start out poorly it may take a month before you get the confidence level back," Olson says. "When we lost Miles ... you could look down and see the possibility of a 1-4 start."

Instead, the Wildcats soared from TSN's No. 23 preseason pick to the top five. They are 5-1 heading into a matchup Saturday with Michigan. What Arizona has achieved in the first month, beating top 15 opponents Texas, Utah and North Carolina, is a match for any team's record save No. 1 Kansas.

The Wildcats learned Simon would be suspended for academic reasons days before the Tip-Off Classic against Carolina Sophomore Jason Terry took his place, and they won by 11.

"In the Carolina game n Dickerson says, "we got down a couple times, and no one on our team ever gave up. That told me we have a special team."

Olson, who calls this his quickest team, figures it will be more special when Simon returns after the first semester and the offense can assume more balance.

The coach was prescient enough to gear his halfcourt sets toward freeing Dickerson, and the Wildcats--mainly big men Donnell Harris, A.J. Bramlett and Bennett Davison--selflessly work to get Dickerson open shots. He has taken nearly twice as many shots as any teammate but is shooting 50 percent from 3-point range and averaging 25.5 points.

"It's a major compliment," Dickerson says. "I remember when I was a fresh man and sophomore, and I never heard Coach Olson trying to get me the ball, get my shots. That makes me want to hit every shot. Our guards get me the ball in good position, and the big men are sacrificing their bodies. It's easy, what I'm doing."

Because of an unfortunate tendency to drop first-round NCAA Tournament games it has happened six times to the Wildcats under Olson, three times as higher seed--Olson often is compelled to defend his coaching ability. The three Final Fours (including one at Iowa), seven Pac-10 titles and 513 victories ought to be proof enough, but some folks need more. The two most recent seasons should provide more than sufficient evidence for those doubters.

He won't admit it, but Olson did seem to collect an inordinate number of players who weren't natural-born winners, guys such as Brian Williams, Sean Rooks, Ed Stokes and Khalid Reeves The program turned in a more determined direction after the recruitment of guard Damon Stoudamier, whose intensity all but embarrassed Reeves into applying his vast talents.

Olson since has come up with such players as Reggie Geary, Simon and Bibby, who play with toughness and enthusiasm. It might have been a fluke that Simon beat Cincinnati with a 65-foot buzzer-beater last February, but not that he expected to make it. Bibby who led Phoenix's Shadow Mountain High to an Arizona state title last winter, has shown the same ferocity in averaging 13.5 points, 6.0 assists and 3.0 steals

"Mike is a freshman, but right now he's playing like a junior," Dickerson says. "His poise ... normally freshmen get out of control shirt trying to do things they can't do. But he's in control the whole time.

"When we lost Miles, the papers around Tucson, they said as Miles goes, so goes the team. I didn't think that was a fair statement. We have 12 other players. We have a family. We have a lot of winners."

For a change, Arizona appears to have some respect as well.

December duds

Three really bad entertainment ideas for your holiday season: 1) Big East league games, 2) ACC league games and 3) Sylvester Stallone in a waterlogged tunnel.

The Big East has been playing conference games in December most of this decade primarily because it's hard to squeeze an 18-game schedule into January and February when most of your teams play in somebody else's building. The ACC joined the act this season The level of play in both conferences indicate it is too early to schedule such important games.