A jam-packed weekend in Tucson got a little busier on Friday morning, when Arizona Athletics announced a naming rights deal with insurance broker ALKEME, officially renaming the McKale Center to the McKale Center at ALKEME Arena. Now the attention shifts to the full slate of action on the court. Ahead of Saturday’s marquee matchup between No. 1 Arizona Men’s Basketball and No. 16 Texas Tech, ESPN College GameDay hosts Seth Greenberg and Jay Williams stopped by the newly renamed arena to share their thoughts and preview the game.
Seth Greenberg:
Greenberg on what’s been most impressive about Arizona this season:
“They have eight starters. And the guys that come off the bench have totally bought into their roles. I think it’s their versatility. They can impose their identity on the game. They’re going to pound you in the paint, they’re going to beat you in transition, they’re going to get the free throw line. They have any number of guys on any given night that can take over a game, and they’re doing it, probably the most impressive thing, is starting three freshmen, which is really hard to do at this level, and yet they’re doing it seamlessly.”
Greenberg on the value of game pressure:
“I think having games that have game pressure, and that’s exactly what they had [at Kansas], they had game pressure, that’s good. They haven’t had game pressure in a while. They only have about three games where they’ve had game pressure, so you can’t simulate that in practice. Now, they’ve been great at the end of the games. They’ve got a great closer in Jaden Bradley. But having those experiences where I don’t think you have to lose those games, you want to win those games, right?”
“But by having those experiences before you get to the tournament, I think adds value and it gives as a coach, ‘alright, hey Brayden, you know you went too early, or you know, whatever adjustments that you want to make, we didn’t make the defense move. Or, you know, maybe we need to reverse the ball. We didn’t have to score, we had plenty of time left. We had to just get a good shot, not the first shot.’ So game pressure is a valuable lesson.”
Greenberg on the loss at Kansas and how Arizona can make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament:
“To me, they lost the other night because they did not impose their identity on the game. In fact, if anything, their identity got imposed on them. If you look at it, Kansas gets 40 points in the paint. Kansas got to the free throw line. Kansas got out in transition.”
“Arizona, they win games because they get to the offensive glass. They win games because they play in transition. They get to the free throw line, so they become three-point players. So, to me, yeah, they’re not a volume three-point shooting team. That’s not who they are. They can make enough three-point shots to keep the defense honest. But their advantage, who are you and how do you win? Where is their advantage? Their advantage is the speed they play with. Their advantage is their ability to get paint touches and to post the ball or get the ball on the glass.”
“So everyone can’t be everything, you’ve got to stay true to your identity. And the one thing we don’t talk about enough, they are an elite defensive team, a physical, elite, connected defensive team, and that goes right along with part of their identity. They are hard to score against. They are hard to get to the rim against. [Motiejus] Krivas, his ability to protect the front of the rim. They guard the three-point line, and it’s hard to get a good look against them.”
Greenberg on being back in Tucson for ESPN College GameDay:
“It’s going to be a little bit strange for me, because the last time we were here, Coach Olson was here. And Coach Olson also coached at Long Beach State. I had a connection with him through that. When I first went to California, took the Long Beach State job, I still remember, we’re in the blue gym at Dominguez Hills High School. It’s about 100 degrees, and coach is there with a blue blazer, a starch white shirt, khaki pants, and he just looked different than everyone else with their little polo shirt on with their logo.”
“And I just had so much respect for how his teams played and how hard they played. And he was always so kind to me and gracious to me as a former Long Beach State coach. He was a person that I could pick up the phone and call, especially when we first moved out to California to say, ‘Coach, give me three or four people for sure I need to connect with,’ or even after we came here and played here, I think the Sean Elliot teams – wasn’t a great experience, by the way, it was my first year as a head coach – and I remember getting a call from him after that game, saying, just stay with what you’re doing. You’re going to be fine. Those are the type of things that resonate with you as a young coach.”
Greenberg on Jaden Bradley’s play this season:
“I love Jaden Bradley. He’s an old school point guard. He defends the ball, he gets you in offense, he leads, he communicates. We’re so inundated with all these great freshmen, but he’s the perfect guard for this team. He is the perfect player for this team because he absolutely can coach that locker room. He absolutely understands what it takes to get where you guys potentially want to go, and I think he’s as good a point guard and leader as any point guard in the country, and especially for this team, with playing with three freshmen and player that hadn’t played in a year.”
Jay Williams:
Williams on what’s been most impressive about Arizona this season:
“I would just say I love their size and their physicality. I’ll keep it very simple. And I sometimes think, as a former player and this guy who watches a lot of basketball, it’s good to get a wake up call. I think Seth and I often talk about teams finding causes. And sometimes when you’re riding high and you’re playing well, the coach feels like he has your attention, and he does, but when you go through a loss, it just wakes you up a little bit, kind of snaps you back to reality. And this team staying hungry, considering how much they win, is a critical element to them finishing the deal this season.”
Williams on Arizona’s biggest weakness heading into the NCAA Tournament:
“As you play into the tournament, you have to be able to space the floor. I think three-point shooting will be something that will be interesting to watch, if they’re able to make shots from the outside. I don’t question their ability to get offensive rebounds and dominate you in the pain, the physicality in the defensive end. Their matchups are incredibly hard to prepare for. But you win at a high clip, you got to make shots from the outside to open up the paint.”
Williams on being back in Tucson for ESPN College GameDay:
“Obviously there are ties to my career in Arizona. But, deeper than that, though too, like I played at the Capital Classic with Jason Gardner. I’ve known Steve Kerr for a long time. Obviously, Richard Jefferson and I’ve known each other for a long time. We played with the New Jersey Nets together for a short stint. Miles Simon is somebody that I’ve known for a long time, and obviously have watched his game and have watched tape with him. So I think there’s so much greatness that has came through here that it’s always cool to come back here and see it.”
“I never got a chance to come here on a recruiting trip, to see what the school and what this culture was all about. So I think getting a chance to experience it, but also through the words of guys that I’ve known for a long time, like, I used to go down and visit RJ and Luke Walton, literally, in Manhattan Beach in California, and spend time with them. So to see how they were raised, obviously around, you know, the coaching history here is pretty cool to always come back and witness.”
Williams on Jaden Bradley’s play this season:
“The College GameDay crew typically calls me ‘Petty LaBelle’ because I’m always the person that just finds little things that get me aggravated. That’s how I played my best. That’s how I compete. I think it’s fascinating that, whether number one, number two, right there, the best team in the country that we don’t talk about the quality of players at the national level that should be talked about this way. When we when we lead conversations, or when you look on channels and conversations about the top freshmen.”
“You hear Cameron Boozer, AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson. You don’t hear Koa Peat, you don’t hear Burries, you don’t hear their names as mentioned as others, right? Or Bradley being the best point guard in the country. You don’t hear that quite often. And I think there’s a lot of causes here for a team that’s in position to win the whole thing, to still feel as if they have a major chip on their shoulder. And I love that position psychologically. I think it’s a huge advantage for them.”
Williams on the 25-year anniversary of the 2001 Arizona-Duke Final Four:
“We just had our 25-year reunion, and we all got together and had win with Coach K and watched a highlight reel of that season. After we left, we all went to go have dinner together, and we had the 2001 National Championship game on, and we kind of watched tape together as a team, which we haven’t done, obviously, since 2001. And it was really cool, because we had the old school scouting report on the piece of paper, like what that was for the matchups.”
“And you start going through the names that played in that game, and we just all, I mean, look, if Dunleavy doesn’t get hot, we don’t win that game. I don’t know Gilbert, how he plays with his shoulder, not being in that situation, how that game is. They were absolutely loaded. I used to hate guarding Jason Gardner. I should have gotten my third foul in the first half. There’s no doubt about that. I just remember every detail that game because we lived it…just to close it off like Gilbert Arenas, Richard Jefferson, Luke Walton, Jason Gardner, Michael Wright, the names go on and on and on in that game. I can’t tell you how we got it, but it was elegant to be on the court.”