Arizona’s Miller can only credit Wisconsin after another Elite Eight loss

LOS ANGELES

Believe it or not, this one felt a little different to Sean Miller.

Just as emotional. Just as heartbreaking. Just as final.

Just not as close.

Arizona and West Regional finals of the NCAA Tournament played in Southern California have traditionally mixed like a toddler and an open jar of peanut butter. The Wildcats have been eliminated in the Elite Eight six times in their past seven tries up and down a breathtaking coastline dating almost 40 years, and yet the latest had far more to do with the other guys than anything Arizona didn’t do.

So much for being a high seed and protected in the bracket.

Miller is still oh-for-Final Four attempts, his second-seeded team having been sent home by Wisconsin 85-78 on Saturday before 19,125 at Staples Center. The top-seeded Badgers turned the replay into a rerun, knocking out Arizona in the regional final for a second straight year.

Wisconsin’s reward: Another rematch from last year’s tournament, this one with unbeaten Kentucky in one national semifinal next Saturday in Indianapolis.

“I’m not going to apologize for not making the Final Four,” said Miller, 0-4 in Elite Eight games. “We have won 69 games in two years, been in the top 10 every day, won back-to-back (Pac-12) championships, and we lost to Wisconsin in two hard-fought battles in the Elite Eight.

“And if that’s a problem, I think you know what you can do.”

Credit the Badgers?

That’s what should happen, after all.

Miller didn’t just empty the kitchen sink defensively. He threw in the family room and garage, too. He had future first-round NBA draft picks contesting shots from all depths and angles and it still wasn’t enough.

He knew beforehand that Wisconsin wasn’t a favorable matchup, that the Badgers have the nation’s most efficient offense for a reason, that you can only double-team so much, hedge every on-ball screen so much, hope and pray so much as shooters let ’em fly.

“They have more answers than we have solutions,” Miller said.

His team lost in the Elite Eight to Connecticut in 2011, but had two shots to win in the closing seconds. It lost to Wisconsin last year, but that was a one-point defeat in overtime and soiled by a controversial call.

This time, they just lost.

Or, put another way: Arizona had just 10 turnovers, shot 56 percent, outrebounded Wisconsin and made 28 of 30 free throws ... and still lost.

Miller knew Wisconsin was good offensively. Really good. He didn’t know the Badgers were good enough to make 10 of 12 3-pointers in the second half.

He knew Frank Kaminsky and Sam Dekker are future pros. He couldn’t have imagined that they would combine for 56 points and 11 rebounds, or that Dekker would make 5 of 6 3s, including all five of his second-half attempts.

The Badgers missed four shots in the second half. Total.

Like, um, four.

Just.

Too.

Good.

“You lose in this game, it’s hard,” Miller said. “You lose four times in seven years, that’s probably a record. This one didn’t come down to the last possession, where the last couple of these it was a single play. This one, I mean, my God, there were so many 3s going in. It almost took the bite out of the loss somewhat. But the way the world is going, people will jump all over us for losing in the Elite Eight. We’ll see. Maybe the fifth time I get back here, maybe I’ll break through.”

He will still recruit to an insanely high level and still be expected annually to put Arizona in a position for deep NCAA runs. The Wildcats always will be relevant nationally under him.

They certainly didn’t play their best game Saturday and yet would win most nights with that final stat line. You can’t get much flow or rhythm in a game in which a combined 43 fouls are called, the sort of pace that absolutely favored Wisconsin.

But whistles didn’t beat the Wildcats, and they didn’t beat themselves.

It’s not as if the Badgers even had terrific spacing out of their swing offense. They just couldn’t miss. If you’re Arizona, you go home for the summer and let it percolate and think on it and throw up your hands a few thousand times.

“It was tough,” Arizona forward Rondae Hollis-Jefferson said. “You know, you’re playing good defense and trying to get stops and win a game and (Dekker) made those shots. It was tough to watch, but in basketball, you have those days.”

Dekker stepped back and hit a ridiculous 3 with 17 seconds remaining, the exact shot from the exact place from which he won a high school state championship at the buzzer back in Wisconsin, to push the lead to eight.

Seconds later, Miller sent in a substitute for fifth-year senior point guard T.J. McConnell. Coach and player met steps before the team bench, embraced, and tears began to fall.

“Obviously, the feeling wasn’t good,” McConnell said. “I came off the floor and apologized that I couldn’t get him to a Final Four.”

None was needed.

Arizona lost in the Elite Eight again, but it was more about the other guys this time.

If the Badgers shoot like that in Indianapolis, Kentucky’s pursuit of perfection could find itself in some peril.

If so, Big Blue Nation better hope Ashley Judd can distract Kaminsky and Dekker enough to miss a few.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on “Gridlock,” ESPN 1100 and 100.9 FM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.