It’s been 8,398 days since the Arizona Wildcats last reached the national semifinal of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.
That night, Lute Olson’s 2nd seeded ‘Cats routing No. 1 Michigan State, 80-61, to move on to the national final and a showdown against the mighty Blue Devils of Duke inside the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome.
Little did Arizona’s starting five of Jason Gardner, Loren Woods, Richard Jefferson, Gilbert Arenas and Michael Wright know that they’d be the final Wildcats team to taste the brand-stuffed stupor of the Final Four for decades to come.
In the interim, Wildcats fans have known little but pain when the regional final arrives, with Arizona losing five of six Elite Eight games by a combined total of 20 points (as I covered in my actual job with BetArizona.com this week), with that 2001 victory over Sparty being their lone victory in the round of eight this century.
The Ghosts of Madness
Fast forward 23 years and much has changed in “amateur” sports, with the Wildcats making their 12th trip to the Sweet 16 since 2001, with a very good shot at capturing their seventh victory during that timeframe.
The issue is that Arizona has the ghost of March Madness past to contend with, in addition to the names outstretched across the fronts of the jerseys in L.A. this weekend.
Far more than the Tigers, Tar Heels or Crimson Tide, Arizona’s toughest opponent this weekend is the two-decade case of third-month yips that has swallowed the Wildcats’ momentum whole at this time of year.
Sportsbooks across America will tell you that the Wildcats are a surefire contender to make it to the exurbs of Phoenix next weekend, with +110 odds of winning the West region on FanDuel (ahead of UNC at +180 and everyone else, for that matter).
Still, the Wildcats enter the Sweet 16 as the last one standing on the men’s side from the Pac-12, with Washington State, Oregon and Colorado all bowing out last weekend at some point.
That leaves the Wildcats as the last team donning the triangular Pac-12 patch on the NCAA-blanched hardwoods of America, with their white-and-cardinal hues contrasting perfectly against the sterile floors that are as devoid of character as the suits putting on the 68-team, made-for-TV spectacle in the first place.
The issue is that those 8,398 days between the Wildcats 80-61 victory over Illinois and Thursday’s showdown between Arizona and underdog Clemson are plenty of time for generations of March PTSD to seep in and ruin the foundation.
Luckily for all involved, the past is not always a prelude to the future, as Lloyd will look to guide Arizona back to the national semifinal for the first time in a generation.
Like all collective enterprises, March Madness requires fans to suspend disbelief for 240 minutes of game action, the amount it takes to go from Round of 64 to a national championship.
Hopefully for Arizona’s March Maddened partisans, the collective anxiety that 8,398 days of springtime futility builds can be blown away by 80 minutes of game action this weekend in Los Angeles.