"Tell them … tell the team to bear down"

UA coach Sean Miller says it will be difficult for Arizona to make the NIT.

By Steve Rivera

Arizona coach Sean Miller knew there would be days like these. Or was that a daze like this?

Miller showed signs of frustration Tuesday – and continued his blunt, honest talk – about his team that is floundering at the .500 mark and easily flirting with not making a postseason tournament for the first time since 1984.

I’m not even sure if many in Tucson can spell NIT – having never had to really concern itself with it for so long (OK, maybe last year there was a good chance). But now, Miller said if UA doesn’t qualify for the NIT he wouldn’t even consider the 16-team College Basketball Invitational, a third-string postseason tournament now in its third season.

“When you look at the last couple of years with the NIT field, it’s mind-boggling,’’ Miller said.

He also clarified that “it will be difficult for us to make it.’’

Indeed. Arizona must at the very least split its final four regular-season games and win at least one of its Pac-10 Conference postseason games to get above .500 to be considered.

“That would be quite an honor for our team, knowing what we have and how far we’ve come and what we’ve done since October,’’ Miller said.

And, without trying to be funny – yet that’s how it came out – he said “it would be more important for us to start lifting weights’’ than participate in the CBI.

Read the rest of Rivera’s story at TucsonCitizen.com

Also: Sean Miller is a big fan of Cal point guard Jerome Randle

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