🏅Film Study: The unsung hero that saved Arizona’s basketball Season

Hey there,

Today we’re telling a story through game film — how Arizona basketball went from being one of the most disappointing teams in the season, to a March Madness contender in basically two months. All because they started playing one player more than five minutes a night.

Are you a college hoops fan? You won’t want to miss this one — it might just save your March Madness bracket this season. Join the All-Access team today to take your fandom to the next level, and read what ADs, coaches, and NIL collective heads are reading. You won’t regret it.

— Cole, Justin and Collin

Rewind with me to December 14^th, 2024. Do you remember what you were doing?

I’m thinking you don’t. Let me guess: you were probably sulking around the house, bored, because for the first time in a long time, you couldn’t sink into a couch for ten straight hours watching college football on this particular Saturday. It was Week 16 of the college football season – in other words, the week where the only game to watch was the 31-13 trouncing that Navy handed Army. Pretty boring stuff. In fact, you may have even got up halfway through the game to do Christmas shopping, and no one would have blamed you for doing so. 

But maybe, like me, you’re a college basketball freak, and that day had been marked off for months in advance. Maybe, just maybe, you were seated for the mid-day matchup between the (at the time ranked) #10 Arizona Wildcats and #22 UCLA Bruins. Here’s what happened during that game.

Down 13 points, the Bruins rallied to a 57-54 win by the final buzzer – well, if you want to call it a win. In reality, the Bruins didn’t win that game so much as Arizona lost it. The Wildcats didn’t score a single field goal in the last 8:46 of play, and the loss spawned a plethora of frustration:

That loss dropped Arizona down to the 4-5 on the season – four wins against non-Power conference schools, and five losses to all Power conference schools. Things were looking… well, I guess dark would be the right word. It was the low point of Arizona’s nascent basketball season.

Fast forward to today: the Wildcats are 21-11 as I’m writing this, and one of the best teams in the Big 12. If you’re doing the math at home, you’ll know that they went 17-6 since that December 14^th game – quite the turnaround considering they seemed to be out of NCAA tournament contention about two and a half months ago.

So what the heck happened?

I’m assuming you’ve never heard the name Carter Bryant right now, and I’m not going to blame you for that – even if you’re a Big 12 fan, he’s not exactly at the top of your team’s scouting report. Bryant is a freshman this season, he’s averaging less than seven points to date, and while he’s efficient, he’s not exactly filling up the stat sheet.

But he’s what happened to Arizona basketball. He helped turn the season around, and that’s why he’s getting paid the big NIL bucks by the program. But how? Well, we’re going to have to dig beneath the surface a bit for that.

Let’s get into the film.

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