Arizona men’s basketball plays long game, shelves Koa Peat

“He tried to play through it and it wasn’t good,” then-Gilbert Perry coach Sam Duane told the Arizona Republic. “It’s a three- to four-week recovery … he’ll be a player-coach.”

Yeah … not gonna happen.

A week later, Peat came off the bench to help the Pumas win an Arizona Open semifinal game, then poured in 20 points to help Perry beat Phoenix Sunnyslope for the Open title, sometimes even dunking through the pain.

“It was the will,” Duane told the Republic after the final. “Honestly, I’ve never had a player so determined to play in my career. He knew the risks.”

Almost exactly a year later, after appearing to try to play through a lower-leg strain, Peat is staying on the sidelines this time. 

His shooting was off in earlier games against Oklahoma State and Kansas, possibly because his injury affected his mobility and/or elevation. Peat left Arizona’s Feb. 14 game against Texas Tech in the first half and never returned.

He missed the No. 4 Wildcats’ game against BYU on Wednesday, won’t play Saturday at No. 2 Houston and likely won’t against Baylor on Tuesday, either.

Maybe he’ll miss even more than that.

UA coach Tommy Lloyd said he was sure Peat would get re-evaluated when the Wildcats return from their two-game Texas trip, a statement that indicates Peat also won’t play at Baylor, though Lloyd stopped short of confirming that much.

“Not going there,” Lloyd said. “Just (that he’s) probably not playing Saturday. I’ll go that far, and we’ll see how it progresses.”

As he did with reserve forward Dwayne Aristode, who has an unspecified illness that has kept him out for UA’s past two games, Lloyd said Peat wasn’t facing anything season-ending.

In fact, he indicated sitting Peat out now is a precaution to make sure he doesn’t miss any of the postseason this time.

With “the hand injury, he was literally staring down a couple games at the end for a fourth state championship, so he was able to get through it,” Lloyd said. “This time there’s a longer runway, so we have to manage it with care.

“Obviously, we have big dreams, too. When we get to the postseason, and he’s a big part of it, we just want to do everything we can in our power to make sure that he’s at 100%.”

During his radio show Thursday night, Lloyd reiterated the importance of handling injuries properly at this time of the season. A setback at this point, if Peat returned too early, could mean he does miss playoff games this time around.

NCAA Tournament playoff games, that is.

“Maybe earlier in the year you would feel a little bit more of a sense of urgency, because you had a little more rope to play with as far as getting them healthy,” Lloyd said. “But now you want to make sure you don’t make any mistakes.”

Not only will Arizona (24-2, 11-2) be shorthanded for a first-place showdown Saturday at Houston, but the Cougars (23-3, 11-2) will get two extra days of rest (and presumably some extra motivation) after losing at No. 6 Iowa State 70-67 on Monday.

“That’s how it breaks,” Lloyd said. “We’ve had that break in the season, too. There’s no complaints for me.”

The Cougars led the Cylones by up to 10 points in the second half Monday, and would have wound up taking over first place in the Big 12 with a win. But Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said he wasn’t disappointed in his team’s effort, just in the loss itself.

“These are two really good teams. I’m not going to sit up here and start making excuses,” Sampson said at Iowa State. “That’s not what we do at Houston. We had our opportunities.”

While Arizona has regularly hosted pregame “Bear Down Bash” events outside the north end of McKale Center this season, with the last one scheduled Feb. 28 before the Wildcats face Kansas, Lloyd indicated he might one day be coaching a game or scrimmage outdoors. 

Lloyd said on his radio show Thursday that the Dusk music promoters who put on the Bear Down Bash have asked him about playing outdoors in the UA football stadium and that he’s open to it.

“We’ve had those dreams and those conversations in the past,” Lloyd said. “I think the dream is, how do you package it with a few more things? We would love to have the Red-Blue game in there. Play the game there, but build a big time concert around it — could we get 30,000 or 40,000 people and make it a great community event? It’s kind of been the dream.”