On Friday, March 18, 2011, two college basketball programs used to the national spotlight met in a first-round NCAA tournament game at the Bank of Oklahoma Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma.
It was the type of game that would have been a Sweet 16 or Elite Eight matchup just a few years ago. Now it was a 12-5 matchup in the first round, with neither team expected to last the weekend.
Arizona, in the second season under Sean Miller, was back in the tournament for the first time since the messy transition out of the Lute Olson era broke a 25-year streak of NCAA tournament appearances.
Memphis, in the second season under Josh Pastner, was back in the tournament for the first time since former coach John Calipari ditched them for the brighter blue lights of Kentucky, taking his stream of future NBA all-star point guards with him to Lexington.
Both teams had rebuilt from scratch on the fly, and a win in this game would give them extra ammunition as they hit the recruiting trail. The facts it was a 12-5 game and Pastner was a former player on Arizona's 1997 title squad added an extra layer of intrigue.
The game was back and forth, with Memphis using their superior length and athleticism to harass Arizona into a slop fest. Memphis shot out to a 10-1 lead over the first four minutes, and held a 65-61 lead with a little more than six minutes to play.
In the end, though, Arizona prevailed 77-75 thanks to some clutch free throws from LaMont Jones (now at Iona) and a game-saving block by Derrick Williams, the second pick in June's NBA draft. The Wildcats would go on to beat Texas by one in the second round, then crush Duke in the Sweet 16 before losing to eventual champion Connecticut in the Elite Eight.
Pastner, meanwhile, was left to wonder how much of his super-talented-yet-often-undisciplined squad would hang around for another year in lieu of going pro.
Now seven months since that game in Tulsa, both Miller and Pastner are gearing up for another run.
Although the Wildcats lost Williams, they add a solid recruiting class of four featuring point guard Josiah Turner (ESPNU No. 15 in his class), shooting guard Nick Johnson (No. 22), and power forwards Angelo Chol (No. 61), and Sidiki Johnson (No. 94).
Miller will need the freshmen to contribute immediately, especially Turner and Johnson. While Arizona returns several main contributors like Kyle Fog and Solomon Hill, Williams was the difference between NIT first round and NCAA Elite Eight last year, and someone is going to have to be the new star.
(Next year's class is also loaded, with top-10 forwards Brandon Ashley and Grant Jerrett already signed on. ESPN has them ranked as the top class in the nation, although Shabazz Muhammad could push UCLA to the top spot if he heads to Westwood.)
Meanwhile, Pastner didn't need major reinforcements. He just needed budding stars Will Barton and Joe Jackson to stick around so they could use the experiences of an up-and-down freshman season to take a major step forward in the sophomore seasons.
Not only did Pastner get his wish with those two, he also added hometown freshman forward Adonis Thomas (No. 9 nationally) to a rotation that remained virtually intact from last season. And to make sure that everybody was ready to go, he added strength and conditioning coach Frank Matrisciano, aka "Hell's Trainer," a guy who won't tell anybody how old he is and trains special forces soldiers among his other hobbies.
(Weird people, those strength and conditioning coaches. Useful, but weird.)
Of course getting in shape is one thing. Winning on the court is another matter entirely. The weights don't block your game-winning shots like Williams or drain contested three-pointers like UConn's Kemba Walker did to the Wildcats.
Arizona has one of the tougher non-conference schedules in the country lined up with trips to Florida, Madison Square Garden to face St. John's, and Seattle to play Gonzaga. They also draw a road trip to California and Stanford as part of the Pac-12's new unbalanced schedule. (They skip the Oregon road trip this year and have home-and-home series with the Washington schools in the Pac-12 North and all five of the other Pac-12 South schools.)
Not to be outdone, Pastner's Tigers start off the season with a trip to Hawaii as part of the Maui Invitational with a first-round game against Michigan, then either Tennessee or Duke in the second round. Road trips to Miami, Louisville and Georgetown come later in December. Conference USA is no Pac-12, but that won't make the Tigers any less dangerous come March.
The Arizona and Memphis programs were already linked by Pastner, but that connection deepened this offseason when he hired former Wildcats stars Damon Stoudamire and Luke Walton as assistant coaches. Memphis has too much tradition of its own to just throw an "Arizona East" label on it, but it's getting pretty close.
For now, though, the two programs will continue to grow on parallel, non-intersecting paths. Unless of course they happen to meet again in five months.
Here's betting that if they do, it won't be in the first round.
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