The news went from bad to worse on Saturday night for the Arizona men’s basketball team.
After the Wildcats lost a 69-67 heartbreaker to the Washington Huskies, head coach Sean Miller and the team found out that forward Kevin Parrom will miss the remainder of the season after breaking a bone in his right foot.
The junior was injured at the end of the first half, and did not return to the Arizona bench until eight minutes had passed in the second half. When Parrom returned, he was wearing a boot on his foot.
According to a press release from Arizona Athletics, Parrom’s injury is not related to any of his previous injuries, including lingering effects from when the New York native was shot in late September 2011. After the game, Miller hoped the injury was just nerve pain and that Parrom would be able to return, but the injury requires season-ending surgery.
“He had a lot of nerve pain,” Miller said. “He got hit in either the leg or the foot and the fact that he’s confused on whether it’s his leg or foot kind of showed you that it triggered off a lot of the symptoms that he’s had since he was shot this fall.”
Parrom was working his way back and the last three games had shown promise. Against Colorado two weeks ago, he recorded his first double-figure scoring output since December. On Saturday, Parrom left the game with seven points, two assists and three rebounds in 10 minutes.
“The 10 minutes he played in the first half, I thought (he) was the best on the court,” Miller said. “He’s been playing exceptionally well the last three games. We sorely missed him.”
Losing Parrom for the season due to injury added to the pain of how the much-hyped College GameDay weekend played out.
“It was like the Oregon game all over again,” junior Solomon Hill said. “We got off to a slow start and came back in the second half but it wasn’t enough.”
The Wildcats had a shot to win it at the end after forward Solomon Hill tied the game with eight seconds left in the game. The 3-pointer was part of a 28-point, 11-rebound performance for Hill, and Miller said the forward had his best game of his career at Arizona.
“Solomon Hill’s performance really brought us back in the end,” Miller said. “He gave us the opportunity to get the win by how he played in the entire second half and especially in the last 10 minutes. It’s only disappointing that we couldn’t get a win to go with it.”
But a foul was called on freshman guard Josiah Turner that sent C.J. Wilcox to the line. With the made free throws by Wilcox, Washington went up by two.
“The ref made the call and it sucks that it was with so little time left,” Hill said.
Turner had five seconds after the made free throws to get a shot up, but Washington’s Troy Wroten blocked it. By the time Nick Johnson finished the play with a follow-up dunk, time had already expired.
But the story of the game was written well before the very end. The Wildcats had 15 turnovers and allowed the Huskies to haul in 18 offensive rebounds, something that Miller said was difficult for the team to overcome.
“When you’re playing with three guards and two forwards,” Miller said, “you really can’t afford to turn the ball over.”