Early bedtime helps UA rise to occasion
By the time the Arizona Wildcats flew via charter into Tuscaloosa, Ala., on Saturday afternoon, then had dinner and relaxed for a bit, it was time for bed. Like maybe by 9 or 10 o’clock. Central Time.
That’s right: A group of college students retiring before 9 p.m. on their body clocks — on a Saturday night.
But when they wake up, history suggests, the odds are pretty good that the Wildcats will win.
Arizona has won 10 of 11 non-conference road games dating back to the beginning of the 2012-13 season. The trend, of course, has much to do with talent, preparation and opposition, but also maybe this little secret:
Their trips are, well, boring.
The Wildcats typically practice at home the day before their non-conference (and Pac-12) road games, then board a charter flight that gets them into the opposing team’s hometown for dinner.
There, with some minor variations, the same hotel-catered dishes await them: chicken, fish, pasta, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes and vegetables.
There’s no sightseeing, no dining in fancy local restaurants, and no running around. While players are given some time to see relatives and friends who show up, almost everything is done in the team hotel.
“We do the same thing no matter where we play the game, whether it’s a conference game in January or February or a non-conference game,” UA coach Sean Miller said. “Everything is identical from how we practice to what we do in the hotel, the time we leave for the game.”
The only things that change are the time zones, the television-dictated game times and the flight distance. Those things affect when the day-before practice is held, when the charter leaves and when the pre-game meal is held. Little else changes.
Even long flights and daytime tipoffs are no problem; in fact, they’ve actually proven better for the Wildcats.
Arizona has won its last five daytime road non-conference games, all of which were played at least one time zone away: at Michigan in 2013-14, at Gonzaga in 2015-16, at Missouri and Texas A&M in 2016-17 and at UConn last Sunday.
“I’m a big fan of the day games because it’s a lot easier on our whole travel party,” says Ryan Reynolds, who organizes UA road trips as its director of basketball operations.
Even with more than a five-hour return flight from Hartford last Sunday, the Wildcats still landed in Tucson at 8:40 p.m. They had plenty of time to rest and recover for the week ahead.
That speaks to another factor: money. The Wildcats now fly charter for nearly every road game, something junior guard Dylan Smith did only once as a freshman at UNC Asheville, when the NCAA paid for a flight to New York for an NCAA Tournament game against Villanova in Brooklyn.
Not all major-conference teams fly charter regularly, though senior guard Justin Coleman said he did that regularly while spending his first two seasons at Alabama.
“We couldn’t do all this without the