A super hero with no supporting cast can only do so much. This is what people were saying about the Derrick Williams led Arizona Wildcats as they began the NCAA tournament.
With last night's blitzkrieg of Duke behind us, one thing is fore sure: Superman you are not alone.
Everyone that took at least one shot, scored against the Blue Devils who could not stop Williams, let alone anyone else. Derrick Williams scored a career high 32 points, but the bigger number is that players two to ten scored a whopping 61.
Momo Jones led the charge in the category, "players not named Derrick Williams" by playing the best game of this career. Yes better than the California game where he countless times revived Arizona from almost sure defeat.
Jones scored 16 points, dished out six assists and the biggest number, had zero turnovers. Against a team like Duke that thrives on ball pressure and getting out and running, this was a huge statistic.
A play that I found to the symbolic of this game was towards the end of the game it was a 3 on 1 situation with Solomon Hill and Derrick Williams running the wings with Momo in the middle. Everybody, including myself was expecting the lob for a Williams throw down.
But Momo had other plans. He did a no look bounce pass to the left side which Hill caught in stride for a lay-up. With this one play, it showed that Arizona is a team and a damn good one at that.
The aforementioned Hill contributed 13 points and five rebounds in another solid effort, following arguably his best game of the season against Texas in the round of 32.
A player that has to be mentioned is Kyle Fogg. Most of the times this year, when Fogg is brought up, it is because of this shooting. Today however, it is his defensive lock down on All-American Nolan Smith. Smith was limited to only three baskets on 14 shot attempts. That kind of shooting performance is horrendous, even in leagues filled with six year old girls.
But Fogg also contributed to the cause with eight points and could have had more, but he was plagued with foul trouble much of the night.
Other players up for the supporting actor award are Kevin Parrom, Jamelle Horne (see dunk of Kyle Singler below), Jordin Mayes, Jesse Perry and Brendon Lavender.
Parrom and Horne had two tide shifting threes during the now famous 19-2 run to blow Duke out of the water. Lavender had a wide open fast break dunk that put Arizona up by 11 and Duke didn't get much closer. (Duke did get it down to 10 at one point.)
With the rest of the team showing to score 48 of the 55 second half points, Arizona has a legitimate shot to win the entire tournament if they keep playing that way.
Yes this team may be conducted by an All-American, but this team only goes as far if the players keep shoveling the coal.
Arizona is in the Elite Eight.
And in the next 40 minutes of basketball, they can rewrite all Wildcat history books.
One thing is for certain, these are not your dad's Arizona Wildcats.