Arizona not out of Woods yet
Associated Press
TUCSON, Ariz. -- Arizona's victory over Stanford without
Loren Woods gave the Wildcats a No. 1 seed in the West. Anything
else the Wildcats earn in the NCAA tournament probably will have to
be without Woods, too.
|  | | The Wildcats have fared pretty well without Loren Woods, right. |
Although coach Lute Olson didn't confirm it, the chairman of the
NCAA selection committee, Craig Thompson, said Sunday that the
7-foot-1 center was out for the season.
"We were notified that Loren Woods would not play in the
tournament," Thompson said in a conference call with reporters.
So the committee gave Arizona the West's top seed knowing that
Woods would not be back. The Wildcats' 86-81 victory over Stanford
was the reason for that decision.
"We saw Arizona play Stanford without Loren Woods and beat
them," Thompson said. "So, there was a test there."
Arizona (26-6) will play Jackson State (17-15) of the
Southwestern Athletic Conference on Thursday in Salt Lake City.
When told of Thompson's remarks, Olson insisted he had not been
told by doctors that the back injury that has sidelined Woods for
the past five games would definitely keep him out of the
tournament.
"That information has not reached me yet," Olson said. "(Team
trainer) Ed Orr is right here, and Ed certainly would have told me
if he's gotten the final report from the doctors, unless somehow or
another the committee had information directly from the doctors."
Arizona athletic director Jim Livengood is a member of the NCAA
selection committee.
If Woods can't play, Olson said his young team will just have to
do without him. Adversity is nothing new for the Wildcats, who went
almost the entire Pac-10 season without forward Richard Jefferson
because of a broken foot and has been hit with a number of
defections, injuries and other setbacks.
"Our team knows that they lace 'em up, and we'll play with
whomever we have," Olson said.
Woods, a junior transfer from Wake Forest, has what has been
described as a compression injury to a disk in his back. Doctors
believe the injury occurred Feb. 12 at Washington State. Woods
continued to play until the pain grew unbearable following
Arizona's home victory over Southern California on Feb. 17. The
Wildcats were 3-2 without their center, beating UCLA, Stanford and
California at home but losing at Oregon State and Oregon.
Arizona finished tied with Stanford for the Pac-10 title but
received the conference's automatic NCAA bid because it beat the
Cardinal twice. Olson said anything but the No. 1 seed in the West
would have been unfair to his team.
"I frankly didn't see any way they could not put our guys as
the No. 1 seed in the West," Olson said, "particularly because
we've played so long without Loren Woods. We played and beat
Stanford without him."
Olson said his video crew has a tape of Jackson State and was
making copies for the coaching staff.
"But as far as how they play or who they have or anything else,
I really don't know and I won't know that until that copy is made
and delivered to me so that I can get started on it," he said.
The Wildcats beat Jackson State 111-83 in Tucson early in the
1996-97 season, the year Arizona won the national title.
"They played an up-tempo style, used a lot of people, but I
don't know if that's still what they're doing or not," Olson said.
Jackson State earned the NCAA bid by rallying from a 14-point
halftime deficit to beat Southern University 76-61 for the SWAC
tournament title.
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