4. Nico Mannion leads Arizona to Pac-12 title
It’s going to be a dogfight at the top of the Pac-12 in the 2019-20 college basketball season. As mentioned earlier, Colorado has an experienced team that can challenge for the conference crown, the Oregon Ducks are an experienced team capable of beating anyone and the freshmen-led Washington Huskies are a wild card that could challenge as well. When the regular season subsides, though, Nico Mannion and the Arizona Wildcats will be atop the league.
Mannion is, without question, the star-in-the-making for Sean Miller’s team. While you’ve probably seen his highlight-reel dunks on Instagram and other social media platforms, that’s only part of his game — actually, it’s the smaller part of his game. As a player, he’s a crafty facilitator that can meander through the defense seamlessly to explode at the rim or then kick the ball to his teammates.
With the way that Arizona is constructed, what Mannion brings to the table fits perfectly. Losing Brandon Williams to a preseason injury for the year hurts but they have the depth to not feel his absence in any major way. UC Irvine transfer Max Hazzard can be a deadeye outside shooter while a big-man rotation of Chase Jeter, freshman Zeke Nnaji and Cornell transfer Stone Gettings (welcome to the All-Name Team) will cause a number of problems for opponents.
This could be the deepest and most well-rounded team that Arizona has had under Miller’s watch in quite some time. Mannion will be the one that makes this team tick and gets the shine but the whole of the parts will lead the Wildcats through the fire of the Pac-12 to winning the conference.