Moore: Arizona men's basketball players say it's Final Four or bust, but is that fair?

TUCSON — Sean Miller is accustomed to living under the figurative shadow of Lute Olson; he’s done it for the better part of a decade. Now it looks like he’s got until March to shake the possibility that it becomes a literal shadow he can never escape.

Arizona men’s basketball has been defined by Olson’s legacy: 23 consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances, 11 Pac-10 titles, four Final Fours and one national championship. Next spring, the program will put a statue of Olson outside the McKale Center.

Miller, meanwhile, has a list of accomplishments that would be the envy of most any college coach: six NCAA tournament appearances, four conference titles, four 30-win seasons and three Elite Eights in eight seasons as Arizona's head coach. But he’s never been to a Final Four and, fair or not, it’s come to define him.

This season, Miller is coaching perhaps his best squad, a team that features the 7-foot-1, 250-pound gliding giant Deandre Ayton and a preseason All-America in Allonzo Trier.

“This is the ninth team I’ve been head coach of here at Arizona, and I think it has the makings of being a very good team,” Miller said Tuesday. “We’ve been fortunate. If you judge a team, maybe, by the seed that we get in the NCAA Tournament, we’ve had a one-seed and a two-seed two times, and that’s about as good as it gets. Hopefully, this is a group that works toward becoming that.”

BASKETBALL PODCAST:Arizona enters season locked and loaded

But he’s doing it as a federal investigation into a sweeping bribery scandal across college basketball has led to the arrest of an assistant coach and harmed recruiting.

Miller said in a statement last month that he was “devastated” to learn of the allegations against one of his top lieutenants. He said he has worked over his career to “promote and reinforce a culture of compliance.”

He said Tuesday said that he didn’t have anything to add to that statement, but he and his program are “just doing the best that we can, trying to have the best season that we can have” as the investigation continues.

Miller has not been accused of wrongdoing, even as Emanuel “Book” Richardson has been arrested and accused of taking $20,000 to steer players toward a management firm.

UA has suspended the accused assistant coach.

Richardson, for his part, has said he’s done nothing wrong.

Already, top point guard Jahvon Quinerly has retracted his commitment to UA. And other highly regarded high school players, including Bol Bol, son of former NBA star Manute Bol, have eliminated Miller’s program from consideration. 

Quinerly didn’t mention the scandal directly in a statement released on Twitter: “After careful consideration, my family and I have determined it is in my best interest to retract my verbal commitment to the University of Arizona.”

The 7-foot-2 Bol, however, reportedly told Scout.com, “the schools being investigated, I personally want to stay away from them.”   

If the investigation drags out or includes sanctions, it could mean that this year’s UA recruiting class — which includes Emmanuel Akot, Ira Lee, Brandon Randolph and Alex Barcello — is the best Miller gets in the foreseeable future.

We’ll get an indication of the strength of next year’s class Wednesday, when the early signing period begins. Miller said he didn’t know who might sign this week or who might wait until the spring.

“I don’t, and I’m not able to comment, really, beyond that right now,” he said.

Miller’s current group understands how special this team can be.

“I do think (the Final Four) is a fair level of expectation,” Akot said. “I think we have a very talented team. And we have an all-in mentality. We all know our roles. We all know what we have to do to win a national championship.”

“We all came here for a reason,” Lee said. “Coach recruited us here for a reason, and it’s a fair level of expectation, I feel. Like he said, we’re all-in. We all know what we’ve got to do, and we’re working on it day by day.”  

Thanks for the candor, fellas, but I’m going to step in here and slow you down a bit — and this goes for any members of the Zona Zoo who feel the same way.

Don’t put too much emphasis on one goal.

Final Fours in the last 15 years or so have included George Mason, Butler, Wichita State and South Carolina. Syracuse made it to the last weekend two years ago as a 10-seed. Connecticut won it all in 2014 as an 8.

I don’t care how good you are, a lot of what goes into reaching that stage isn’t up to you. In that way, it’s just like the fallout from this investigation, which could very well end with UA in the clear and still harm the program moving forward.

Set your goals high, but enjoy the process. Don’t lose sight of the work you’ve put in along the way.   

No matter what you do, there’s a chance you’ll only have that Olson statue to celebrate in March. Pay attention to your coach. He’s the only one who has to deal with the shadow it casts.

“You can’t judge yourself by the last game of your season,” Miller said.

“Are we gonna be at our best in March? That’s always our goal, but we can’t control anything beyond that.”

RELATED:What Book Richardson case means for Arizona basketball

Reach Moore at gmoore@azcentral.com or 602-444-2236. Follow him at www.Twitter.com/WritingMoore.