Arizona beats Oregon to win Pac-12 tournament in a year it had no business doing that

The Arizona Wildcats are your Pac-12 champion. Sean Miller’s crew took out Lonzo Ball and UCLA in the semis and then upended top-seed Oregon 83-80 in the title game on Saturday night.

Allonzo Trier was brilliant for Arizona, finishing with 23 points, eight rebounds and three assists. Senior guard Kadeem Allen (13 points) also provided exceptional two-way play in the win.

Arizona is likely to be a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament when the bracket is announced on Sunday. This win improves them to 30-4 overall. It’s all kind of remarkable because the Wildcats had every excuse for a down year this season.

The season started with the unexpected and frankly almost tragic early retirement of Ray Smith. Smith, a former five-star recruit, tore his ACL for the third straight year during the Wildcats’ season-opening scrimmage. He also tore his ACL when he arrived going into his senior year of high school and again when he arrived on campus a year ago.

Arizona also had to deal with the drama around Trier, who missed the first 19 games of the campaign after he tested positive for PEDs in the preseason. Don’t forget that Arizona also missed out on elite recruit Terrance Ferguson, the five-star swingman who decided to play professionally in Australia rather than honor his commitment to Arizona.

Sean Miller’s team was carried by three freshman — Lauri Markkanen, Rawle Alkins, Kobi Simmons -- for much of the year. Allen was terrific as a veteran presence in the backcourt. Dusan Ristic worked his way into being a quality center. Trier eventually came back and found his stride, and that set the tone for this Pac-12 title run.

Incredible job by Sean Miller. Oh yeah, he’s got DeAndre Ayton coming in next year, too. The man knows what he’s doing.