Sean Miller etching own name in Arizona Wildcats lore with early success

Sean Miller had the second-best start in league history in his first four years as coach in the Pac-12

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Lute Olson has the best start in the first five seasons as a Pac-12 coach (was Pac-10 when he was at Arizona)

Lute Olson was a conference-record 64-26 in Pac-10 games through the first five seasons as the Arizona Wildcats’ head coach from 1983-88. Sean Miller (63-26) can match that record with a victory at Oregon tomorrow at Matthew Knight Arena.

Miller, on the brink of winning Pac-12 coach of the year honors for the second time in four years, already has the program’s best start in the first four seasons with a 48-24 record in league games. Only Steve Lavin’s 49-23 record in his first four seasons at UCLA from 1996-2000 was better among conference coaches. Lavin went 14-4 in his fifth season to start 63-27 in that span.

Lavin then went 11-7 and 6-12 over his next two seasons before his ouster in Westwood.

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My latest at Bleacher Report: #Pac12 hoops, ranking best overall coaching performances this season http://t.co/2yidGn3ubG #ArizonaWildcats

— Javier Morales (@JavierJMorales) March 7, 2014

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Judging from Miller’s winning background, dating to his time at Xavier, he will take a similar path as Olson to prolonged success and not fall off like Lavin, who had no previous head coaching experience before replacing Jim Harrick as UCLA’s coach.

Arizona can also match the achievement of the 1987-88 and 2002-03 teams with only two regular-season losses if they beat the Ducks.

The Wildcats went 35-3 with a loss in the Final Four to Oklahoma with Steve Kerr and Sean Elliott in 1987-88. They were 28-2 before winning three games in the Pac-10 tournament that season.

Arizona was 25-2 in 2002-03 before getting upset by UCLA in the first round of the Pac-10 tournament, which ironically was Lavin’s last victory with the Bruins.

The Wildcats are currently 28-2, matching the 1987-88 team for the best record after 30 games in the program’s history.

ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He also writes articles for Bleacher Report and Lindy’s College Sports.

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