Stanford has a strong defensive team and one of the best defensive backcourt tandems in college basketball. Sean Miller believes scoring 75 points against a team like that should result in a win. That wasn't the case Saturday evening, though.

The Wildcats (5-1, 0-1 Pac-12) gave up 78 points to the Cardinal to lose by three in the first game of Pac-12 play. UA knows that its road forward the rest of the season will be more difficult than the initial stretch to open the year. For Miller that means focusing on helping his team to improve on the defensive end of the floor to prevent results like what the Wildcats had on Saturday.

"Throughout the game our defense was just not good enough to win," the UA head coach said Saturday. "There were a number of breakdowns we had. ... Defensively we just had no answer. We got out-schemed. When we went small they hurt us with second shots. Early in the game they beat us with drives."

Miller added that if Arizona would have been able to win the game over the Cardinal his team would have had to do it in a shootout "which coming into the game I never would have predicted."

The UA head coach blamed some of the defensive issues on having a young team playing away from home for the first time this season. The Wildcats are having to rely on several newcomers, including a few freshmen, this season because of all the offseason turnover. Throw in the lack of opportunities for preseason exhibitions and private scrimmages against more challenging opponents and it adds up to UA being due for a bump in the road.