Everyone is familiar with the old saying “what goes up must come down” but how many of you know about this far less mainstream maxim: “sometimes things go up and everything looks great and then all of the sudden playing defense becomes optional, team chemistry gets shot to hell and what was once up crashes down like the stock market of ’29.”

I admit, it’s nowhere near as popular when it comes to well-known adages but it applies to Arizona’s 2004 season nonetheless.

In day three of this 100-plus part series we’re calling the Summer Prospectus, we look back at the ups and downs experienced by the ultimately disappointing Wildcats in what began as a season filled with so much promise.

Looking back on it, starting the year ranked No. 4 in the polls did nothing but inflate everyone’s unrealistic expectations for a team that was deficient in far too many areas to be a true Final Four contender.

Sure, it was before junior power forward Isaiah Fox was lost for the season due to injury and before the well-chronicled team chemistry went from ‘fine’ to ‘awful’ in the blink of an eye, but you get the point. If the 2004 season had a motto it would only be fitting for it to be, “What Could Have Been.”

Arizona head coach Lute Olson saw the initial rankings and immediately cautioned the media and fans alike not to read too much into it.

As is generally the case, Olson’s wisdom proved prophetic as the No. 4 Wildcats lost to an always-overrated Florida team in the season’s second game. The loss came one game after Olson got his 500th career win at Arizona in a 107-73 cakewalk over NAU.

That little two-game stretch established a baseline for the Cats’ season-long up and down pattern that would make the Richter Scale come off looking like a flat line (see Season Graph, below).

UP: Arizona begins season ranked No. 4 in national polls then proceeds to cruise through the exhibition season and first regular season game by scoring 109, 116 and 107 points, respectively. The point totals are a precursor to Arizona’s explosive up-tempo offense throughout the season.

DOWN: Losing to what would turn out to be a very mediocre Florida team in Springfield, Mass.

DOWN: Finding out that Isaiah Fox’s left knee was in need of season-ending surgery after just one and a half games on the year.

DOWN: Barely winning at Saint Louis and looking sloppy the entire time.

UP: Beating No. 9 Texas in Madison Square Garden behind Andre Iguodala’s first triple-double and Hassan Adams’ 30-point, 10-rebound performance.

DOWN: Barely beating St. Mary's at home after trailing for much of the second half. The Wildcats were down seven with three minutes to play before finishing out the game on a 15-2 run.

UP: The arrival of Serbian forward Ivan Radenovic gives UA's depth a boost and fans hope, especially after his debut performance against Liberty in which he comes off the bench to score 17 points and grab nine rebounds.

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DOWN: Barely beating Louisiana-Lafayette at home on Iguodala’s last-second 3-pointer from the left corner.

UP: In what was the high point of the season, Arizona ascended to No. 3 in the rankings with a 10-1 overall record after big wins vs. ASU and Cal. Little did we know that it would basically all be down hill from there…

DOWN: Getting dominated at home by No. 4 Stanford in a game that was never close.

DOWN: Embarrassed at USC, 99-90, in second straight loss while also allowing Trojan guard Desmon Farmer to score a career-high 40 points against the UA “defense”.

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UP: Three straight wins by an average of 24.3 points against UCLA, Oregon State and Oregon.

DOWN: Going 1-3 in a four-game stretch with losses at Washington (by 13), Cal and a heartbreaking 35-foot buzzer-beater at the hands of No. 1-ranked Stanford in a game Arizona led by four points with 43 seconds to play.

UP:Three straight wins by an average of 21.7 points per game while averaging 101.7 points offensively. During this span, UA junior guard Salim Stoudamire had breakout scoring games of 34 and 37 points against UCLA and at Oregon, respectively.

DOWN: Losing at Oregon State, 90-84, in a game that UA associate head coach Jim Rosborough called one of the most embarrassing losses he’s experienced in his career. Arizona had defeated the hapless Beavers 107-83 just weeks earlier before this heartless performance.

DOWN: Immediately after the loss to Oregon State, a couple of Arizona players got into a post-game altercation and had to be separated by at least one teammate. This is where the chemistry problems became public.

DOWN: The following week, Salim Stoudamire was suspended for a game by Lute Olson for what he termed, “failure to meet team responsibilities.” There are those who believe he simply skipped one too many weightlifting sessions and there are those who believe Stoudamire was one of the two Wildcat players involved in the post-game quarrel.

DOWN: The low point of the season came with Stoudamire sitting on the bench in street clothes as he watched his teammates lose at home to Washington and fall out of second place in the Pac-10 standings. Arizona was suddenly 18-8 overall; 10-7 in conference play and squarely on the proverbial ‘bubble’ as an NCAA tournament team.

UP:The Wildcats came back nicely as they hammered ASU inside McKale Center, 106-81, to close out regular season. The win locked up the No. 3 seed in the following week’s Pac-10 tournament in Los Angeles.

UP:Mustafa Shakur nailed a buzzer-beating 3-pointer to lift Arizona past USC in the first round of the Pac-10 tournament. The shot, however, masked what was another sloppy outing from the Wildcats, who appeared to be regressing as the season neared its end.

DOWN: The very next day, Arizona suffered the unthinkable: a third straight loss to Washington. Losing to the Huskies ended Arizona’s run in the Pac-10 tourney and made it so that Selection Sunday two days later would be stressful for the first time since March of 1987 at Arizona.

DOWN: The Cats receive No. 9 seed in NCAA tourney and would face No. 8 Seton Hall. Wildcat fans across the nation pay no attention to the Pirates, instead looking forward to the potential second round matchup with much-hated Duke.

DOWN: Arizona loses in the first round to an awful Seton Hall team and that puts an official end to the season. Thank God.

Arizona assistant coach Josh Pastner is known for his optimistic outlook on life, and he made a good point about the relativity of what should be perceived as a ‘bad season’ in college basketball.

“A bad year for us is finishing 20-10, third in Pac-10 and making the NCAA tournament,” he said. “You look at North Carolina, Duke, UConn and they have all been to the NIT or not made the tournament at all (in the last 10 years). Indiana and UCLA have been in the same situation of missing (the postseason). You have to keep things in perspective.”

Even though sophomore forward Andre Iguodala declared for the NBA draft and signed with an agent recently, things are looking much better for the Arizona basketball program already.

Salim Stoudamire has stated publicly that he is coming back to school with only one goal in mind and that is to win the national title. He promised also that he would let his play do the talking for him and that he would lead by example during his senior season.

Arizona is bringing in four star-caliber recruits to add to the eight returning players already on the roster. Depth will not be an issue in 2005.

Practice will be more competitive and a byproduct of tough practices is better play and faster development of each of the individual players on the team.

There really is a lot more to write about here, particularly in regards to why 2005 promises to be a far more productive and winning season. But all of that is for another day. The Summer Prospectus is just beginning and we still have over 100 stories to go on an every day basis to get the true Wildcat basketball fans completely ready for what lies ahead.

There is only one destination and it is called St. Louis.

Saturday: Changes in philosophy from the coaches’ perspective.

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-Ben Hansen, Senior Editor