james gregg / arizona daily star

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Kevin O'Neill's cover has been blown.

The former college and NBA head coach, who guided Arizona to a 68-50 exhibition win over Concordia on Sunday, has tried to keep a stealthy profile since returning to the UA six months ago.

He has declined to do media interviews. He's worked out players in empty gyms early in the mornings and in the evenings. He pushed to get rid of the McKale Madness hypefest, and quietly issued the players "Wildcat Boot Camp" T-shirts to make sure they received the message that work, not show, is what matters.

But Sunday, after head coach Lute Olson took an indefinite leave of absence for an unspecified reason, O'Neill had no choice but to stroll the sidelines, make the decisions and do the interviews.

He didn't flinch.

While O'Neill joked that he was now "forced" to talk with reporters and said it was "probably odd for everybody" that he was strolling the sidelines, he stepped firmly into the head role he held at Marquette, Tennessee, Northwestern and the NBA's Toronto Raptors.

Dressed in a dark business suit, O'Neill paced up and down the sidelines, making his points clear but never showing hesitation or exasperation.

"He showed me a lot of confidence today," guard Jawann McClellan said. "A sign of a good coach is when you have poise, and he did that today. He's coached at every level."

Besides, throughout all those early-morning conditioning workouts, evening shootarounds and defensive drills, O'Neill is hardly an unknown to Arizona players.

They have seen him call the shots before, just not in a game.

"We're used to him being a vocal leader in practice, knowing Coach O doesn't talk too much," guard Nic Wise said. "We're used to him telling us what to do a lot."

Much of the time, O'Neill is telling them to play defense. So it was probably no surprise that the Wildcats held Concordia to just 10 points over the first 13 minutes while building a 24-10 lead, keeping the Stingers of Montreal to just 27.3 percent shooting in the first half.

"If it were up to him, we'd probably have a four-hour practice with straight defense," said forward Jamelle Horne, who had seven points and five rebounds. "So we all knew defense was a huge key coming into the game."

After UA built a 33-15 halftime lead, the Wildcats eased up somewhat. Concordia cut UA's lead from 22 to eight by the midway point of the second half, getting two three-pointers from Dwayne Buckley within a minute.

The Wildcats still led by just eight, 58-50, with 5:09 left before closing the game with 10 straight points, including three-pointers from Wise and Chase Budinger, who led Arizona with 17 points.

But O'Neill said that, considering the distractions of the day, the defense was good.

O'Neill said he was also impressed with Horne, who is battling for a starting spot at power forward, and McClellan, who had 13 points and six rebounds while playing solid defense.

"Everyone talks about great players and talent, but he's our glue guy," O'Neill said. "He has to be our glue guy. If Jawann plays like that every day, we'll have a chance to be a decent basketball team."

Even though it was an exhibition, O'Neill took his playing combinations seriously. He played his regulars at the end of the game and, rather than go through his entire bench, he went 10 deep, opting not to use senior guard Daniel Dillon, forward Zane Johnson and center Alex Jacobson.

O'Neill said Dillon, the team's seventh man last season, would "get in some games" and said he went as deep as he could.

"We're not going to play 13 or 14 guys," O'Neill said. "We need to start learning right now."

The statement was definitive. There was no hesitating. No sugar-coating.

Just business.

For now, more than ever, that's O'Neill's job.