greg bryan / arizona daily star 2008

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The young men who sit on Arizona's basketball bench — sit is the key word here — have scored a cumulative 282 points this season.

That can't be good.

Why, in 1991, UA freshman Khalid Reeves scored 317 points, all as a substitute. Amazing. One 1991 bench guy outscored this year's entire UA bench.

In 2003, without making a single start, Hassan Adams scored 291 points, more than the entire UA bench of 2008. And it's not like Adams was a latter-day John Havlicek, a super sixth man who played more minutes than the starters.

Nope. Adams didn't even play as many minutes as the UA's 2003 sixth man, Andre Iguodala.

I do not say this to discourage attempts to pick Arizona to upset West Virginia and Duke. This is merely a public service. Do not get carried away by the UA's tournament potential.

None of the men who occupy Arizona's bench scored 100 points this year. Not even 90.

That hasn't happened at Arizona since Fred Snowden coached his last Wildcat team in 1981-82. Or have you forgotten Keith Jackson, who was the UA's most prolific sub that year? He scored 88 points.

There is no mystery as Arizona enters the NCAA tournament Thursday night in Washington, D.C. If the "leading'' scorer on your bench, Jamelle Horne, has scored 77 points your time on the dance floor may be brief.

In the Lute Olson years, Arizona's bench has mostly been blessed by goodness and productivity. Here is some context as it relates to the 282 point total of this year's bench:

In 1996, the Arizona bench scored an astonishing 1,074 points.

In 1991, it scored 944.

In its 1997 national title run, Arizona's bench scored 734 points.

In the five-year period of 2001-05 — with a Final Four and two Elite Eight squads — Arizona's non-starters scored, in order, 609, 436, 827, 578 and 624 points.

Daniel Dillon is Arizona's No. 2 scoring option off the bench this season. He has scored 61 points.

His nickname is not "Instant Offense.''

This is a significant departure from Arizona's glory days, such as the 2001 Elite Eight victory, when Luke Walton came off the bench in an epic game against Illinois and scored nine points, added three assists and two rebounds in a mere 19 minutes.

On Monday, UA interim head coach Kevin O'Neill said that he embraces the extended length of NCAA tournament time-outs during CBS broadcasts. The time-outs drag on for close to three minutes.

"I like it,'' O'Neill said. "If I can get Chase (Budinger) out one minute before a (TV) time- out, by the time he gets back out there he'll have had almost four minutes of rest.''

Introducing the Iron Men.

Arizona's 1994 Final Four team wasn't considered deep, but guard Dylon Rigdon scored 220 points in 457 minutes and he was skilled in free-throw shooting and three-point shooting.

Rigdon left school a virtual unknown in the sense of Olson's long list of marquee-name talent. But if Rigdon played on this UA team, Arizona would be 23-10 instead of 19-14. His picture would be in the paper every week.

On Monday, Budinger said he expects Thursday's opener against West Virginia to "be a grind,'' but that's understating the difficulty the bench-thin Wildcats are apt to encounter.

At West Virginia, coach Bob Huggins' non-starters have scored 649 points; that's more than double Arizona's total. It is a factor that can't be easily dismissed. It is a factor that almost always has belonged to the Wildcats.

At its NCAA tournament best, Arizona has rolled through hazardous brackets with minutes-eating, results-producing subs like Donnell Harris.

Forgot all about Mr. Bones, right?

In the 1997 Final Four, the skinny, 6-foot-11-inch sophomore scored a cumulative 14 points and gathered 10 rebounds in compelling victories over North Carolina and Kentucky. Arizona could not have won the national title without him.

Oh, what the '08 Wildcats would give for someone like Donnell Harris.

We've almost forgotten about Harris because Jason Terry, the most celebrated sixth man in UA history, had an even better '97 Final Four.

He had 14 steals and became a defensive stopper. He scored 46 points and made 15 free throws, almost all of them in the clutch. In Arizona's six-game run to the national title, Terry played 156 minutes.

Terry was so valuable that had he played just 155 minutes, one fewer, it might have meant a loss to Kansas or Providence or College of Charleston, and no national title.

By comparison, Arizona enters this year's NCAA tournament as the Iron Five.

That can't be good news.