Former Arizona stars TJ McConnell, Bennedict Mathurin help lead Pacers to NBA Finals

For the 11th consecutive year, the Arizona men’s basketball will be represented in the NBA Finals.

Former Wildcats stars TJ McConnell and Bennedict Mathurin helped lead the Indiana Pacers to the Finals, ensuring Arizona will have a prominent presence in the championship series. Indiana took down the New York Knicks in six games in the Eastern Conference Finals and will face the Oklahoma City Thunder. The series begins Thursday, June 5 in Oklahoma City.

The four-seed Pacers made it past the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round, then defeated top-seed Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Semifinals.

Indiana was considered the underdog against the three-seed Knicks but controlled much of the series by winning the first two games in New York.

Mathurin stepped up big in the Pacers’ Game 4 win, scoring 20 points in 12 minutes off the bench. He followed that up with a 23-point outing in Game 5, which Indiana lost.

Mathurin scored just 15 points the rest of the series, including four points in the clinching Game 6 Saturday night.

McConnell scored double digits in the first three games of the series and had multiple assists in all six games.

Former Arizona coach Sean Miller – now the head coach at Texas – has been tweeting messages of support for McConnell and Mathurin throughout the playoffs. He caught up with them in person before Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Mathurin played one season under Miller at Arizona and the next season under Tommy Lloyd.

Lloyd coached two other players in the NBA Finals while an assistant at Gonzaga: Indiana’s Andrew Nembhard and Oklahoma City’s Chet Holmgren.