UCLA at Arizona Preview

Let the gauntlet begin.  Four tough road games in 10 day, and it begins with the toughest one.   The trip to Tucson.  

The home crowd will be at their obnoxious best (worst?), with the same boring chants and intense booing of every call that doesn't go their way.   Remember the Arizona slogan.  It;s not "Bear Down", which is weird for wildcats.  The real slogan is "If it weren't for the refs, we would win them all."

It's for first place in the Pac-12.  It's for bragging rights and for recruiting prowess.  The rivalry is back!

I am not going to completely rewrite the preview I wrote for the last matchup.  It was only a week ago.  There will be some repeat material. 

METRICS

Line:  TBD  (Estimated:  Arizona -5)

ESPN Predictor: UCLA wins 27% of the time.




Arizona has compiled a comparable record to ours, but against a weaker schedule.  So why are they ranked higher?  Because their margin of victory is bigger than ours.

In the last preview I asked, "Are they really good at blowing out mediocre teams or are they great?"   The jury is still out, but I think it is leaning a bit more toward the former.  

ARIZONA'S RECORD


Their only losses are road games at Tennessee, #12 in the NET, and to the Bruins..


So it will be a perfect road record vs. a perfect home record.  One of those will end on Thursday.

This will be a Quad 1 game for both teams.

In Quad 1 games, Arizona lost to Tennessee by 4, they beat Illinois by 4, they beat Michigan by 18, and lost to us by 16.  They haven't had a Quad 1 game at home.

UCLA has won 6 straight.  

UCLA'S OFFENSE VS ARIZONA'S DEFENSE


(Note:  3-Point Share is the percentage of shots that are threes.)

This is a great matchup.  We are an elite offense.  They are an even more elite defense. They are the best in the country at defending the 2-point shot.  This is in large part because they block so many shots.  They are #4 in the country at blocked shots per game.

HOWEVER, we are really good at not getting our shots blocked.  They only had 2 blocks against us, FAR below their season average of 6.4.

They also create a lot of turnovers, but we don't turn it over that much.  We only turned it over 8 times against them.

Arizona likes to play fast, really fast.  We don't.  Last game we didn't turn it over and we controlled tempo. 

If they have a weakness, it is defending the 3-point shot, and we are the best in the Pac-12 at shooting it.  In the last game we shot 47%.  It would be great to repeat that, rather than the 14% we shot against Stanford.

So the way to succeed it simple.  Make our 3-point shots, don't turn it over, don't get our shots blocked, and control the tempo.  Simple, right?  In theory.


UCLA'S DEFENSE VS ARIZONA'S OFFENSE


Arizona is on OK 3-point shooting team, but they do their real damage inside the arc.  They want to get to the rim early and often.  They also want to get it inside to their bigs, who are very effective around the basket.   We are good at defending the 2, but hardly great.  And our bigs have been foul prone.  

There are two keys to our defending them:  1)  We have to get back on defense.  2)  Riley and Johnson have to stay out of foul trouble.  Both are easier said than done.

We would definitely prefer that they try to beat us from the outside, where they are less effective, and they might cooperate.  Given how effective they are inside, they tend to shoot too many 3's.  Hoist it up, Wildcats.

In the last game they were terrible from everywhere, shooting 31%, 25%, 55%.  A lot of people said they wouldn't shoot 25% from the arc again all year.  They didn't.  In their next game, against a bad ASU team, they shot 13% from the arc(and 32% from the field.  

If they match either of their last two shooting performances against us, we will leave Tucson with a win.  Then again, leaving Tucson is always a win.

OTHER FACTORS


The other HUGE factor is rebounding.  They average almost 13 offensive rebounds per game.  They had 21 (TWENTY ONE!!) in the last game.   We really don't want that to happen again.  We had only 4 offensive rebounds, but we were getting back on defense.  But we need to rebound better, or we could be leaving Tucson with a loss, although leaving Tucson is always a win.

This is one of the few teams where their PG play is almost as good as ours.  Tyger's A/TO ratio is 3.7, and Kriisa's is 2.3 and Terry's is 2.7.  Their team average is so high because Kim Aiken is 4.7, but he hasn't played since early December.  Also, when you are constantly and effectively fast-breaking you can get a lot of easy assists.

Unlike the first game, we don't have to worry about Tyger's thumb.  

PLAYERS

If you are interested in my roster preview from the off season, click here.

Arizona is sponsored by the letter "K".  



Arizona leads the nations in K's on the roster:  Koloko, Kerr Kriisa, Kier, and even Kim Aiken and Ben Ackerley.  The Bruins can only field Jaylen Clark, Jake Kyman, and Kenny Nwuba.  None of them played in the first game.

However, we probably lead the nation in J's on the roster.  Jaimie Jacquez Junior, Johnny Juzang, Jules Bernard, Jaylen Clark, Myles Johnson, and Jake Kyman.  In the first game, our J's clearly beat their K's.

The Wildcats go 8 deep.  


For the most part, the right guys are shooting 3's for them.  Other than Terry, who isn't very good,  their guards are good, but not great outside shooters.  Clearly we would rather have them shooting 3's than having Koloko, Ballo, and Tubelis shooting in the lane.

Everyone has anointed Mathurin as the best player in the league, and he is projected as a lottery pick. He leads the team in scoring, but his numbers don't jump off the page.  He's very athletic, and an excellent rebounder for his size.  

Tubelis is a terrific college player and he will play pro ball somewhere.  He does everything really well, except shoot the 3, but he can make it.  All things considered, we would be very happy if he shoots a lot of 3's, but he doesn't shoot that many.

Koloko is the most improved player in the league not named Terrell Brown.  I thought he had to potential to be a very good center, but not this good.  He is averaging 3.2 blocks per game.
  
Kerr Kriisa and Dalen Terry make a formidable PG combo.  Kriisa isn't that good inside the arc and Terry isn't that good outside.  However, they run the offense very well.

Ballo has been an afterthought for most of the season, but in three of their last four games, he has scored in double digits, shooting 18 of 22 from the field, with 17 rebounds in 72 minutes.  He blocks 1.1 shots per game.  He's a more than adequate backup center., who would start for a lot of teams.

Pelle Larsson shot 46% from the arc as a freshman for Utah.  For some reason, that has dropped to 33% in the desert.  He's still a good player.  I still don't know why he has not signed an NIL deal with Pelle Windows.

CONCLUSION

This looks like a pretty even matchup.  The #17 offense vs the #15 offense.  The #9 defense vs. the #7 defense.   However, Arizona has two advantages, rebounding and playing at home.  

They keys to a Bruin win are pretty clear.  

• Get back on defense
• Defend inside and make them beat us from the arc.
• Make our 3's
• Don't get our shots blocked
• Rebound our defensive board

Basically we need to do everything we did in the first game and rebound better.

I think we can win this game, but win or lose, we will be able to leave Tucson.  The Wildcats can't.