Death, taxes and Arizona blowing out its first opponent of the season.
The Wildcats beat Canisius 93-64 on Monday night, winning their opener for the 17th year in a row. And under Tommy Lloyd none of them have been close, with each one over by halftime.
Caleb Love had 17 points, including 7 of the first 10 for Arizona during a game-opening 13-0 run, adding four rebounds and six assists, while Jaden Bradley had 15 and KJ Lewis 14 as the UA had nine players with at least four points.
The starting backcourt finished with 46 points, 14 assists and one turnover, with Love having only his second 6-assist, zero-turnover game of his career.
Arizona shot 48.5 percent but only 28.6 percent from 3, missing 9 of 10 triples in the second half. It outrebounded Canisius 43-25 and had a massive 48-12 edge in points in the paint.
Motiejus Krivas had nine points and five rebounds in 10 minutes off the bench, his first action since the end of last season, as he missed both exhibition games with an ankle injury, while Henri Veesaar had eight points in his first appearance since last October after sitting out the 2023-24 season with an elbow injury.
Arizona led 52-30 at halftime despite not shooting particularly well, but seven 3s and plus-10 edge on the boards made up for the misses. Canisius started the second half hot, making 4 of 7 3s in the first six minutes, but couldn’t get closer than 19 as the Wildcats started 8 of 12 from the field.
The lead grew to 30 on a 15-3 run that started with five straight from Love and ended with a Krivas dunk for a 76-44 edge with 12:12 left. A UA scoring drought of almost five minutes enabled the Golden Griffins to get within 78-55 but no closer.
After that the only drama involved Veesaar, as the redshirt sophomore big man went to the locker room with just over four minutes left shortly after getting fouled hard by Canisius’ Jasman Sangha. Sangha pulled down on Veesaar’s shoulder as he tried to dunk, resulting in a flagrant 2 and ejection.
UA coach Tommy Lloyd said after the game Veesaar was fine.
Canisius went more than four minutes into the game before scoring, and by that time it was 13-0. The Wildcats were up 23-4 less than seven minutes in before going almost four minutes without a basket, yet their lead never got below 16.
The Golden Griffins reached double digits just past the halfway point of the first half, with Arizona getting to 30 just after that, and throughout the half the scoring was balanced with nine different players getting on the scoreboard and six Wildcats hitting a 3.
Arizona’s back in action Saturday afternoon at home against Old Dominion, which lost 83-82 at home to Buffalo in its opener.