This is the 52nd season of Arizona basketball played at McKale Center, and in that time Colorado has played there 13 times but never won. The only Division I opponent with more appearances at McKale without a win in that span is NAU, which is 0-28 there, and only five other schools are winless in five or more appearances.
Arizona will try to make Colorado 0-14 at McKale when the old Pac-12 foes meet in a Big 12 Conference game on Saturday afternoon. The 1 p.m. MT tip will be streamed on ESPN+.
This is the first of two home games in three days for the Wildcats (12-6, 6-1) with No. 3 Iowa State making its first appearance in Tucson since 1990 on Monday night. The latter game is by far the bigger one, but Arizona can’t afford to overlook Colorado (9-9, 0-7) if it wants to compete for the Big 12 title.
In other words, don’t expect the UA to pull starters early in hopes of saving some fuel for Monday.
“Conserve is not even a word in our vocabulary,” UA coach Tommy Lloyd said Friday. “These guys are young, they’re in great shape. We’re expecting Colorado to come out with a spirited effort, obviously we’re gonna have to match that. And it takes what it takes. There’s not an algorithm for how much effort we’re going to put in Saturday and save for the next game. That’s not how I operate.”
Here’s what to watch for when Arizona and Colorado meet midday Saturday:
A somewhat familiar opponent
Colorado is the first of the former Pac-12 schools that Arizona will face in Big 12 play, with ASU on tap on Feb. 1 and Utah later that month. That made scouting the Buffaloes slightly less involved, but only from the coaching standpoint.
Gone from last year’s Colorado team that won a school-record 26 games are three NBA players, with only 16.5 percent of the minutes played in 2023-24 still on the team. Most of that is in the form of senior guard Julian Hammond, who leads the team in scoring (13.7 points per game) and assists (3.2). Washington State transfer Andrej Jakimovski is also a familiar face, as he has played seven games against Arizona but only once scored in double figures.
It’s Tad Boyle that is the constant. The winningest coach in school history has been in Boulder since 2010 and his first time taking Colorado the NCAA Tournament in 2012 was by virtue of beating the UA in the Pac-12 tourney final.
“They’re running some of the same stuff they were, but so are we,” Lloyd said.
Colorado beat two-time defending NCAA champ UConn at the Maui Invitational but in Big 12 play nothing has gone right. The Buffs led Iowa State by five with 12 minutes in their conference opener and were up 10 at UCF midway through the second half but the inability to take care of the ball has doomed them in every game.
They’re averaging 16.1 turnovers in Big 12 play, giving it away on 23.7 percent of possessions. That has led Boyle to constantly shuffle his starting lineup, using three different quintets in the last four games.
“Tad’s had a lot of success in his career, I’m sure he’s pushing a lot of buttons, and eventually he’ll push the right buttons,” Lloyd said. “Colorado is gonna win a few games at conference. They’re going to win some games. It’s just a matter of time, and just a matter of the certain day.”
A potential for more foul trouble
Arizona saw Tobe Awaka, Trey Townsend and Henri Veesaar each get into early foul trouble, and while Townsend was able to overcome that to put forth his best performance as a Wildcat the UA bigs couldn’t. Awaka fouled out in 15 minutes of action, while Veesaar logged just 12 minutes after playing only 14 at Texas Tech though not because of foul issues.
Oklahoma State was the best in the Big 12 at getting to the foul line and is 16th nationally, but Colorado isn’t far behind at No. 42. The Buffaloes’ conference games have been foul fests for both teams, with an average of 39.6 fouls and 46.4 foul shots.
Colorado can withstand foul trouble more than Arizona since it has 10 guys playing at least 12 minutes per Big 12 contest, compared to eight for Arizona. A ninth was thrust into action at OSU in the form of 7-foot freshman Emmanuel Stephen, who played a career-high nine minutes after logging only 13 before Tuesday night.
“He has an eagerness about him that’s appealing,” Lloyd said of Stephen, who was on tap to redshirt until Motjiejus Krivas suffered a season-ending foot injury. “I know this, he’s going to give everything he’s got.”
Lloyd isn’t ready to guarantee Stephen meaningful minutes, but if the frontcourt gets into foul trouble again he would get called on again.
“I don’t want to say you always have a plan for everything, because sometimes there is a beauty and just figuring it out in the moment, but we’ll have plans accordingly,” Lloyd said. “I don’t know how the game is going to be officiated. I’m not assuming we’re going to have both of our bigs have two fouls in the first 10 minutes of the first half. But if that happens, we’ll react accordingly.”
Developing the deep shot
At 19.4 attempts per conference game, Arizona is 13th in the Big 12 in 3-point shots and middle-of-the-pack (8th) in makes (6.9). But it is third in 3-point accuracy, shooting 35.3 percent in Big 12 play compared to 30.7 percent in nonconference games.
The Wildcats were 10 of 25 from deep at Oklahoma State, the second time this season it hit at least 10 and shot 40 percent or better after going 11 of 22 against Davidson at the Maui Invitational.
The 3-point shot is not a big part of Arizona’s offense, with less than 25 percent of its scoring coming from outside to rank 334th out of 364 Division I schools including last in the Big 12. Last season it comprised 26.2 percent of the scoring, with the 2022-23 team that featured Kerr Kriisa and Courtney Ramey getting 30.9 percent of its points from the perimeter.
Colorado allows 37 percent shooting on 3s in Big 12 play, with opponents getting nearly one-third of their scoring from beyond the arc, so this could be a game where Arizona hunts more for those shots. Assuming that fits within the offense, Lloyd said.
“If you take threes, it’s great, but you got to make them,” he said. “The ball’s got to go in basket. There’s lots of ways to accumulate points. And I know threes are popular, but at the end of the day, you also got to know your team. I don’t think you get hung up too much on an ideal, as opposed to reality. And the reality is, I think we can be a good offensive team. I don’t think we have to shoot 30 threes. Now, if we had 30 great threes from the right guys, and they were wide open, I would probably feel really good.
“I think fouls and free throws matter, I think layups matter. It’s all on how your team is built.”