What to watch for when Arizona men’s basketball starts first Big 12 road trip at Cincinnati

Winning on the road is the key to success in conference play, something Arizona did quite a bit in the Pac-12. Under Tommy Lloyd the Wildcats went 20-10 in conference road games, while Sean Miller was 62-47 and Lute Olson only had a losing conference road record six times in 25 seasons.

But life on the road in the Big 12 Conference figures to be a much tougher existence. Last season only regular season champion Houston finished with a winning record away from home in league play.

The first batch of Big 12 games this season have gone a bit against the grain, though, with four of eight contests won by the visiting team highlighted by West Virginia’s upset at preseason favorite Kansas. Arizona was one of the fortunate few to protect its home court, beating TCU 90-81 on Monday in its Big 12 debut, while its next opponent Cincinnati lost by 3 at Kansas State.

Arizona plays its next two games on the road, including Tuesday at West Virginia, which already beat the Wildcats in overtime at the Battle4Atlantis in November.

“We’re fired up, we got a great road trip,” Lloyd said after beating TCU. “You’re going all the way back to the East Coast. You play in Cincinnati, you play in West Virginia. I’m assuming both fan bases are going to be excited that Arizona is coming to their home gym. What a great opportunity for us to go out and and continue to prove ourselves in the Big 12.”

Arizona is 4-0 against Cincinnati, most recently winning 101-93 at the Maui Invitational in 2022, but this will be the first time the teams have played off a neutral court.

Here’s what to watch for when the UA visits the 16th-ranked Bearcats on Saturday afternoon:

Another defensive darling

TCU entered Monday’s game ranked 17^th in the country in adjusted defensive efficiency, per KenPom.com, and Arizona promptly averaged more than 1.3 points per possession while shooting better than 50 percent each half. Now comes an even tougher defensive opponent, at least on paper.

Cincinnati is 5^th in adjust defense, 9^th in scoring defense (59.5 points per game), 14^th in field goal defense (38 percent) and 16^th in 3-point defense (27.7 percent). The Bearcats also play at the third-slowest tempo in the Big 12, at 66.6 possessions per 40 minutes.

Arizona’s win over TCU only included 65 possessions, which bodes well for playing in another game that will be more methodical than helter skelter. Its other two sub-70 possession games this season, against Duke and UCLA, produced only 55 and 54 points, respectively.

The 70 points Cincinnati gave up at Kansas State was a season high. Arizona is 0-5 this season when scoring under 90 points.

Caleb the carrier?

Caleb Love is coming off arguably the best game of his storied career, going for 33 points (on 11-of-17 shooting) with seven rebounds, seven assists, two seals and no turnovers in 38 minutes. No Division I player has done that in a regulation game over the past 20 seasons.

That was Love’s third straight big game, having gone for 24 against Central Michigan and 23 against Samford prior to Christmas. The 80 points are his most in a 3-game span, and the 5th-year senior says he hasn’t felt this good since his sophomore season when he led North Carolina to the NCAA title game.

“It feels good, but it feels even better when we’re winning,” said Love, who is averaging 16.7 points per game and has lifted his shooting percentage to a career-best 42.6 percent including 57.5 percent on 2s. “My teammates have been putting me in position to get easy baskets, and I’ve just been feeding off them, and I’ve been sharing the ball as well with them.”

Arizona is 4-1 this season when Love scores at least 20, compared to 0-3 when he fails to reach single digits.

The inside game

Cincinnati is almost as good a rebounding team as Arizona, ranking 20^th on the offensive boards (UA is 6^th) and 99^th on the defensive glass (60^th). The Bearcats block more than five shots per game, with 7-footer Aziz Bandaogo swatting nearly two per game while also shooting 68.2 percent.

6-foot-8 Dillon Mitchell leads the Big 12 in shooting and leading scorer Simas Lukosius is also 6-8, making this one of the biggest tests for Arizona’s thinned out frontcourt.

Sophomore Motiejus Krivas is officially out for the season, and 7-foot freshman Emmanuel Stephen is nowhere near close enough to play meaningful minutes on the road in the Big 12. That leaves the Wildcats with 6-8 junior Tobe Awaka, who has started all but one game at the 5, and 7-foot redshirt sophomore Henri Veesaar as the main rim protectors. It’s also likely that 6-8 freshman Carter Bryant will see more time at the 4 since starter Trey Townsend is only 6-6 and has struggled in the majority of Arizona’s games against power-conference opponents.

Awaka has struggled against tougher competition, particularly on offense, but he’ll be needed on the boards as he ranks third in the country in 2nd-chance points per 40 minutes.

Veesaar may prove to be the best option when Arizona has the ball, though. He had 15 points on 6-of-7 shooting against TCU, and over the last five games he’s 10 points on 63.3 percent shooting in only 19 minutes per night.

“His development has taken a while, which is normal, it’s not a slight to Henri by any stretch,” Lloyd said. “They’re starting to come together, his shooting, his decision making, his balance, his strength. It’s all kind of coming together at the right time. Mo’s out … now we’re gonna be able to roll with Henri, and he’s gonna get probably a little more opportunity.”

Putting it all on the line

Arizona is 5th-best in the Big 12 in getting to the line, its free throw attempt rate of 36.9 equating to 23.3 free throw attempts per game. The Wildcats are making 75.3 percent of their foul shots, with their top five scorers shooting at least 78.9 percent.

The charity stripe has not been a place of positivity, or regularity, for Cincinnati. Its 24.3 percent free throw rate is 343^rd nationally (yet not worst in the Big 12; Kansas is 357^th at 21.9) and translates to 15 foul shots per game. They’re only making 65 percent of their free throws, going 4 of 7 from the line in Monday’s loss at Kansas State.

If Arizona needs to foul late the man to put on the line is Mitchell, a Texas transfer who is inexplicably 9 of 29 (31 percent) on free throws. In two seasons at Texas he shot 54 percent.

Crowd concerns

With a capacity of 12,012, Cincinnat’s Fifth Third Arena—what a name—is the 55th-largest in Division I but holds about 2,500 fewer fans than McKale Center. The Bearcats are averaging just under 11,000 for seven home games this season, but for this “Stripe Out” contest it will probably be sold out.

Playing in packed houses on the road was not a regular thing in the Pac-12, where no school other than Arizona averaged more than 10,000 per game last season. Nine of the Wildcats’ 10 Big 12 road games will be arenas that hold at least 11,000 and only ASU and Oklahoma State didn’t average at least 9,000 fans last season.