Arizona and UCLA have met on a neutral court before, but it’s usually been in March, and as part of a tournament where only one team advances. Yet in some ways, this latest matchup could be one of the biggest regular season contests for the Wildcats in quite some time.
“No doubt it’s an important game,” UA coach Tommy Lloyd said of Saturday’s battle with No. 24 UCLA in Phoenix. “And I would be saying that if we were 8-0, I’d be saying that if we’re 7-1. I’m saying it and I mean it, and we’re 4-4.”
Arizona is off to its worst start since 2017-18, spending more than a week below .500 for the first time in 14 years before blowing out Southern Utah on Dec. 7. Ranked in the preseason AP Top 25 and picked to finish 5th in their inaugural season in the Big 12, as of now the Wildcats aren’t projected to make the NCAA Tournament by most bracketologists.
ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has the UA as the “first team out” due mostly to its 0-4 record against Quad 1 opponents. Arizona is 45th in the most recent NET rankings.
UCLA (8-1) is 15th in the NET, giving the Wildcats their last chance to pick up a quality nonconference win before the Big 12 gauntlet—11 of 20 games would currently count as Quad 1 opportunities—begins Dec. 30.
“The season doesn’t hinge on it by any stretch,” Lloyd said. “It’s a long season and we have plenty of opportunities ahead of us, but we want to go out and we want to play well for for ourselves, for our program, and want to play well for our fans. So we’re definitely not taking it lightly.
We’re at where we’re at. The only way to improve our situation is to try to come out and play good on Saturday. I think we have yet to play really well in a big game, and so it’s important for us to try to go out and establish that this weekend. We want to play well in a big game, and Saturday is a big game.”
Here’s what to watch for when the Wildcats and Bruins meet for the first time outside of Pac-12 play in almost 50 years:
Much better Bruins
Last season Arizona swept UCLA in the regular season for the first time since 2009-10, clinching the final Pac-12 title at Pauley Pavilion on March 7 after winning at McKale Center six weeks earlier. The Bruins went 16-17, their first losing record since 2015-16, and have since remade their roster.
“They’ve got some new pieces, but they didn’t just clean house either,” Lloyd said. “They have a lot of these guys that are back and have established themselves in their program and continue to get better. I think their skill level increased a little bit. They’re definitely a team that has a plan. I think they really know how to play to their strengths, and I think they’re doing a really good job of establishing that.”
UCLA is allowing 55.1 points per game, fewest in the country, and holding opponents to 37.5 percent shooting. And it’s doing so with no starter over 6-foot-9, as 7-3 sophomore Aday Mara only plays 10.2 minutes per game.
That’s a vast difference from the previous two seasons with big man Adem Bona controlling the paint.
“The biggest difference is they don’t have this beast inside, the dude was a wrecking ball, and he was a force to play against,” Lloyd said of Bona, who turned pro and was picked in the second round by the Philadelphia 76ers. “They’ve replaced him with (Tyler) Bilodeau, who’s a really skilled guy, and obviously we’re familiar with him from Oregon State, he’s played well against us in the past and he’s having a tremendous year for him.”
Bilodeau, a 6-9 junior, leads UCLA in scoring (13.3) and rebounding (5.9). He’s shooting 38.5 percent from 3 and last season hit 3 of 4 from outside during a 22-point outburst in Oregon State’s upset win over Arizona.
That’s one of two former Pac-12 players from other schools starting at UCLA. The other is senior wing Kobe Johnson, who played three years at USC and had 19 against the Wildcats in the regular-season finale last March. Familiarity with those two players can help the UA some, but only to an extent.
“You have a little more awareness, but they’re playing new roles on a new team for a coach for the first time, so you obviously have to evaluate on what they’re currently doing,” Lloyd said. “I don’t think you’re going back and looking at the Oregon State scout and say well, we had success with this, and didn’t have success with that. He’s playing at UCLA now.”
Further processing
Arizona had more than a week off between going 1-2 at the Battle4Atlantis and playing its next game against Southern Utah, a stretch of practices that guard KJ Lewis were some of the most tough and disciplined of his time with the Wildcats. That produced a 36-point blowout win against an overmatched opponent.
Another week will have passed between games, but the approach hasn’t changed.
“This week has looked a lot like last week,” Lloyd said. “We were very process-oriented in how we approach things, and we know the process is the most important thing, because the process ultimately is going to drive the result. When you’re trying to figure out how do you get your team to play at an optimum level, you have to enhance what you’ve done well, and you have to try to fix things that haven’t gone well, or find ways to stay away from weaknesses.”
Arizona still ranks in the top 40 in both offensive and defensive efficiency, per KenPom.com, but both areas have lacked at times. The UA is averaging 102.8 points on 51.4 percent shooting in wins compared to 74 and 41.4 percent in losses, while opponents are shooting 35.6 percent from 3 including 39.1 percent in the losses.
“I think it’s been a little bit of everything,” senior guard Caleb Love said. “Maybe our offense (has been) a little bit stagnant, as far as like movement. And our defense was giving up too many threes, a lot of second chance points, that’s been hurting us. That’s on all of us, including the guards. I think we got to crack down on the bigs, as far as when we get switched on bigs, actually hitting them, boxing them our big can go get those rebounds. We know that, we’ve been watching a lot of film. We see exactly what the issues were, and we’ve been focusing on them.”
Creating for Caleb
Love is Arizona’s leading scorer, at 14.1 points per game, but that’s down significantly from a year ago when he averaged a career-best 18. He’s still taking about the same number of shots but instead of mostly coming off the dribble more are off the pass, and so far that hasn’t produced the desired shooting numbers.
Recognizing early on how an opponent plans to defend him has become a key focus for Love, whose 2,237 career points are 5th-most among active Division I players.
“I just got to master being guarded, how I’m being guarded,” he said. “A lot of teams like to throw different defenses at me, different coverages. My first five ball screens, okay, I know how to guard me. So now let me make the right read or be a little bit more patient.”
Production is the furthest thing from Lloyd’s mind when it comes to Love.
“The biggest thing for Caleb is consistent effort,” Lloyd said. “When you run hard, when you don’t think you’re going to get the ball, when you’re on the weak side defensively, are you in the moment playing hard, or are you relaxing because you don’t think you’re part of the play? To me, those are the areas I’m focusing on Caleb, because I think once we can establish that, and he has done it at times in this program, once he establishes and shows that consistent effort in those areas, I think it’s going to bleed over into the other areas of the game, then I think he’s going to lose himself in the game, and he’s going to be able to play off his instincts, his experience, and that’s when I think we got something.”