1/17/2015

No. 10 Arizona uses defense, timely offense to upset No. 8 Utah

By Roberto Payne

It was truly a dominating defensive performance from the No. 10 Arizona men’s basketball team on Saturday night, as the Wildcats took down the No. 8 Utah Utes 69-51 in McKale Center. Arizona exerted its physicality down low by winning the rebounding margin 40-19, points in the paint battle 34-14 and the always important second chance points fight 18-3.

“Very, very proud of our team,” Arizona coach Sean Miller said after the win. “We played with incredible energy and effort. We knew this was a big game. We knew we were playing against a great team that had set a standard… based on their performance from the beginning of the year until now. For us, it was about us being at our best.”

By Tyler Baker / The Daily Wildcat
Arizona guard TJ McConnel (4) and Arizona center Kaleb Tarczewski (35) defend Utah guard Delon Wright (55) during the first half of Arizona's 31-26 lead against Utah at McKale Center on Saturday.

Coming into this game, Utah was averaging 75.8 points per game and holding opponents to just 55.8 points per game. Much like the Arizona/Gonzaga game earlier this season, the Wildcats buckled down defensively and held Utah to 24.8 points below their season average.

Utah’s leading scorer Delon Wright came in averaging 15.3 points per game on 55.5 percent shooting from the field. Despite scoring seven points in the first 4:11 of the game, Wright scored just three more points for the rest of the game to end with 10 points on 4-9 shooting. Miller and company trotted out several different looks at Wright as, among others, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Stanley Johnson and Elliott Pitts all had a chance to guard the Wooden award watch list player.

“We have a lot of different types of defenders who can guard [Wright],” Miller said. “That’s part of the solution. It can’t be one guy, it has to be multiple players.”

Leading the offensive charge for Arizona were Johnson and McConnell, who finished with 18 points and 16 points, respectively. McConnell paced the first half by scoring 12 of his 16 points early on, with each bucket coming seemingly just when the Wildcats needed it most. The fifth year senior finished with a team-high six assists and contributed three rebounds.

Johnson was a non-factor in the first half, going 0-1 from the field with two personal fouls in 10 minutes of action. However, it was a tale of two halves for the 19-year-old freshman phenom. Johnson put up 18 points and nine rebounds in the second half alone and was a huge factor in the Wildcats building a 20 point lead as the clock ran down.

Over the last two games, Johnson is averaging 20 points and 8.5 rebounds as he continues to learn how to operate in a collegiate offensive scheme. After the game, Johnson deflected the praise directed at him and instead praised McConnell for leading the charge throughout against the Utes.

“[Scoring] can be an everyday thing with him, he chooses not to be as aggressive,” Johnson said. “When we need it, then he does it. I think that’s the perfect flipside to what we do because as you think he’s not going to shoot, now he’s shooting.”

Johnson later added his opinion on McConnell’s ranking amongst all point guards in college basketball.

“I think he’s probably the best point guard in the country and probably one of the best teammates on our team,” Johnson said. “He makes it easy for all of us and I think all of us would agree with that.”

While McConnell and Johnson kept the scoring flowing on the wings, power forward Brandon Ashley and center Kaleb Tarczewski paced the Wildcats down low against a physical Utah frontline.

Ashley put up his second-straight solid performance, scoring 14 points and hauling in eight rebounds in 31 minutes. After getting bageled on the glass against Oregon State and recording just two rebounds against Colorado, Tarczewski grabbed five boards to go along with seven points.

The duo helped Arizona hold Utah’s starting frontcourt of Jakob Poeltl, Jordan Loveridge and Chris Reyes to 18 combined points—seven points below their combined season average of 25 points per game. However, more importantly, the Wildcats held the trio to just nine combined rebounds.

Looking forward, Arizona is off until Thursday when the team heads to California to take on Stanford. As Miller puts it, the team needs this time off after the big win in front of the home crowd.

“It’s one of those days that I think I’ve talked a lot about: beautiful outside, hostile inside,” Miller said. “It’s a special place to be a coach at [and] player at on these Saturday afternoons. I’m glad it’s Saturday too by the way. We kind of need a Sunday off; we’ve been at it for a while now.”