Arizona Wildcats Basketball: Wildcats win one more game at home to extend win streak

The Arizona Wildcats basketball team does it again, another win at home against the Long Beach State University 49ers.

With Wilbur in his Santa Suit, Elliott Pitts with Kaleb Tarczewski sitting on the bench, and former Arizona and Long Beach State University coach Lute Olson in the crowd, the No. 8 Wildcats were about to be a 12-1 team prior to conference play.

Forty-niner Roschon Prince is a former HS teammate of Ryan Anderson and a former USC Trojan. He played his first season at USC, then transferred and sat out a season. Also, Forty-niner Nick Faust played at Maryland for three seasons before coming to Long Beach State. So the Cats opponents had a few players who had experience outside their conference.

The Wildcats did not win convincingly, but they won and are now 12-1 going into Christmas week. It was more of a challenge than expected, a trend with this years team.

Big man Dusan Ristic scored the first three baskets. Early on, the Cats scored 17 points but then missed eight straight baskets until Allonzo Trier knocked one from down deep for three.  Halfway through the first, LBSU was in the bonus with nine minutes left and the double bonus with five minutes left in the first half. The Cats had batted way three balls for blocks, something we don’t see a lot from this team, and Justin Simon started the ball rolling (pun intended.) The whistle-happy referees blew their whistles for a combined 22 fouls.

More from Zona Zealots

• Arizona Football begins Conference play against Stanford
• Arizona Football starts slow but runs away from UTEP
• How Wildcats Fans Can Claim $200 INSTANT Bonus at BetMGM Betting $10 Right Now
• Costly Mistakes doom Arizona Football in loss to Mississippi State
• Arizona Basketball likely to schedule Florida Atlantic for 2023

Arizona has held their opponents to 32% in the second half on average going into this game. Dusan ‘Tucson’ Ristic came out strong to start the second period making all the Wildcats first three baskets, two of them hook shots. Has he been watching tape of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Bob Elliott? Nick Faust (LBSU) and Ristic got into foul trouble early in the second period.

Allonzo’s third three gave him 17 total points with about 15 minutes still left to go. The referee’s kept blowing their whistles and the 49ers kept gathering fouls, they had four players with three fouls with 11:46 left to play. Arizona had two, Ristic and Parker Jackson-Cartwright.

With eight and a half to go,  four of LBSU’s  highest scorers were in foul trouble; Faust, Riggins, and Prince had four, Bibbins had three. The 49ers starting chipping away at the score and Arizona found themselves only ahead by nine points.

Dec 22, 2015; Tucson, AZ, USA; Arizona Wildcats mascot Wilbur performs during the second half against the Long Beach State 49ers at McKale Center. Arizona won 85-70. Mandatory Credit: Casey Sapio-USA TODAY Sports

Nervous time!

Kadeem Allen was clutch when his team needed him. He continued to be aggressive and energetic, just like he was in the UNLV game. Ryan Anderson scored back-to-back buckets and that helped the cats widen the gap to 13 points.

A couple of plays later, Gabe York hit a three just when Arizona needed a boost; he pushed Arizona ahead by 14, 76-62 with about three minutes or so left.

What was interesting was when the referee’s changed a foul called on Faust. The fifth foul on Faust would’ve helped the Cats, but the Faust talked to the refs and told them the foul should have been on his teammate A.J. Spencer. After a review, the refs changed the call! Can’t remember when that has ever happened before. It was the right thing to do, after all, just kind of strange.

Parker Jackson-Cartwright hit a timely jump shot with under two minutes to go, bringing the Cats back up by 12. Faust fouled Allonzo Trier committing his fifth foul of the night, this time, he headed straight for the bench knowing he fouled out, and it wouldn’t be overturned. He was the highest scorer on his team when he officially fouled out with 17 points.

Highlights: The Wildcats..

• Stretched their home winning streak to 47 games
• Are averaging over 86 points on offense a game, this was Arizona’s fifth straight game scoring 85 or more points.
• Led for six minutes and 16 seconds in the first half
• Biggest lead in the game was 17 points
• Had six players score in double figures
• Hit nine 3-pointers.
• As a whole made 40 rebounds. LBSU only made 20 rebounds, that’s half of what Arizona grabbed.
• Improved in the second half, only turning the ball over five more times, at halftime they had turned over the ball seven times.
• IMG Sports Network VIP Player of the game was Allonzo Trier who led the team with 20 points, shot 7-8 free throws, 3-5 3-pointers.

Sean Miller explained his thoughts on Allonzo post-game with Brian Jeffries, “He’s grown..there is a lot of expectations..college basketball at this level is not easy..the two things that he hangs his hat on is his worth ethic and his passion and love of the game.”

Coach Miller said the team is proud of their long home win streak, but warned that the Pac-12 is a tough conference and he wants his team to not self-destruct, “There are going to be times this winter where the opposing team is going to play their best game and still lose.”  He also does not want any unnecessary drama.

In other words, he expects to lose a few games even if the Cats play their best game, so don’t get too upset if this happens basically. He’s proud of his team and what they have done thus far in the season. He would like to get the turnovers down to ten and under, especially at home, but he was much happier with their 12 from tonight.

Sean Miller feels the order of the games they play in-conference should not be a factor. Keep that in mind when you are trying to dig deep to figure out why the Cats may have lost a road game in the next month.

In other news, Zeus is getting his boot off this week, and that’s fantastic news. Miller thinks he will help out a lot on the defensive side of the court when he starts playing again.

“We are 12-1 and we feel really good about that and the team that beat us is also 12-1 [ranked No. 10 now]. That’s our only loss…we have defended our home court and have overcome tremendous adversity,” said Miller, “We’ve had nine different players injured. Tonight I give a lot of credit to Long Beach State..they played the nation’s premier schedule, we knew it would be a dogfight and we give them tremendous credit.”

Ryan Hanson, IMG Sports Network, summed up what the Cats need to do from here on out, “Protect home court and win half of your games on the road.” Good advice!

More wildcats: The Cats will face an improved Trojan team this season

Buckle your seatbelts, 2016 is going to be a fun ride!

Beardown Arizona!