Arizona Basketball: Arizona looks to continue its dominance
By David Rosen
Arizona Basketball will look to continue its dominant play against Mountain West opponent San Jose St on Thursday.
After coming off a dominating performance against Illinois, Arizona Basketball will look to carry the momentum against San Jose St of the Mountain West Conference on Thursday night. On paper, this should be an easy win for the Wildcats, but they can’t take anything for granted. The last thing they need to have happened is given their opponent any sort of hope. Full gas!
The Spartans are currently 1-1 overall, with a win over Hofstra and a loss to Portland. Last time the Wildcats and Spartans faced one another was all the way back during the 1984-85 season. They won the game 79-44! Overall they lead the all-time series 8-4. 35 years later these two teams meet again and the Wildcats are the heavy favorite.
Heading into this one, Wildcats are averaging 90.5 points per game, where the Spartans are only averaging 68.0 points per game. Their opponent does have a couple of tall players in the frontcourt, but the Wildcats are deeper and more athletically skilled. That is surely going to be a common theme throughout the season for the Wildcats.
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The leading scorer for the Spartans is senior guard Richard Washington, who has averaged 17.0 points per game. As a team they are only shooting 27% from beyond the arc, whereas the Wildcats are shooting almost 41%. If they can get going from three, they will have no problem in running away with this one.
As was mentioned during the post-game press conference by Sean Miller, Nico Mannion, and Josh Green, the Wildcats need to take full advantage of their depth by attacking the ball down the floor consistently. Eventually, the Spartans will tire out due to their lack of depth and overall skill level.
The Wildcats have moved up to No.19 in the AP Top 25 poll and they will continue to climb up the rankings as long as they take care of business against teams like San Jose St. They can’t be satisfied with getting the win, they have to want to win by 20+ and send a message to the media and the rest of the country that they are the real deal!
It still hasn’t been announced if Devonaire Doutrive will be back or not? More than likely, it will be the same starting five for Arizona as they seem to establish a good rhythm early on in the last two games. We didn’t see Christian Koloko play against Illinois, but this might be the type of game he gets some minutes. Another thing to look out for is will the freshman trio put together another performance as they did in the last outing? If they do, the Spartans have no chance.
Game Information:
Date: Thursday, November 14th
Time: 6:00pm MST, 5:00pm PST
Location: Tucson, AZ – McKale Center (14,545)
Line: TBD
Television: Pac-12 Network
Radio: Arizona IMG Sports Network Arizona Wildcats (Try Tunein Radio)
Must Read. Arizona Basketball: Wildcats starting freshman trio is unstoppable. light
At Zona Zealots, we are hoping for another exciting performance as Arizona takes on San Jose St on Thursday. Who will lead the Wildcats to victory this time around? Stay tuned to find that out. As always, Bear Down, Arizona!