The Wildcats (16-8, 7-4) take on the Colorado Buffs (16-7, 8-3) Thursday night at Mckale Center in Tucson, AZ. Both teams are considered “bubble” teams at the moment, and this game can make or break one another’s season. Arizona is coming off a huge road trip sweep, their first sweep of the year. Arizona’s senior guard Kyle Fogg led the way by scoring 37 points combined in both games and earned the Pac 12 player of the week. Colorado is coming off a home sweep of their own against the two Oregon schools. The Buffs would love to sweep the Cats on the year and ride their momentum into the Pac 12 tournament, giving them a chance at being one of two or three teams chosen to represent the Pac 12 in the NCAA tournament come March. Arizona remembers the heartbreaker loss in Boulder by one point, which ended by a scramble of the Cats, confused and not knowing who was to get the last shot off. Come Thursday, the Cats will be better prepared and you better believe if the same situation occurs, either Kyle or Solomon will take the reigns. Here’s a look inside Miller’s Chalkboard for an Arizona victory.
LIMIT TURNOVERS: The Wildcats turned the ball over 10 times in their last meeting against Colorado. Although this is below their average of 13 on the year in conference play, they only made the Buffs turn the ball over 6 times. In order to win the game Arizona will need to win the turnover battle.
GET OUT AND RUN: Arizona is short-handed by recent injuries, but still are much more athletic than Colorado. They need to use that to their advantage and run fast breaks for transition points as much as possible. Once we get into the half court set, it will be hard to get shots off on Colorado’s defense, who ranks 2nd in the Pac 12 in field goal percentage and three point percentage defense. If we want easy buckets we need to score in transition..
REBOUND: Although the Wildcats crashed the boards against Colorado well last time, they still ended up losing the game. Rebounding is important to limit the opponent’s second chance opportunities and increase your own. If the Cats out-rebound the Buffs this time around, I believe the outcome will favor the Cats. With Angelo Chol coming around and having to play more minutes because of injuries, this should be an easy task and suit well for the Cats.
MAKE FREE THROWS: It is always great to see our team get to the line so many times (almost 24 a game in conference play), but when they only convert on 65% it’s frustrating. They’re called free throws for a reason and Josiah Turner, Jesse Perry, and Nick Johnson are the worst when it comes to making their free throws. We really need them to do better and bring the team’s average to about 73%, which would give us 2 more points overall.
BUFFS TO WATCH: Senior Guard Carlon Brown leads his team in points per game at 12.9 and is second on the team with 2.3 assists a game. Sophomore Forward Andrew Robertson is a beast, averaging a double-double a game at 11.1 points and 11.2 rebounds per contest. He also adds 1.9 blocks to his all around game. Another stud for the Buffs is Senior Forward Austin Dufault, putting up 11.4 points and 4.5 boards a game, good for 2nd on the team in both categories.
PREDICTIONS: Wildcats need to ride their recent momentum into Thursday and come out on top. The Cats know what’s at stake and will show up and win 71-63.