Arizona Wildcats Basketball: Valiant comeback falls short Against UCLA

The Arizona Wildcats basketball team kicked off their California tour at Pauley Pavilion on Russell Westbrook night.

The UCLA bruins came in looking to bounce back from losing both games in Washington, as well as continue their string of top 25 upsets.

Whenever Arizona and UCLA get together, you know it’s going to be a show. The Wildcats were looking to build on the success they had last year against the Bruins. But UCLA came in tonight already having upset wins over No. 1 Kentucky, and No. 20 Gonzaga, at the time. Add that to a team coming back from losing to both Washington schools since the 90’s, you knew this was going to be a good one.

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Sean Miller trotted out the same starting five we’ve seen since Kaleb Tarczewski got hurt. With Zeus still playing on a minutes restriction, minuscule restriction, the Wildcats needed Dusan Ristic and Ryan Anderson to come up big. UCLA’s Tony Parker and Thomas Welsh both came in averaging close to a double-double. Tony Parker would have, in my opinion, the best game of his career tonight. He finished the night with 14 points and 12 rebounds.

Kaleb and Ryan both played well against Parker when they were called upon to enter the game. They both finished with a double-double on the night. Zeus had 12 points and 12 rebounds, and Ryan had 15 points and 15 rebounds. This stat alone is a big reason this team needs Zeus back in the starting lineup. Dusan looked outmatched majority of the night, and could never get his offense going.

The Wildcats played the first half much like they did against Arizona State. They played slowly on defense, hesitant on offense, and trailed most of the time. The Bruins, as expected, came ready to play, and came at Arizona all night. The Bruins jumped out early with Isaac Hamilton getting things going. Hamilton and Aaron Holiday were giving the Arizona guards fits the entire first half. At times, Arizona was making Holiday look like his older brother, NBA player Jrue Holiday.

UCLA never got out to more than a six-point lead in the first half. The shots were falling for them, and not for Arizona. It wasn’t until 2:50 remaining in the half when Arizona gained their first lead of the night, 34-33, off of a 3-pointer by Parker Jackson-Cartwright.

The lead was short-lived, as UCLA was able to get two back-to-back buckets from Tony Parker to go up 37-34. Arizona got back to a one point difference thanks to Zeus immediately, but the half was closed out by Bryce Alford hitting back-to-back 3’s to put UCLA up 43-36 at the half. It was just the beginning of the Alford show.

The second half is when things really got interesting. Arizona would not see another lead the rest of the night. Ryan Anderson was able to get the first points of the second half for either team. After Tony Parker was able to answer, UCLA and Arizona began to trade punches, but Arizona wasn’t able to score when they got the rare defensive stop. At the first T.V. timeout of the second half, UCLA pushed out to a nine-point lead.

Things weren’t looking up for Arizona after the T.V. timeout. UCLA quickly jumped out to a 12 point lead. Again, Arizona was able to answer the Bruins, but they were not getting defensive stops when needed. The Bruins were shooting at or above 50% for the majority of the night. And it wasn’t as if UCLA were hitting tough, contested, jump-shots. The biggest problem was how they were getting wide-open looks. They were hitting shots inside and out off of screens, cuts, and pick-and-roll. UCLA didn’t throw anything new at Arizona they haven’t seen, or prepared for, before.

With UCLA continuing not to miss, even Jonah Bolden was able to hit a three, they extended their lead to 14 points with just under 10 minutes to play with another 3-pointer by Isaac Hamilton. But Bryce Alford, after being nowhere to be seen in Washington, did everything he could to keep the Bruins ahead.

Ryan Anderson, Zeus, Kadeem Allen, Allonzo Trier, and Gabe York were doing everything they could to keep Arizona within striking distance. But there was no consistency with the entire team. Due to the scoring droughts, and lack of defensive stops, Arizona could only cut the lead to nine or 10 points.

The Bruins were once again able to push the lead to 14 points, 76-62, with five minutes remaining. After a couple of free throws by Mark Tollefsen, a jumper from Allonzo Trier, Arizona still was only able to cut the lead down to 10 with 3:30 to go.

With such little time, the Arizona players needed to dig down deep, and figure out what they wanted to do: fold and call it a night, or stand tall and fight back.

Thankfully the Wildcats took the second choice. To close out the game the Wildcats were finally able to get key defensive stops, all the while going on a 15-2 run to tie the game at 83 a piece with 22 second left.

The “cardiac cats” were coming alive and giving us hope when it seemed all was lost. Kadeem Allen turned up the defense, turned up the offense, and helped will this team to the tie. After Isaac Hamilton had made only 1 of 2 free throws, Arizona was only down one point.

Sean Miller called a timeout and drew up a beautiful play. Everyone in the arena, and at home, knew that Gabe York was going to get the ball. Coach Miller knew this as well, which is why he drew up a play for Anderson to play a pick-and-roll. Once UCLA over extended their defense to take away Gabe, Anderson had a straight lane to the hoop and got fouled. He made 1 of 2 to tie the game again at 84 with 15 second left.

Now it was UCLA’s head coach Steve Alford’s turn to call a timeout to draw up a play, or should I say make it known that his son Bryce would be getting the ball. The end of this game made me flashback to the Ohio State game a couple of years ago with the defensive switch.

As Alford dribbled to his right, Zeus stuck with him to take him one-on-one, Kadeem Allen went to the basket along with the rest of the Wildcats to get the rebound leaving Zeus along with Alford. Bryce gave a jab step then hit the step-back three once he got Zeus to sluff off him just enough. With 1.8 seconds left, right in front of Russell Westbrook, Alford sank a deep three to pull off the upset.

It was a frustrating night to say the least. The defense just was not there tonight, and Coach Miller didn’t mince words: “This is the worst defensive team I’ve coached at Arizona since my first year.” Ouch! But it’s the truth… at least for tonight.

The defense was slow, lazy, lacked aggression, and played softly. UCLA players were left wide open for easy points in the paint, and they were able to shoot uncontested three’s all night. On that last play, it made no sense for Zeus to switch to guard Alford. Miller even said after the game, “We didn’t switch Kaleb Tarczewski on Bryce Alford. You literally have to be out of your mind to do that.”

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The comeback Arizona made was great to witness. The team fought hard, showed grit and toughness down the stretch to put them in a position to win the game. The outcome obviously isn’t what everyone wanted, but the team grew up. We also saw which players could be trusted down the stretch, like Allen, Trier, Zeus, Anderson, and Gabe led this team until the end.

Give UCLA the credit they deserve it for shooting 51% from the field, and 50% from 3-point land. The Wildcats need to swallow the loss, be ready to learn from this, and use the fuel to put away USC on Saturday.

Notes From Tonight:

• Kaleb Tarczewski became the 50th Wildcat to score 1,000 points in a career! This on the same night the Lakers Kobe Bryant surpassed the 33,000 point mark.
• After the game, Miller hinted at some possible changes for Saturday. “We will have a whole different team on Saturday.” Feel free to speculate what you think he meant by this. More playing time for Simon? Chance? Perhaps both? Pitts back? (probably not)
• One of the positive things Miller had to say tonight was the play of Justin Simon in the nine minutes he was given. Simon made some nice plays in the game, with the highlight being a steal, where he ripped the ball out of the Bruins’ arms and finished with a dunk.