Arizona Basketball beats Alabama: Deandre Ayton, Allonzo Trier shine, Rawle Alkins returns

Arizona Basketball fans have been waiting a long time to see Rawle Alkins play at McKale Center and the Cats to beat Alabama. They were not disappointed tonight.

What a night Deandre Ayton and Allonzo Trier had tonight for the Arizona Basketball team! But it was Rawle Alkins who checked in to the roar of the crowd that shook McKale!! Raw-Le! Raw-le! Raw-le!

Alkins had been out for 78 days and only practiced for a week and five practices. Alkins won the gold jersey in the team’s last practice. Ayton had won it for four straight weeks, the first time a freshman had ever earned that honor and Alkins took it away from Ayton.

Alkins wanted the win, and you could tell overall his tenacity gets the team going. Diving for balls, risking his body for rebounds, if Alkins continues on this recovery, the skies the limit. The stat line does not tell the whole story, and it’s clear the fans love the King.

Alkins passed and logged his first stat when Parker Jackson-Cartwright hit a three! No. 1 then drew a crowd again and passed to Ristic for a nice layup.

The Cats went up by 10 points 23-13 around the mid-point of the first half, but then fell off on defense and the gap shrunk to zero, and the teams were tied at 26 with a little over five minutes left. Zo sunk a three-pointer to change the score quickly, it was his first field goal in the game, and it was desperately needed.

Zo then sent the ball to Dre who slammed it home for his 13th point. He had already grabbed eight rebounds. Brandon Randolph in nine minutes had racked up eight points, including two three’s.

Former Arizona Athletic Director Greg Byrne came to Tucson for the game, and the Wildcats Fans gave him a striped out McKale Center. Also, The Suns GM Brian McDonough, Lawrence Frank the GM of the Clippers and the Celtics GM Danny Ainge along with various scouts were also in attendance. Ainge attended the Texas A&M game in Phoenix as well.

Bama’s Collin Sexton was a problem. Things were great when he was on the bench with two fouls, but when he was in, he hit critical baskets including a banked in three at the buzzer before the half. His shot helped the Crimson Tide to roll into the locker room ahead by two, 40-38. Alabama went on a 7-point run in the last minute and a half.

In the first half, Miller played predominantly only five players, after PJC, Zo, Dusan Ristic, Ayton (Last week’s Pac-12 Player of the Week), Alkins and Brandon Randolph. After that, there was a significant drop off in minutes for the rest of the team. The bench scored one point: Alkins first point of the season. Arizona was also missing 50% of their free-throws, missing six out of twelve. The silver lining was Ayton who had earned 15 points and nine rebounds in the first half.

Arizona committed eight turnovers resulting in seven points from Alabama who only logged four turnovers.

Even though the Zona Zoo passed out their skinny wobbly balloons, the second half didn’t start off well, Alabama was up by six points early on and maintained that lead for quite awhile.

Crimson Tide star Collin Sexton committed his third foul with 17 minutes left in the game. But Alabama head coach Avery Johnson left him in the game.

Miller put Alkins back in the game. Things turned around for a bit, but Sexton had scored 19 points with 12 minutes to go. Slim (Randolph) and Zo hit back to back three’s to get within one point, 59-60.

Alabama was in the double bonus by the 12-minute mark, so each time they fouled Arizona, the Cats got two chances to make free-throws. But that didn’t necessarily help as much as it could because the Cats were missing their free-throws! This slowed down the game and Trier got to show the scouts that he was almost perfect in free-throw shooting. Zo’s first miss resulted in an Ayton put-back stuff to finally put the Cats up by one, 62-61 with ten minutes to go. Trier got his shooting mojo back in the second half, scoring 13 of 19 in the second half by that point in the game.

Alkins took it to the basket with a spectacular spin move and a miraculous layup followed by taking a charge or getting fouled, which sent him to the free-throw line. Raw-le chants ensued.

Sean Miller, feeling McKale was quiet, raised his hands asking for fans to raise the noise volume. I don’t think that’ ever happened before has it?

Alkins was the first to get to four fouls. He was playing defense all right. The second was Randolph. Miller put Alkins back in with five to go. For Alabama Dazon Ingram and Daniel Giddens had four fouls too.

Alkins shot wasn’t falling, he must have been disappointed, but that didn’t stop him from playing disruptive defense. The Cats were up by two with 3:58 to go.

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The third Cat to gather four fouls was Zo.

The score bounced back and forth during the rest of the game.

The crowd stood up at the 2: 30-minute mark to propel the team to victory, as the Cats were up by three 79-76. Ayton scored 25 points and made 16 rebounds, and the game wasn’t over yet. He hit a sweet floater from an assist on Alkins to take the Cats up by four points then after a turnover came back and hit another jumper.

Arizona 83, Alabama 77, Ayton 29 points and 18 rebounds, 50:1 seconds to go after Dusan Ristic got fouled, but he missed his first free-throw. The team had missed 11 free-throws thus far. Ristic made his second free-throw, and the Cats were up by seven 84-77.

Alabama’s Riley Norris hit a three, and his team fouled Trier who split the shots and made one.

Arizona 85, Alabama 80 and 19.8 seconds to go. Sexton made both of his free-throws, then it was Trier’s turn. This time he made both.

Arizona 87, Alabama 82, Bama called their last time out with 16.5 seconds to go. Miller put Alkins back in the game. Alkins and Trier made sure the freshmen understood their role. Sexton, who scored 30 points, fouled out when he fouled Alkins when they both went up for a rebound.

Alkins needed to make these for his confidence. He missed the first and but did make the second.

The score was now Arizona 88, Alabama 82 and that’s all she wrote! Arizona won and walked away as a 7-3 team beating the Crimson Tide. Alkins played for 22 minutes, Miller had promised around 24, but no biggie as Alkins got into foul trouble.

Alkins scored seven points, grabbed two rebounds, dished three assists, blocked a shot and stole the ball once. His shot just wasn’t there as much as he wanted it to be tonight, but his defense and leadership absolutely at crucial times during the game helped the cats win.

“If you watched him closely — he has the ability to make players better — we are all really elated to have him back – he’s a really great kid — he helped us win this game.” Sean Miller to Brian Jeffries on the IMG Sports Network on Rawle Alkins.

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Ayton was a beast tonight, ended up with 29 points, a block and 18 rebounds, Trier had a stellar night with a block, 25 points, and six rebounds. Each played 37 out of 40 minutes. Brandon Randolph committed no turnovers tonight scoring= the team’s third-highest total points at 13. On to New Mexico in Albuquerque next Saturday, 12/16 5:00 PM PST.