Arizona Basketball: Wildcats face NMSU in Pac-12/WAC matchup

Arizona Basketball is now 3-0 on the season and they look to keep the winning going with a Sunday afternoon matchup against WAC opponent New Mexico St.

Winning. That’s what Arizona Basketball has been doing and will look to continue to do against a formidable opponent, New Mexico St, this Sunday. Recently it was announced that the Aggies would be without two of their top players in A.J. Harris and Terrel Brown. They will still though have their top three scorers playing and provide a challenge for the Wildcats.

Head coach Sean Miller said in the most recent press conference that the Aggies will be one of the toughest teams the Wildcats will face (that was of course before the news of them being without two players). Last season they won the WAC conference with an overall record of 30-5 and 15-1 in conference play. They made the NCAA Tournament but lost by just one point to Auburn, who ended up making it all the way to the Final Four.

The last time these two teams met was back in 2013 in Tucson, where the Wildcats won 74-48. Brandon Ashley and Kaleb Tarczewski were the leading scorers. This time around it will likely be more of an even matchup. If the freshman trio of Nico Mannion, Josh Green and Zeke Nnaji get going though it could be all Wildcats.

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Arizona does have a slight size and strength advantage, but the Aggies do have a similar bench in which they can play 11 guys. Their leading scorer, guard Trevelin Queen, is averaging 18.3 points, 5 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game. As a team they a shooting a respectable 46.2% from the field and 31.5% from three. They are though averaging 73.7 points per game, whereas the Wildcats are scoring 89.3 points per game – 25th best in the country!

Yes, the Aggies will be without two key players and are facing a very confident Wildcat team at home, but can’t take anything for granted. Look at what happened to Kentucky. No one expected them to lose to Evansville.

As long as the Wildcats can keep the face pace offense going, find the seems in the middle of the zone (which they will likely face) and continue to take good care of the ball as they have these last three games, they will likely win by a large margin. Also, they need to continue to find a way to feed Nnaji the ball. Once he gets going, it opens up many options for the Wildcats.

Against San Jose St they did have a lapse in focus the first 7 and a half minutes of the second half in which they only scored 1 point. They did go on a 21-0 run and won by 48 points, but for them to be a great team, those times of lapses can’t happen. This Sunday, they need to take care of business and play 40 minutes without any major scoring droughts or silly turnovers.

Game Information:
Date: Sunday, November 17th

Time: 12:00pm MST, 11:00am PST

Location: Tucson, AZ – McKale Center (14,545)

Television: Pac-12 Network

Radio: Arizona IMG Sports Network Arizona Wildcats (Try Tunein Radio)

At Zona Zealots, we look forward to another great game by the Wildcats as they look to extend their winning streak to four games. As always, Bear Down, Arizona!