Arizona Basketball: Josh Green leads the charge, Wildcats win by 26

Arizona Basketball got the job done with an 89-63 win over Oregon State, setting up a possible sweep and big game rematch game against the Oregon Ducks on Saturday night.

It’s late February and the Arizona Basketball has won 8 out of their last 10 games. With a victory over the Oregon State Beavers  89-63, they now improve 19-7 overall and 9-4 in the Pac12. This win sets up a rematch against the Oregon Ducks at home on Saturday night. Big opportunity for the Wildcats to get a very important Quad 1 and Pac-12 win.

Last time these two teams met in Corvallis, the Beavers dropped 51 points in the second half and went onto win by 17. Not this time around. Forced turnovers, points off of turnovers, 40+% shooting from the field and three, and Tres Tinkle being ejected with about 12 minutes to go in the game sums up how the Wildcats crushed the Beavers by 26 points!

The Wildcats got the ideal start in this one, building a 12-2 lead five minutes into the game. Josh Green led the charge early on, with a few fast-break dunks and easy points down low. When this team pushes the pace off of defensive rebounds or forced turnovers, they are to defeat. That’s exactly what happened tonight.

Arizona Wildcats Basketball

Despite only shooting the ball 38% from the field and 30% from three in the first half, they only had three turnovers and were even on the glass. What they excelled in though in the first 20 minutes was scoring 15 points off of 13 forced turnovers. Typically, the Beavers take good care of the ball, but the Wildcats pack-line defense was causing havoc.

Green led all scorers with 13 points heading into the locker room and was one of the main reasons why the Wildcats controlled most of the first half. Zeke Nnaji got involved as well, ending the half with a three. He starts knocking down the long ball, wow, good luck trying to defend him.

The second half was more of the same. Both teams shot the ball better and took better care of the ball. For the Beavers, they cut the lead all the way down to eight, but that would be the closest they would get. Before you knew it, the Wildcats began to build back up the lead.

Then at the 13:17 mark, Tres Tinkle drove to the basket and elbowed Jemarl Baker right in the face and received his second technical game and was ejected. Early in the game, he got one when there was an altercation between him and Christian Koloko.

Without their leading scorer and already down 12, the Beavers had a huge hole to climb out of. The Wildcats took full advantage and began to pour it on and increased the lead to 18 points. They had 49 points in the second half, almost 51, and showed why they are one of the deadliest teams if they catch fire on offense.

As a team, they shot 44% from the field and 48% from three, had only eight turnovers, had the edge in rebounding 35-33 and dominated points off of turnovers 26-9! Plus, they shot really well from the free-throw line, making 23-28.

Green was the leading scorer with 18, followed by Nico Mannion with 14, Nnaji with 13 and Max “fast release in the country” Hazzard with 15. Koloko made a solid contribution off the bench as well in the 10 minutes he had with three blocks and five points.

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I do want to give Richard Jefferson a shout-out. He did an excellent job in commentating tonight’s game. His knowledge of the game combined with his personality makes him a great fit to call Pac-12 basketball games. Plus, getting to watch and listen to a former Wildcat call a Arizona Basketball game, nothing better than that!

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Overall, Arizona Basketball played a solid 40 minutes of basketball. There were moments in which they had some silly turnovers or poor decision making, but they came out ready to play and it paid off. At Zona Zealots, we know there is much still on the line in the Pac-12 as the Wildcats face the Ducks next. As always, Bear Down, Arizona!