Poor shooting and costly mistakes doom Arizona Basketball

SANTA CRUZ, CA – In their first road game of the 2020-21 season, the Arizona Basketball teams’ mistakes and poor shooting cost them in their 78-75 loss.

Junior guard Jermarl Baker scored 29 points on 9-17 shooting, but it was ultimately for naught, as the Arizona Basketball team (5-1, 0-1) came up short in their comeback attempt, suffering their first loss of the season, a 78-75 heartbreaker to Stanford.

Having to travel to Santa Cruz instead of Palo Alto due to Covid restrictions, the Cardinal (4-2, 1-0) snapped their 20-game losing streak to the Wildcats, winning their first game against Arizona since 2009.

Arizona Wildcats

Sparked by Oscar da Silva’s 21 points, Stanford essentially made more plays to come away victorious. Granted the Cardinal had seven less fouls, and the Wildcats went 12-23 from the free-throw line, however, it was a major learning experience for Arizona in their first loss.

From the start, Arizona played poorly, falling behind 17-10 early before starting to climb back into the game.

Luckily they did seem to show some life, clawing their way back to within a point at 22-21 with 4:22 to go in the half. Unfortunately, Stanford was able to shut the door on Arizona’s run, finishing the first half on an 8-2 run to lead 30-23.

Highlighted by poor shooting and numerous defensive lapses, despite trailing by seven, Arizona was still very much in this game.

The second half unfortunately was much like the first. Every time Arizona seemingly made a run and tried to get close, Stanford had an answer.

Arizona would take the lead at 69-68 late in the game with 3:33 to play after Baker hit a three-pointer and then extended their lead to 72-70 with another three from Baker. Unfortunately, as we saw numerous times throughout the game, Stanford had a response.

Stanford’s Spencer Jones would hit back-to-back three’s, giving the Cardinal the lead at 76-72, and the eventual win.

James Akinjo and Arizona would have a chance to come away with a late lead and potential win, especially when they had the ball with under 13 seconds to play, but a controversial offensive foul call on Akinjo all but sealed the game at that point.

Major Takeaways:

• Arizona finished the game going 12-23 from the charity stripe.
• Arizona was called for 26 fouls to Stanford’s 19.
• The Wildcats shot a miserable 29 percent from the field in the first half.
• Stanford outscored Arizona 23-19 on second-chance points off of Arizona’s 17 turnovers.
• The Cardinal dominated the paint, scoring 42 points to the Wildcats’ 26 points.

The officiating wasn’t particularly great, but ultimately Arizona is a young team that still is learning how to play with each other.

Listen to head coach Sean Miller following the teams’ loss.

Arizona will return to action on Monday evening when they take on San Diego, and we’re hoping this team can learn and adjust from this loss. As always, Bear Down, Arizona!