Opinion: Loss to UCLA gives Arizona Basketball a tough lesson

Following their tough loss to UCLA on Tuesday evening, Arizona Basketball learned a valuable after that should help this group moving forward. 

Well, Tuesday evening was not a fun evening for any Wildcat fan that witnessed Arizona Basketball being bludgeoned for nearly 40 minutes inside Pauley Pavilion.

However, before Tuesday night, Arizona had been riding high. The team was on a five-game winning streak and remained perfect in conference play, winning all of their Pac-12 games by an average margin of 22 points.

So naturally, as two Top 10 teams prepared for battle in Southern California, the Wildcats’ confidence may have been a little overinflated in their 16-point loss to the Bruins.

Perhaps feeling the effects of not having Azuolas Tubelis 100 percent, playing their road third game in six days, not quite being ready for the primetime, or perhaps a combination of all three. However, as Tuesday came and went, UCLA’s experience proved to be a bit of a factor in this one.

So as Arizona Basketball lost a tough road game to UCLA, the loss should help give the Wildcats a valuable lesson to learn from.

Wins don’t matter as much in January as they do in March if you’re a team like Arizona, and even though the loss to UCLA hurts, it isn’t the end of the world.

Realistically, Arizona lost that game due to a multitude of reasons, and they’re lucky they only lost by 16 despite playing and shooting so poorly.

UCLA is a good team and a good program that’s been there and done that. And remember, this is a team that returned a large core of talent from that Final Four team last year, meanwhile, Arizona’s group hasn’t played a single postseason game.

The Wildcats will be just fine, but if they learned anything on Tuesday, it is that they cannot have poor shooting nights, especially if they are going to win. And if they are to beat good teams like UCLA moving forward, they are going to have to play with a high level of physicality and focus.

I imagine in a few short days when these two teams meet again in Tucson, it’ll be a different outcome, but for now, the Cats can learn a lot from this game, apply it for the rest of the season and get better.