No. 1 Arizona enters Saturday night’s game with San Diego State in Phoenix with a 10-0 record for the seventh time in program history and the second time under coach Tommy Lloyd.
The Wildcats started 11-0 in Lloyd’s first season of 2021-22 and finished 33-4 with a Sweet 16 loss as a No. 1 seed to Houston.
Arizona is coming off a 96-62 home win over Abilene Christian on Tuesday, marking its fifth straight win by 20 or more points. It is the first time the Wildcats have done that since the first five games of the 2010-11 season.
Half of the Wildcats’ wins are against top-25 teams at the time in Florida, UCLA, UConn, Auburn and Alabama. Four of those five remain ranked this week.
“I really challenged our guys to not worry about what we had already accomplished,” Lloyd said this week on Arizona Sports’ Wolf and Luke. “Let’s be more excited about what lies ahead. Let’s really build and galvanize who we want to be.
“Let’s really just write down what our on-court values are, what our on-court identity is. … I feel like what I’ve seen from this team is, over the last couple of weeks, they really have galvanized and gotten better and really kind of created an identity that they’re comfortable with.”
Arizona freshman guard Brayden Burries has started to develop his own identity as a scoring threat. Burries has led Arizona in scoring three out of the past five games, reaching double-figures in all of those while shooting 61.3% from the field over that span.
He scored 20-plus points in his last two games, producing 20 points on 9-of-11 shooting from the field against Abilene Christian after scoring a career-high 28 points in the neutral-site win against Alabama last weekend.
“I think he just got experience,” Lloyd said. ” … You prepare as much as you want, but until you kind of go through actual games themselves, you don’t know where you stand.
“You know you’re a good player. … I think it’s really important a player goes through that struggle. Anything that’s learned without struggle, there’s not much value to it.”
San Diego State (6-3) has won its last three games, including Wednesday’s 81-58 victory over visiting Air Force in its Mountain West Conference opener.
The Aztecs outscored Air Force 48-28 in the second half after leading 33-30 at halftime. BJ Davis finished with a game-high 19 points off the bench and his six assists tied Elzie Harrington for the game high.
Miles Heide had eight rebounds, marking the fourth time this year he has led his team in rebounds.
Arizona will be San Diego State’s second ranked opponent this season. The Aztecs lost 94-54 against then-No. 7 Michigan (now No. 2) in the Player’s Era tournament in Las Vegas on Nov. 24.
“They’re very physical,” San Diego State coach Brian Dutcher said of Arizona. “They’re very talented. They’re very well coached.
“We have to play well to beat them. Our intention is to go in there with a gameplan that we’ll put together with things that have to happen for us to have a chance to win. We’ll try to see if we’re capable of doing that.”
–Field Level Media
