BERKELEY, Calif. — Last Saturday against Washington, with Arizona needing the go-to-guy its been missing all season more than ever, senior Kyle Fogg vanished.
The 6-foot-3, 188-pound guard from Brea, Calif., took – and missed – only one shot in the second half and finished the final 20 minutes with two turnovers and one point as Arizona lost its fourth game by four points or less.
“Last week Saturday I kind of disappeared on my team,” Fogg said on Thursday. “I wasn’t aggressive enough when we played Washington. I work too hard all year to disappear on my team when they need me.”
But Fogg was anything but invisible on Thursday night against Cal. The senior played what Sean Miller called his “best game at Arizona” as he went off for 23 points, five 3-pointers, four assists, three rebounds, two steals and a block.
With Arizona down 24-15 with 7:45 left in the half, Fogg caught fire. The senior scored 10 points in the next 3:43 as he drilled all four of his shots to give Arizona a 31-28 lead.
“He didn’t want to lose and didn’t want to miss a shot,” freshman guard Nick Johnson said. “He carried us.”
Fogg carried that momentum into the second half, and gave the Wildcats that crunch-time scorer they’ve been missing. With the game knotted up at 72 and 1:38 on the clock, Miller called a play to free up Fogg along the baseline for an open three.
As was the case all night, Fogg buried it, erasing the frustrations he had of being overlooked as an option as Arizona’s late-game scorer.
“I think people are definitely overlooking me and that’s something I’m used to, I’ve been going through that all my life,” Fogg said. “Maybe now they’ll be saying I am the go-to-guy but I’m just going to keep focusing and keep working hard no matter what.”
Fogg’s crunch-time heroics didn’t only come on the offensive end, however. With Arizona leading 74-71 Cal’s Allen Crabbe, who leads the Pac-12 in 3-pointers made, spotted up on the left wing for a seemingly wide-open three that would have tied the game up with 26 ticks remaining.
But Fogg and his self-proclaimed 6-foot-9.5 wingspan raced over from the top of the key to block Crabbe’s shot and eliminate a major opportunity for the Golden Bears.
“I knew it was going to be close,” Fogg said of the block. “I was just worried about not fouling and trying to get a little fingertip on it.”
The man his teammates call “arms” got more than a fingertip on Crabbe’s shot, putting the exclamation mark on Kyle Fogg’s most complete game in four years at Arizona.
Fogg shot 8-of-14 from the field, missed only one 3-pointer and only committed one turnover, all while limiting Crabbe, who came in averaging 15.8 points per game, to 15 points on 4-of-12 shooting.
“I think if you asked Allen Crabbe, he would say no one has worked harder on defense against him than Kyle,” Miller said.
