The Arizona mens basketball team defeated the Wichita State Shockers 82-78 in their first round matchup in the Roman Main Event tournament.

Bennedict Mathurin showed his full potential in tonight’s game, scoring 25 points to go along with 10 rebounds on 8-15 shooting from the field. He looked like the player we saw a season ago: driving to the basket while taking confident three-point shots.

Although Mathurin made 3 three pointers, the rest of the team didn’t have a great game from there, only shooting 18 percent throughout the game.

Azuolas Tubelis continues to improve his game every time we see him. In tonight’s game he blocked three shots while scoring 16 points and six rebounds.

Wildcats finished the game with 22 turnovers, their season high. They struggled late in the second half, where we saw their lead get smaller because they weren’t able to run their normal offense due to Wichita State’s full-court press.

Arizona had three players with three or more fouls and forced Lloyd to make many substitutions throughout the last few minutes of regulation and overtime.

Christian Koloko had another good performance scoring 13 points along with 11 rebounds and four blocks. He now has 16 blocks through only four games of basketball while completing his second double-double of the young season.

Christian Koloko is the 1st Arizona player with a double-double and 4 blocks twice in the same season since 2008 when Jordan Hill did it.

Head Coach Tommy Lloyd was proud of his team’s hard fought performance tonight and excited for their Championship game on Sunday.

“We’re really looking forward to Sunday,” Lloyd said. “We got a great opportunity to play, you know, whoever wins a great program.”

Arizona will now play the winner of UNLV vs. Michigan in the Roman Main Event championship game on Sunday Nov.21 at 6:30 P.M.

This story will be updated with more information and quotes from the team’s post-game press conference. 

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