The No. 3-seeded Arizona men’s basketball team will advance to the Phillips 66 Big 12 championship game in the team’s first year in the Big 12 conference.
The team is set to face No. 1 University of Houston on Saturday, March 15 at 5 p.m. CT after defeating Texas Tech University 86-80 Friday night. As the Wildcats head into the final game of the conference tournament, there are a few things to remember:
3-pointers are key
Arizona maintained an impressive 50% on points from beyond the arc while keeping Texas Tech at 32.1%. Caleb Love notably made five of eight 3-pointer attempts, nearly doubling his conference average percentage.
Houston’s points from beyond the arc closer resembled Tech than Arizona in their Friday game against BYU, as the team ended the night with 38.5% 3-point shooting. As Arizona heads into Saturday’s game, the team must keep up the 3-point percentages in their offensive play.
Offense needs to be up
While Arizona is ranked in the NCAA’s top 25 in scoring offense, which showed in their game against Tech, the Wildcats can’t get messy in Saturday afternoon’s game. Houston leaned into its defensive play to defeat BYU, who ended with a 21.4% 3-pointer game.
“I thought our defensive discipline was outstanding tonight,” said Houston head coach Kelvin Sampson during Friday’s press conference.
Arizona’s offense has risen to the occasion for the Big 12 tournament, with the Wildcats maintaining 80+ point games against both Texas Tech and the University of Kansas.
“I knew it was gonna be tough, they (Texas Tech) beat Houston without Toppin at Houston. They didn’t have Williams and Chance McMillan when they played Houston at home, and they played them tough,” Arizona head coach Tommy Lloyd said. “I knew it was gonna be a hard game, and our guys did a great job just finding a way.”
Defense, defense, defense
While a high scoring game is key, the Wildcats need to keep the Cougars’ scores low.
“Houston specializes in winning basketball. They’re great on offense, they’re great on defense and they’re great on the glass,” Lloyd said. “That’s what makes them so hard to beat, and obviously they’re tough as nails.”
Arizona maintained consistent defensive play throughout Friday’s game, scoring 10 points off turnovers to Tech’s 4 and outscored Tech 11-3 on second chance points.
Tommy Lloyd is here to win game by game
Lloyd is in his fourth season as the Wildcats’ head coach after serving as an assistant coach at Gonzaga for 22 seasons.
His head coaching career has had a record-breaking start. In his first few years at Arizona, Lloyd is responsible for setting a new NCAA record for most wins by a coach in their first two seasons and becoming the first power conference coach to win his conference tournament in his first two seasons after capturing the 2022 and 2023 Pac-12 Tournament titles in Las Vegas.
Arizona is now playing for its third conference tournament championship in four seasons under Lloyd.
“We’re going to try to win tomorrow, we’re not even going to try thinking about the next week,” Lloyd said. “I mean, you beat Kansas in Kansas City, that says something. You beat a Texas Tech team that found a way to take second in the conference, that says something. So now, we got the champ. We’re staring down the champ, so let’s see what we got.”
The team is ready to take home another trophy
“We had a goal this year to get to this point, and we’re going to do our best to go try to win a game tomorrow,” said sophomore guard KJ Lewis.
Arizona has come to win, showing outstanding adjustments when battling its’ last two opponents in both offense and defense. In Friday’s game, the Wildcats made 76.2% of their free throws, grabbed 25 defensive rebounds and scored 40 points in the paint. Whether it’s shooting from beyond the arc, playing it safe with key layups and jumpers or playing a hard defense to foul the other team, the Wildcats are looking to take home their first Big 12 trophy.
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