It’s not necessarily a bad thing to get the pressure of retaining perfection off a team’s back. The No. 1 Arizona Wildcats’ loss to Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse felt unsurprising, and it began a killer back section of the Big 12 schedule.
“Guys, I’m not mad we lost,” Arizona head coach Tommy Lloyd said after the game Monday. “I can’t wait to get on that plane, get back home, and I feel like our season just started.”
Arizona (23-1) fell despite the Jayhawks missing potential No. 1 overall pick Darryn Peterson, who was a late scratch with flu-like symptoms. That didn’t do much to take the lacquer off Kansas’ shine.
Bill Self’s team met the Wildcats’ physicality with a more limber, more athletic frontcourt led by Flory Bidunga, who went 8-for-11 from the floor and dropped 23 points. He hit the offensive glass with six offensive boards and added three blocks.
Without Peterson, guard Melvin Council Jr. scored 10 points at the foul stripe as Kansas won the free-throw point differential 21-8.
It wasn’t even Arizona’s often-cited lack of 3-point attempts that did it in. The Wildcats hit six triples to five for the Jayhawks.
“Kansas is a hell of a team,” Lloyd said. “Let’s not make this about Darryn Peterson. He didn’t play because he was sick. They beat the number one team in the country at home tonight. They did a hell of a job and their coach did a hell of a job. That should be the story.”
The story for Arizona is this:
One of the best college basketball games at one of the nation’s best venues told us a lot about where the Wildcats stand with five ranked opponents waiting for them in the final seven regular-season games. Three of those are top-10 squads (No. 3 Houston, No. 9 Kansas and No. 5 Iowa State).
Brayden Burries has cemented himself as Arizona’s best player
Will this opinion receive blowback? I would guess national pundits will call Jaden Bradley the unquestioned leader. Motiejus Krivas is a national defensive player of the year candidate. Draft analysts would say Koa Peat is the best pro prospect.
They are not Arizona’s best player.
Burries was the one Wildcat on Monday who wasn’t overcome by the moment. He had a team-high 25 points on 9-of-18 shooting. Nobody else had more than 14.
He didn’t have an assist, but it was Burries with only one turnover and trying to keep the offense afloat late after Kansas had taken the lead.
ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla made the Devin Booker comparison to Burries in the first half on Monday, and it’s not a wild swing at a comp. Burries’ slow start as a freshman has turned into a pretty efficient run. He’s shooting 51% overall for the season and 38% from 3, while dishing out 2.6 assists to 1.4 turnovers and racking up 1.6 steals per game. He’s doing a lot of the anticipatory defensive work off the ball.
The game has slowed down for him.
He is the most skilled player on the team. He just might have the highest pro upside. And in a tough environment, he proved he’s the most reliable Wildcat.
Koa Peat’s and Mo Krivas’ limitations showed
The Wildcats will go as far as Burries and Bradley take them. And that segues into this:
Arizona’s big-big tendencies are always going to be at the forefront of any apprehension about how deep of an NCAA Tournament run this team can make.
As much as Krivas, Peat and Tobe Awaka have helped define this team’s identity, it was painful watching that trio make decisions in the low post, their backs to the basket. Kansas’ doubles and swarming hands caused eight turnovers on Krivas and Peat. There were too many missed paint attempts.
Peat taking an ill-timed triple late in the second half defined how forced his offensive game felt against the Jayhawks.
By the end of the night, he went 2-of-11 from the floor. His lack of an offensive skillset outside the high post combines with an athleticism that will be shrug-worthy at the next level. That stood out against Bidunga and freshman forward Bryson Tiller, who had 18 points himself and pulled Peat out of the paint with his own stretch ability.
Krivas likewise had his worst individual defensive game against Bidunga. Yep, I’m saying that despite the six blocks and 15 boards (how many offensive rebounds came off missed paint shots?).
“You got to deliver when you get the ball inside,” Lloyd said. “You got to be able to play through physical contact. You got to be able to play through what you think are fouls.
“Just got to move forward and … the first mantra’s ‘get tougher,'” Lloyd said.
Winning free-throw battle, rim pressure is key to beating Arizona
Rival Arizona State (12-12) has curiously given Arizona some of its closer games this year, and some of the Sun Devils’ tendencies mirrored what the Jayhawks did. The formula for beating Arizona includes winning the foul and free-throw battles.
Obviously, it helps to be able to rebound and run against the Wildcats.
But both Kansas (Council) and ASU (Pig Johnson) have guards who can attack in transition or get downhill to put pressure on the rim.
The Jayhawks added the element of having their bigs get to the foul stripe, which was the difference.
“That game comes down to probably, if you just have to start slicing and dicing and picking one or two things … we didn’t finish at the rim well enough. Usually, we’re really proficient at finishing at the rim, we’re getting fouled,” Lloyd said. “And it’s not very often we get out free-throwed, and it’s not very often we don’t make a higher percentage of our at-the-rim shots. So, Kansas gets credit for that.”
Not many teams can do that. But starting with No. 16 Texas Tech’s JT Toppin and Christian Anderson on Saturday, Arizona is going to get a heavy dose of teams with dynamic rim-pressure duos for the rest of the season.
from Arizona Sports https://ift.tt/G84lhSf
