Arizona and Oregon are meeting just once during the regular season this year. The Wildcats have already secured two victories over the Ducks' travel partner, Oregon State, and now UA will look to make it a clean sweep of the Oregon schools. The Ducks have been as hot and cold of a team as you will find in the Pac-12.
Oregon earned road wins over UCLA and USC when both were ranked inside the top five of the Associated Press Top 25 poll, but the Ducks also lost to Cal this season and dropped both of their games to Arizona State.
It is a big weekend in Tucson with ESPN's College GameDay show taping Saturday morning inside McKale Center ahead of the evening matchup between Arizona and Oregon. Here is a look ahead at what and who to know Saturday night.
GAME INFO
Who: No. 3 Arizona (23-2, 13-1 Pac-12; last game: 83-69 win over Oregon State) vs. Oregon (17-9, 10-5; last game: 81-57 loss to Arizona State)
When: 8:00 p.m. MST
Where: McKale Center | Tucson, Arizona
TV: ESPN
Last meeting: 80-69 Oregon win (March 1, 2021)
All-time series: Arizona leads 51-36
Favorite: Arizona (-13), O/U: 152 1/2
OREGON SNAPSHOT
Head coach: Dana Altman (12th season at Oregon | 297-119; 707-326 all time)
Preseason Pac-12 prediction: 2nd place
Current Pac-12 standings: 4th place
HEAD TO HEAD: Arizona & Oregon (Pac-12 ranks)
Scoring offense: Arizona (1st/84.8 PPG) | Oregon (4th/72.1)
Scoring defense: Arizona (3rd/65.2) | Oregon (7th/67.4)
Rebounding: Arizona (1st/43.5) | Oregon (10th/34.4)
Turnovers: Arizona (10th/13.5) | Oregon (5th/12.0)
Turnovers forced: Arizona (6th/13.3) | Oregon (3rd/14.2)
Assists per game: Arizona (1st/20.3) | Oregon (9th/12.0)
MATCHUP RUNDOWN
On paper Arizona should continue to cruise as it has for the last seven games during its current winning streak, but the Ducks have been a thorn in the Wildcats' side for several seasons now. Oregon has won the last seven meetings between the two teams with UA's last win coming back in early 2018 when Deandre Ayton and Allonzo Trier combined for 49 points in a 90-83 victory in Tucson.
No matter the talent level of each team since that year the games have mostly remained close. Only two of the last seven matchups have been decided by more than five points, and two of the games had to be decided in overtime.
A lot has changed over the last year for both programs, however. The Ducks have struggled to find consistency as Dana Altman's latest group has not meshed as well as some of the other teams he has built in the past.
UA, of course, is under new leadership with Tommy Lloyd being named to the Naismith Men's College Coach of the Year late season watch list earlier this week in his first season as the Wildcats' head coach.
Arizona has struggled with slow starts as of late, but that has not come into play in recent games as the Wildcats have been able to use their uptempo style to pull away late over the last several games.
The Wildcats have been able to win in different ways this season, and Oregon certainly has the potential to make Saturday's game a challenging matchup if it can play like it did earlier in the season when the Ducks knocked off then-No. 3 UCLA and then-No. 5 USC on the road in the same week.
"I think they're a really good team," Lloyd said of the Ducks after Thursday's win over Oregon State, which was a two-point game at halftime. "Obviously, he's a great coach, and it's a great program that he's done a really good job building a strong recent tradition.
"... I have a feeling we're gonna get a great effort from Oregon Saturday night, so we've gotta be much better than we were in the first half for sure."
Arizona big man Christian Koloko leads the Pac-12 with three blocks per game this season. He is coming off a strong performance against Oregon State in which he missed only three shots and scored 16 points to go with a game-high nine rebounds.
His presence on the interior, combined with the impact of power forward Azuolas Tubelis, will be key once again for the Wildcats against the Ducks. Koloko will have his own built-in motivation during Saturday's game.
The UA junior has not yet earned a victory over Oregon, and in his freshman season his late missed free throws in an overtime win for the Ducks proved costly. Though Koloko wishes not to remember what happened in that game, he has plenty of respect for Saturday's opponent and how he has improved as a player since his earlier matchups against the Ducks.
"I think I'm 0-4 against them," he said after Thursday's game. "They're a good team. They're a really good team, and they're playing really good right now. It's another game for us, and we're just gonna come out and be ready to play. We know they're gonna come out here and be ready to play.
"It's a big game, it's on ESPN, it's College GameDay. So we just gotta be ready to play. ... I just gotta make my free throws. I've been working on my free throws way better now."
Over on the other side, the Ducks will be led by guard Will Richardson (15.1 ppg) and forward Jacob Young (11.3 ppg). Richardson, who ranks second in the Pac-12 in 3-point percentage making 41.9% of his shots from deep, can impact the game in a variety of ways and ended up as the top scorer in Thursday's loss to ASU.
He had 12 points in that game for the Ducks.
Young struggled in 29 minutes of action against the Sun Devils as he missed six of his seven shot attempts in the game to finish with just four points.
One matchup to watch will be Koloko's battle with Oregon center N'Faly Dante. The 6-foot-11 big man scored six points and six rebounds against the Sun Devils, and he heads into Saturday's matchup averaging 8.2 points and 5.6 rebounds for the Ducks.
Tip off for Saturday night's game is set for 8 p.m. MST. ESPN will televise the Pac-12 matchup.
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