All the talk for Arizona has been about its frontcourt led by Azuolas Tubelis and Oumar Ballo and rightfully so. However, it was the Wildcats' backcourt that dominated Tuesday's game combining for 42 points in UA's 87-70 domination of the Aztecs.
"Well, it lived up to its billing. It was a great basketball game. I've got a ton of respect for San Diego State's program. I knew it was going to be tough. I appreciate how hard it was," said coach Tommy Lloyd during is opening statement. "We kind of got out to a little bit of a lead there in the first half, and then they made a run back and actually I think they took the lead from us. To take those punches and stay on your feet and respond the way we did, really says something about our guys' character."
Early in the game, the Wildcats (5-0) built up a 16-point lead that quickly evaporated as the Aztecs went on a run right before half making it a 37-33 game. It looked like SDSU figured out Arizona's offense and took a 42-40 lead in the second half. But, from that point on, guards Courtney Ramey and Kerr Kriisa completely took over the game as the Cats outscored their opponents 47-28 the rest of the half.
After opening up his Arizona career with a 16-point performance against the Bearcats, Ramey took his game to another level scoring 21 point while going 8 of 12 from the field with six rebounds and an assists. But, the most impressive part of his game against SDSU was his 3-point shooting where he went 5-for-5 from deep.
"Courtney's hungry. He's a hungry dude. He's got a little bit of a chip on his shoulder in a good way," Lloyd said about Ramey's performance. "I think he's been waiting for this opportunity and it's the stuff we talked about in his recruitment. I'm really proud of how he is kind of coming along. And this guy next to me, he was awesome tonight."
Every time the Wildcats needed a bucket to get thing back on track, it felt like Ramey was the answer but did it in the flow of the offense and didn't force anything. He seems to have a calming presence on the court for the team.
Meanwhile, Kriisa got off to a rough start and seemed to be going back to his old ways of forcing shots. But then, Lloyd sat him down for a few minutes and it seemed bring new like to the talented guard as he dropped 21 points of his own with 18 coming in the second half.
Although Kriisa was struggling at the 3-point line going 3 of 10 from deep. He was able to find his shot by driving the lane and getting chances at the basket. Plus, with that, he was able to go 6-for-6 from the free throw line.
Getting to the basket was something that Kriisa had been talking about this off-season and had been working on adding that to his game. This is a massive step forward in the progression of his game and giving what the defense gives him.
On the defensive side of the floor, the Wildcats did a great job on Aztec guard Matt Bradley, who was coming off a 18-point performance against Ohio State. Bradley struggled to getting a clean look with Ramey and forward Pelle Larsson rotating on him giving different looks.
"Well, we wanted to really choke off their perimeter players, said Lloyd. "We feel like they're the heart and soul of that team offensively, so we wanted to do the best job we could, being a little stickier on their shooters and we were trusting we could help off their bigs and kind of jam the paint with the big, with our big defenders, and that would be where our help and our rotations would come from and try not to give them a bunch of easy uncontested jump shots."
As a team, the Wildcats held the Aztecs to 38% shooting from the field and held them to 3 of 19 from the 3-point line after giving up 17 from beyond the arc to Cincinnati. Plus, Arizona dominated the glass 41-30 and scored 10 second-chance points.
Although the Wildcats had an overall great game on both side of the court, there was an issues that keeps on popping up for Lloyd's team and that was the turnover bug. Against the Aztecs, Arizona turned the ball over 19 times that led to 23 points for SDSU keeping the game close for a while.
On the year, the Wildcats have 88 turnovers on the season and are averaging 17.6 turnovers per game. Last season, Arizona averaged 13.4 through 37 games.
The Wildcats will face No. 10 Creighton (6-0) Wednesday at 3 p.m. (MST) in the Maui Invitational championship game that will be televised by ESPN.
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