Arizona's defense had been struggling coming into Friday's Pac-12 Tournament semifinal game against Colorado.
Although the struggles were still prevalent with the Buffaloes making 16 3-point shots, the Wildcats went on a 12-3 run that started with just under eight minutes to play to take control, leading to an 82-72 victory at T-Mobile Arena.
"Great effort considering all the circumstances. I'm super proud of the guys. On a quick turnaround, they took a scouting report, and they really hung with a game plan. We obviously made some adjustments from the last time we played these guys, and these guys get a ton of credit," coach Tommy Lloyd said with emotion when talking about his staff and players.
"I want to get my staff a ton of credit. We did a lot of things out there that traditionally I'm not very comfortable with today. And I almost get emotional thinking what those guys mean to me, they had some great ideas and we hung with it, and I told him after the game and our staff that the care factor is off the charts. So, for those guys to talk me into what we did today, they deserve a lot of credit because I can be pretty hard-headed sometimes."
With the Wildcats (30-3) down a starter in point guard Kerr Kriisa, it was forward Azuolas Tubelis who stepped up and delivered a 20-point performance with 18 of those points coming in the first half.
Tubelis scored his 20 points while going 9-for-14 from the field and collecting 11 rebounds to post his fourth double-double of the season.
"We have some plays where I have a chance to go by myself," Tubelis said. "I have other options, but they guarded me where I was able to drive the ball, so I just drove the ball and then made the decisions."
Although the Wildcats' defense gave up a high number of 3-point shots, Arizona's defense locked in and held the Buffs (21-11) to 39% from the field. If you take away the 3-pointers, CU shot 8-for-20 on 2-point attempts.
One of the keys to victory for Arizona was the ability to get Colorado forwards Jabari Walker and Evan Battey into foul trouble, forcing them to go to the bench during critical situations. They both had four fouls by the end of the night.
"The other thing that disrupted him was fouls and that's a sneaky thing that's undervalued in this game is pinning and fouls on the other team's best players, and we wanted to attack those guys inside out," said Lloyd of the game plan against Colorado. "We wanted to attack them off the dribble. And then we pinned fouls on him, and the second half was neck-and-neck and then we got both those bigs on the bench, and we were able to extend a little on the lead and ride it out."
Filling in the starting role for Kriisa was senior Justin Kier, who had only started two games this season for the Wildcats. Kier stepped in and scored 13 points while going 3 of 8 from the field and collected five rebounds and three assists.
But perhaps the most significant performance of the night for top-seeded Arizona was at the foul line, where the Wildcats went 24-for-25 after a game in which they shot 68% against Stanford on 19 attempts.
Arizona will now meet UCLA for a Pac-12 Tournament title on Saturday as the top two seeds in the event will square off at T-Mobile Arena starting at 7 p.m. (MST) on FOX. The Wildcats and Bruins split their season series with each team winning on its home floor.
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