Arizona's offense is a well-oiled machine that has scored 100-plus points in of the Wildcats' four games this season and against the Bearcats, UA walked away with a 101-93 victory over Cincinnati and shot 62% from the field.
"It's a step up in weight class," said coach Tommy Lloyd. "So you get out there and you get punched a few times and you got to kind of stiffen up your chin a little bit and toughen up and get a feel for the game."
The Wildcats' offense has it all with speed, skill, depth and size. And against Cincinnati, the size of Arizona (4-0) shined with big men Azoulas Tubelis and Oumar Ballo dominating the paint with a combined 51 points and 21 rebounds to help lift the team over the Bearcats.
For Tubelis, he came two points shy of tying his career-high of 32 points, but was able to record his eighth career double-double with 30 points and 11 rebounds. He also shot 67% from the field on 18 attempts.
With the 30-point performance, Tubelis is averaging 22.5 points per game this season and has scored under the 20-point mark just once against Southern where he finished with 17 points. Plus, he is shooting 74% from the field showing off how effective he has become in the low-post.
"Well, we love attacking inside out. You could see they were pressing and, you know, pressure defense," Lloyd said. "So I think the best way a lot of times to attack pressure defense is go right at it. We want to play north-south and I thought our guys did a good job, for the most part."
Meanwhile, Ballo recorded his second double-double of the season with 21 points and 10 rebounds. while shooting 73% from the field. It seemed that every time the Wildcats needed a bucket to stop a Bearcats' scoring run, it was him that answered the call for Arizona
So far this season, Ballo is averaging 18 points while shooting 73% from the field. During the off-season, he and Tubelis took boxing classes to work on their footwork and it seems to be paying off and making the Wildcats a force in the paint.
One other player that made a major impact on this game was guard Courtney Ramey, who was making his first start for Arizona after serving a three-game suspension. In Ramey's first game with the Wildcats, he scored 17 points on nine shots while going 3 of 5 from the 3-point line.
"It was good to play with my teammates. It was good playing with them in practice too," Ramey said. "It took me a minute just to get used to playing with them in a real game. But they did a good job with being aggressive. I had some foul trouble in the first half, so I had to be a cheerleader in the first half. But they did a good job of just getting me going in the second half."
Plus, Ramey has an impact on the defensive side of the court slowing down Cincinnati guard David DeJulius, who had been averaging 18 point per game coming into the contest.
DeJulius finished with nine points on 4 of 12 shooting and that was in large part do to the defensive effort by Ramey, who guarded him for most of the night.
It wasn't all pretty for the Wildcats, especially on the defensive end of the court where Arizona allowed a season-high 17 3-point shots with the Bearcats shooting 50% from deep.
The Wildcats struggled on transition defense where most of the Bearcats' 3-pointers came from. Plus, Arizona allowed guard Landers Nolley ll to score 23 of his 33 points in the second half going 8 of 11 from the field during that stretch.
Overall, a great performance by the Wildcats' offense, but Arizona will need to improve on the defensive side of the court if it wants to advice with a out of the Semifinals against No. 17 SDSU, who is coming off an impressive 88-77 win over Ohio State.
The Wildcats will face SDSU (4-0) on Tuesday at 8:30 p.m. (MST) on ESPN as they advance into the Semifinals of the Maui Invitational.
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