Arizona Basketball: 3 thoughts on Wildcats’ 2018-19 non-conference schedule

2. Meet the (weakened) power opponents

Outside of the Maui Invitational, the Wildcats are again facing three opponents that can be considered “power” conference teams (depending on your feelings about the American).

To Arizona’s credit, two of the three games are true road contests this year.

The first doesn’t come until December 2, when they travel to Storrs to take on the UConn Huskies. Most years, this would be considered a prestigious match. But the Huskies will be less than a full month into Dan Hurley’s coaching tenure, so they’ll still be taking time to gel in all likelihood.

A week later, the team will be in Tuscaloosa to take on the Alabama Crimson Tide. Of course, the Crimson Tide will be competing without their best player of the past half decade, Collin Sexton, who took his talents to Cleveland and the NBA. The odds of Alabama taking a step back this season after an NCAA Tournament victory last year are high.

Finally, Arizona will come home to take on Baylor the following weekend. The Bears have proven to be no slouches under Scott Drew, but they missed out on the Big Dance altogether last year and lost three valuable seniors.

Arizona should win all three games.