The Pac-12 being down has been an understatement but, the Washington Huskies have separated themselves from the pack. On Saturday they travel to Arizona to battle the Wildcats, here are keys to a Washington win.
All season long the Pac-12, on the whole, has been abysmal, to the point where it quite possibly is a one-bid league when Selection Sunday rolls around. In the preseason, Oregon was thought to be a favorite, they find themselves mired near the bottom of the league. Arizona State got off to a hot start, but are now 6-3 in the Pac-12 but three full games behind the top team and a team that some saw as a preseason dark horse to win the league, the Washington Huskies.
The Huskies are 18-4 and an unblemished 9-0 in the Pac-12 and head coach Mike Hopkins has his team at the top of the conference and with a three-game lead over their closest competitors and just nine games left on their schedule, each game they can put in the win column puts them closer to the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament.
On Thursday night the Huskies embark on the first stop of a three-game road trip that, by the end of, could all but lock up that top seed, when they face the Arizona Wildcats at the McHale Center. The Huskies have had a quietly good season with two of their four losses were on a neutral and two of them were by a bucket, including a two-point loss at then No. 1 Gonzaga when Rui Hachimura made a jumper with one second to play.
Winning on the road in college basketball is difficult, as two of the Huskies’ losses have come in true road games, but they are 4-0 in conference road games, winning by an average of 12 points. Here are some keys to the Huskies continuing their road supremacy and keeping the rest of the conference in the rearview mirror by knocking off Arizona.
1. Washington must continue to shoot well
Washington shoots the ball at a 46.5% clip and in their nine league games they have shot over 49% from the field, a big key in gaining a road victory against Arizona will be their ability to take good shots and continue their hot shooting.
Of the six Huskies that average over 20 minutes per game, five of them have shot over 44% from the field this season, and three of them, Jaylen Nowell, Noah Dickerson, and Nahziah Carter are all shooting over 50%. In Pac-12 play that group goes to five as senior Matisse Thybulle is also shooting over 50% against league opponents.
On the defensive end, Arizona struggles to stop teams from scoring, allowing opponents to shoot over 44% from the field and in league play they rank 10th with that percentage, at over 47%, and they are even worse at defending the three against conference play opponents at 39%, which is next to last in the conference.
As a team, Washington is the best team in the conference in field goal percentage (49.6%) and in three-point percentage (41.7%), which is better than their overall number of 35%. Taking good shots against a poor defensive Arizona team will give the Huskies a leg up on the Wildcats.
2. Washington must clean up the defensive glass
A second key to a Washington road win will be winning the battle on the defensive boards and limiting Arizona’s second-chance opportunities. The reason the defensive glass isn’t important because Arizona has a big edge over the Huskies, they don’t. On the season, Arizona out rebounds the Huskies by less than two per game, 35.23 to 33.41 and on the defensive glass, that number shrinks to just over a rebound per game. T
he Wildcats aren’t an elite offensive rebounding team, their ten per game makes them average, nationally, but limiting their second-chance opportunities is important because the Wildcats are one of the poorest shooting teams in the country, and their 43% from the field is last in the Pac-12.
Winning the battle of the boards may be a tough task for Washington as both teams are so close when it comes to the numbers. Both teams each have one player that grabs more than six rebounds per game. Dickerson grabs 6.8 per game for Washington and Duke transfer Chase Jeter leads Arizona in rebounding at 7.3 per game.
Even though Arizona is a mid-pack rebounding team nationally, they do grab over 12 offensive rebounds per game in league play, which is the best in the conference, so for Washington, giving a poor shooting team one shot per possession will be key to keeping Arizona at arm’s length.
3. The Huskies need to force Arizona to work at both ends
One last key to a Washington victory in Arizona will be making the Wildcats work hard at both ends of the floor. It has already been established that not only does Arizona struggle to shoot the ball, on the year, but they also allow opponents to shoot it at a higher percentage than they do. So, making them work on offense and defense will likely lead to even more struggles, easing the path to a Huskies’ win.
During their current three-game losing streak on the road at USC, UCLA, and Arizona State, Arizona has surrendered over 88 points per game, while scoring just over 71 themselves, which includes the 88 they notched in the loss to Arizona State. In those three games, the victorious home teams shot over 53% from the field and a scorching 45% from three-point land, both higher than Arizona’s seasonal averages by a combined 22 percentage points.
On the offensive end of the floor, Arizona has shot just 33.6% from the field during this losing streak and 34% from beyond the arc, a number that includes a 50% performance against the Sun Devils. Making sure that Arizona recent road struggles carry over to this game will be a big key to a Washington road win.