Arizona Basketball: 2020-21 season preview for Wildcats

Schedule

One of the toughest things about projecting the Wildcat’s season thus far is their lack of a schedule. The Pac-12 has stated that they will not be releasing the games for January and on until the dates are finalized and therefore little is known about the Wildcats schedule so far. What we do know about is their December outlook.

The Wildcats will begin the season with a handful of games against lower D-1 schools and don’t have a game against another major conference team until they face Pac-12 member Colorado on December 2nd. Following this, games against the likes of Northern Colorado, CSU Bakersfield and Cal Baptist fill the schedule until their second game of the conference slate against Stanford on December 19th.

Obviously, many won’t know the true level of this Wildcats team until the conference season gets into full swing due to a lack of games against high-quality competition in the non-conference slate. That doesn’t mean the Wildcats won’t get the chance to prove themselves though because they will.

The Pac-12 has multiple good teams this year in the likes of Oregon, Arizona State, UCLA, and Stanford who were all picked in front of the Wildcats in the Pac-12 preseason poll. Obviously, the biggest game of the early season will be at Stanford in mid-December and this will be the first test for a young ‘Cats team.

Although the ‘Cats may not get equal opportunities at each top school in the conference season, they will surely have their chances at proving they belong when it comes to the upper tier of the Pac-12.

Their schedule will most likely allow them enough quality wins to move into the top-25 at one point of the season and could ultimately help the seeding for a potential NCAA Tournament bid come March.