NCAA Basketball: North Carolina, Gonzaga tumble on latest top 25 power ranking
By Joey Loose
9. Arizona (6-1)
The season has gotten off to a fantastic start for these Wildcats, as Arizona recently picked up three straight solid wins en route to a championship at the Maui Invitational. Coming off an impressive first season under Tommy Lloyd, year two has gotten off to an even better start, with that offense looking especially elite to this point. However, Arizona’s hot start to the season came to a sudden halt this past Thursday night.
The Wildcats played just one game this week but it was a doozy, dropping an 81-66 outing on the road at Utah to open up Pac-12 play. Arizona’s offense had their worst game of the season, shooting just 14% from long range and playing sloppy basketball. Oumar Ballo had 22 points and Azuolas Tubelis added 20, but the success of those frontcourt pieces was not replicated by the Wildcats’ backcourt, leading to the unexpected and dreadful loss.
It’s never a good look to perform this badly in your first road game of the season, and Arizona really had a stinker against the Utes. While Utah might be a better team than we expect, this also could’ve been the result of the long layover following their trip to Maui; this was Arizona’s first game in 8 days. There’s a ton of talent all over the court for the Wildcats and these shooters will not have nights like this often. They’ll have a very tough game against Indiana next week in Las Vegas and they cannot perform like this against the Hoosiers.