Arizona vs Florida Notebook

Peat-Bradley P&R, Tommy Lloyd’s ATOs, and sharp in-game tweaks lead Arizona past No. 3 Florida.

What a start for the 2025-2026 Arizona Wildcats. With a conference schedule that will be tough in its own right, Tommy Lloyd and Arizona still chose to put together a non-conference crucible, perhaps with no bigger opponent than defending national champion, and preseason #3 ranked Florida on a neutral floor in Las Vegas.

Koa Peat had an awesome debut and Jaden Bradley looked like one of the best point guards in the country. Here’s some under the radar things I liked and didn’t like from the Cats 93-87 win.

I liked the Jaden Bradley and Koa Peat middle pick-and-roll.

The Wildcats flow offense involves the two posts exchanging positions high/low and looking to seal over the top for a post entry pass.

Unfortunately, Koa Peat also likes to operate in the middle of the floor. In the two exhibition games, that turned into Peat driving at Mo Krivas or Tobe Awaka, along with their defenders.

Near the end of the first half against Florida, the Wildcats went to a more deliberate middle pick-and-roll with Peat as the screener and the other post outside of the lane.

When Alex Condon tried to stay home on Peat, Bradley hit the jets and drew a foul at the rim. His decisiveness was impressive throughout this game on plays like that.

I disliked the Wildcats baseline out of bounds (BLOB’s).

Very similar to Arizona, Florida uses one of their tallest players to cover the inbounder, most often Bradley. The Gators then zone up with the other four defenders. Arizona had five opportunities: one not shown below because TV missed it, but resulted in a Peat turnover, one five-second call, and three hail mary’s to the safety.

Florida did have similar issues though including this one that was far worse than any of Arizona’s.

I liked Tommy Lloyd’s after time out (ATO) plays. The first two opportunities the Wildcats had coming out of timeouts on offense, the ball went to Anthony Dell’Orso. The first was a simple pin down into a curl jumper, a great rhythm shot to get a shooter going.

The second was a middle ball screen similar to what we looked at earlier but with action for Ivan Kharchenkov to come off of a baseline screen from Krivas towards the ball side, clearing out the weak side for Peat to roll to.

The Cats had already turned the ball over twice on plays like this where the backline Gator defender was able to drop into the passing lane. Dell’Orso does a great job here to slow himself down and take an extra dribble to occupy Condon, allowing Peat another step to get to his position and go vertical for the catch. He did the same in the second half on the biggest highlight play of the game.

As long as we are looking at decisions out of timeouts, I want to point out a defensive ATO that Lloyd should get credit for.

Arizona typically has been switching ball screens with everyone except their center. With 7:34 on the clock in the first half, Bradley deflected a pass out of bounds, leaving Florida with only 15 seconds on the shot clock coming out of the media timeout.

Peat was put into a handoff, followed by a ball screen, both of which he blitzed (trapped), throwing the Gators into chaos and eventually resulting in a shot clock violation.

I disliked the offensive/defensive sub at the end of the game. With 36.9 seconds left, Dell’Orso made back-to-back free throws. He’d made two others with 1:08 on the clock. Typically, I am a fan of O/D subs, especially subbing on the second make in order to set defense, but was not a fan of this one.

Awaka is the overall better defender than Dell’Orso, but in a situation where the Gators were down 5, and were likely to spread the floor and drive or kick to a three point shooter, I don’t know that is as big an advantage. Awaka had also not been on the floor since 14:31 left!

Florida made a quick drive and got a Thomas Hough dunk and then as the broadcast walked through on replay, were able to deny Bradley the inbounds pass as Peat, Awaka, and Krivas made up the other players on the floor. Kharcheckov took the final Wildcats timeout just in time.

I liked Lloyd NOT taking a timeout after a Florida 7-0 run. Hough’s layup at 7:49 in the second half tied the game at 67 and in the clip below you can see the official anticipating an Arizona timeout.

There’s something to be said for letting a team play through adversity early in the season. Even more so when you have a veteran guard like Bradley, who attacked and dished to Krivas who drew a foul, triggered the media timeout, and settled the Wildcats.

Had the Cats taken that timeout, maybe they don’t have any left when Kharchenkov needed one to avoid the violation at the end of the game.

I disliked the flagrant foul call on Awaka, until I rewatched and realized that TNT had shown the wrong part of the play five times. The foul occurs earlier in the play for a chicken wing to the head of Hough, for anyone that was curious.

I liked this pass from Koa Peat. This is an elite read to look off the defender on the Awaka roll and skip to Kharchenkov who was 2-2 from 3FG on the night. As a bonus, I also liked Kharchenkov getting ten rebounds. He was the third best player for the Cats for the game.

I disliked Bradley stepping on the line on two jumpers. More a nitpick than anything since he had such a great game but this is a bad habit.

I liked toying with the defense on ball screens. Similar to Dell’Orso earlier, there is an art in adjusting speed coming off a ball screen and this dance by Bradley and Krivas to screen, re-screen, Bradley snake back, and Krivas Gortat-screen his own man was just beautiful (chef’s kiss).

And finally, I neither liked nor disliked Arizona’s use of a 7.5 player rotation. Sometimes you just do what you have to do to get the W.

Dwayne Aristode played only spot minutes in the first half and Evan Nelson did not see the floor. While most coaches would love to have a ten-man rotation, it seems Lloyd will be playing the guys he is confident in heavy minutes.

Bradley played nearly the entire second half against Saint Mary’s in an exhibition. Peat did the same against Florida.

The Cats will have a delicate balance this season trying to get guys reps while still playing to win against this very difficult schedule. Hopefully, there is some more opportunity in the next two games.

Next up: Home vs Utah Tech on Friday November 7th, 7:00PM MST.