Arizona has one of the most exciting freshmen classes in the country. Koa Peat will likely be a 2026 lottery pick. Brayden Burries is a naturally talented scorer, Ivan Karchenkov is solid at nearly every aspect of the game, and Dwayne Aristode has remarkable upside.
But the Wildcats won on Friday in Los Angeles due to the play of three seniors and a junior, who have all made strides to improve their games. Recruiting is certainly important in college basketball, but player development sometimes gets forgotten and these guys and the coaching staff all deserve a ton of credit.
A lot of the pregame talk was about UCLA’s physicality. I don’t think there was ever any concern from the tip that Arizona was up for that challenge. Coach Lloyd went with the double-big lineup of Tobe Awaka and Motiejus Krivas often and finished the game with a 35-28 win of the rebounding battle.
What kept UCLA in the game was their dedication to packing in and covering the paint. Anthony Dell’Orso hit three of his first four threes but the rest of the Cats were 2-12 from beyond the arc for the game.1 And when they passed up open looks, they were typically driving into multiple Bruin defenders.
This is something to watch going forward as it will likely be the playbook for many teams that play Arizona.
Even with that, the Wildcats held a 45-40 lead midway through the second half. That’s when UCLA found an action that would cause Arizona some serious problems. Here’s four clips of this action:
UCLA sets up in what looks like a double-drag screen, only to have Tyler Bilodeau, “ghost” the second screen and pop. Typically, the Wildcats have their center (Awaka here) in drop coverage, but he instead hedges, forcing Peat to tag the roller. Trent Perry does a great job to stretch out the hedge before throwing the relay pass to Eric Dailey Jr. who skips to Bilodeau for an open three.
Same action. Awaka plays it like he wants to three-way switch with Peat, who would be in drop. Bradley struggles to get over the screen and Peat is too deep, leading to a Skyy Clark pull up jumper.
Same action but Brandon Williams replaces Bilodeau and Krivas is in drop. Peat now worries about Clark and Williams gets a wide open look.
Nearly the exact same as #1 except starting in horns instead of double drag. Bilodeau nails a second three to give the Bruins an 8-point lead.
After four minutes of getting burned, the Arizona coaching staff had seen enough and made the change to switch this action. And so our first tip of the hat to Tobe Awaka, who held up marvelously against UCLA’s guards.
In the first clip, Awaka switches onto Donovan Dent and then has to navigate a pass-and-chase hand off with Xavier Booker. This is the most action the Bruins made Awaka deal with. You can see them try to post up Bilodeau on Jaden Bradley and from that point forward, the UCLA offense becomes completely stagnant while Mick Cronin waives all the other players away to isolate Dent or Clark vs Awaka to no avail.
Meanwhile, on the other end of the floor, Bradley, who had only two points with seven minutes remaining, came to life. So a tip of the hat to Jaden Bradley, who was incredibly clutch down the stretch.2
You’ll notice that two of these plays include post-ups from Krivas, forcing double teams, and leading to kickouts that ended in three pointers. Here’s one more for good measure.
But those double teams were necessary because Krivas had a strong offensive start to the second half.
So a tip of the hat to Motiejus Krivas, who will rarely be the Wildcats leading scorer but is important in nearly every way and finished with 10 points on 5-6 shooting, 8 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 blocks. Here, have some of his defense as well:
And perhaps I have buried the lead, because the guy who was the leading scorer and Hall of Fame Series Player of the Game, is still left to discuss. So finally, a tip of the hat to Anthony Dell’Orso, who has really diversified his skillset. I’ll let you go find his four made three-pointers elsewhere and instead show you three great passes he had against UCLA.3
And while he will never be the best on-ball defender, Dell’Orso is holding his own on that end of the floor by being an intelligent, well positioned off-ball helper.
Next up: @UCONN on Wednesday November 19th, 5:00PM MST.
Burries made one 1:19 into the game and Bradley made the other with 1:23 left in the game.
In his post game interview, Coach Lloyd praised assistant coach Ken Nakagawa for an offensive adjustment late. I would assume that would be the action they run at 2:20 and 1:35, where Krivas and Awaka appear to be in horns formation, Krivas screens Awaka as a misdirect to space him to the wing, and Bradley and Krivas work pick-and-roll.
Tyler Bilodeau is just a little late and gets blown by on the first play and then switches on the second, leading to Clark being mismatched on Krivas.
I love Awaka here and Krivas in one of the previous clips stepping to the rim on the catch with no dribble.