Arizona Keeps Proving It’s College Basketball’s Best
Rivalry Game? Check. Cross-Country Road Trip? Check.
Last time, I pronounced the Wildcats the undisputed best team in the country. AP voter Shane Mettlen begged to differ then watched Iowa State lose two in a row. We will see if a rogue voter tosses a first place vote to UCONN tomorrow after Arizona handled business in yet another Wednesday home, Saturday road set of games.
Short Rolls
I came away from the game against Arizona State unsure if the narrative should be more about the Wildcats or the Sun Devils. The game was disjointed with stretches of physical play alternating with stretches of ticky-tack fouls on both sides. Koa Peat played his worst half of the year then came out of the locker room and played perhaps his best half of the year.
After rewatch, I think ASU deserves a lot of credit. Firstly, they were up for the physicality. This is requisite in a game versus Arizona. If you aren’t going in to the game ready for a battle, you’ve lost before it’s even began. Second, they made a ton of shots. Noah Meeusen hit four threes and Moe Odum had four of his own plus a slew of tough tweener shots.
As far as something that might matter going forward, I’m going to highlight another player, Massamba Diop. The Sun Devil freshmen is an interesting prospect. He is pretty raw but I could see him becoming an NBA player. He finished 7-9 from two against Arizona.
One reason for his success was his lack of hard rolls to the basket. I know, that seems backwards. Most centers attack drop coverage by flying to the rim, looking for the lob, while their defender temporarily has to cover two players. The Wildcats, especially Motiejus Krivas, are excellent at defending this action.
Diop instead used a lot of short rolls, slipping into open space, then hitting little jumpers or creating his own shots.
Not many teams will play a center with the touch to be successful in this strategy. But if they do, the Wildcats might need to adjust their coverage. Krivas’s foul trouble in the second half, allowed the Cats to cover ballscreens closer to the level of the ball with Awaka or Peat, rather than the deep drop.
While Arizona has had Krivas hedge on occasion, drop is certainly the preferred coverage. If the Wildcats stayed with that, the three defenders not involved in the screen could overload and bring more pressure to the short roller on the catch, allowing Krivas to stay at the rim and/or giving him time to recover to his man. That would cause some scramble and potentially leave open shooters, but maybe you mix it in to keep the offense guessing.
This isn’t much different than covering someone who will pick and pop.
If the screener is anything but a “red” shooter1, someone should be rotating to or at least stunting at Jamichael Stillwell, who is shooting 33% on 1.5 threes per game so far this season. In this case, neither Ivan Kharchenkov nor Brayden Burries make any effort to affect the shot and Stillwell knocks it down.
Same logic applies as above: if one of those guys closes hard on the passing lane between their man and the ball, it would force Stillwell to drive where his original defender is now standing or to try to swing a pass against the rotating defense.
Unappealing
In the first season of the coaches challenge, the more pervasive replay has been the appeal for a flagrant foul. ASU appealed in the first half looking for a flagrant on Krivas, who’s hand got into the face of his defender while he was being held in the post. The Sun Devils lost the appeal and were charged a timeout.
In the Central Florida game, the officials first went to the monitor to review a Brayden Burries foul after multiple coaches and then Themus Fulks requested it
Replay showed Burries making fairly minor contact to the shooter’s arm and no contact to the head or neck. Referee Gregory Nixon then announced “Upon further review, there is no appeal on the play” Huh?
There either was or was not an appeal before they went to the monitor. In this case, the referees essentially said they chose to go to the monitor of their own volition. That did not sit well with Coach Lloyd.
UCF later officially appealed for another flagrant foul, this time on Jaden Bradley, and lost that one, costing them their final timeout of the game.
Flop!!!
I wish the officials had gone to monitor to review this malicious attack by Koa Peat (sarcasm).
As I said when the Heady brothers tried the free throw switch for Bethune-Cookman, I can respect a little bit of angle shooting. But not this. Former Sun Devil, Devan Cambridge, tried to draw a phantom dead ball foul on Peat.
Per Rule 10, Section 4, Article 1p:
A technical foul shall be assessed to a player or a substitute for…faking being fouled (flopping) is an unsporting act that occurs when a player (offensive or defensive) attempts to influence an official’s judgment by creating an opinion that a foul has been committed when there has been minimal contact.
Cambridge tried this right in front of Referee James Ford, who saw exactly what happened and did not call a foul on Peat. Nor did he call a T for flopping on Cambridge.
Cutaways
I generally find it annoying when TV producers repeatedly switch cameras, especially when they miss game action.2 But for whatever reason, I was enamored on Saturday. Both coaching staffs were demonstrative, players were chirping at one another, and referees were trying their best to explain what they thought they saw.
Enjoy the compilation of some moments the cameras caught.3 I strongly encourage someone to record a Bad Lip Reading audio track over it.
Next up: Home versus Cincinnati on Wednesday, January 21st, 7:00PM MST.
A common simple classifier for shooters is green=good, yellow=fair, and red=bad. Defenses may have different coverages. In this case, it may be okay to leave a “red” shooter open in pick and pop.
What play did Arizona just run to get the ball in? I don’t know. We were watching a selfie shot of the two announcers until after the inbounds pass had already occurred.
Believe it or not, I left many shots of Johnny Dawkins, hands on his hips, looking serious, on the cutting room floor.