Arizona vs. Utah State - Preview
The Wildcats Led Wire-to-Wire to Begin the NCAA Tournament and Now Draw the Aggies
Arizona handled business from the tip in their first NCAA Tournament game of the season, defeating Long Island 92-58. The Cats will now face Utah State on Sunday with a trip to the Sweet Sixteen on the line.
Round of 32 Preview
Utah State won both the regular season and tournament championship of the Mountain West Conference, a traditional multi-bid league that failed to produce an at-large selection this season.
The Aggies played two NCAA Tournament teams in their non-conference schedule, beating VCU and losing to South Florida. Their only common opponent with the Wildcats was San Diego State, who they defeated three times.
Utah State is closer to Arizona statistically than LIU was. They are a talented offensive team that is much less likely to get completely shut down. Their effective field goal percentage is elite, 96th percentile in the country.
Defensively, they are not quite as strong. Opponents have good shooting numbers and have gotten to the line frequently. Certainly the latter is something the Wildcats intend to take advantage of.
Instead, they rely on generating turnovers, which they have done at a high clip (95th percentile). Some of their offensive prowess is a knock-on effect from this as well, with their fast break points ranking similarly high despite being an average pace team overall.
Arizona has averaged 10.8 turnovers per game and a key factor will be their ability to stay near or under that number.
Arizona is huge but Utah State is at least in the same universe size-wise. Interestingly, the Aggies are a good (77th percentile) offensive rebounding team but a poor (29th percentile) defensive rebounding team. As always, the Wildcats will look to pound the glass for second-chance points.
In terms of creating variance as an underdog, Utah State shoots a fairly average number of threes per game (23.4 vs. Arizona’s 16.2) but at a worse percentage than the Cats (34.6 vs. 36.3).1 They are a very disciplined group as far as avoiding midrange shots and have been extremely efficient at the rim. We will see if they can do so facing Krivas and Co.
(Source: Basketball Reference and CBB Analytics)
Next Game: vs Utah State on Sunday, March 22nd, 4:50PM MST.
For all the talk that Arizona “can’t shoot,” they are now in the 87th percentile nationally in three-point shooting percentage.