Was it inside; was it outside? Was it both?
Was it Kerr Kriisa; was it Courtney Ramey? Maybe both?
Was it Oumar Ballo; or was it Azuolas Tubelis? Maybe both.
Arizona double-dipped from all over on Saturday afternoon in beating host Washington 95-72 in Seattle.
One by one – was it two by two – UA players picked apart of the Huskies … in the second half. The first half was hardly like that but in the second? Oh, man … Arizona looked every bit the part of a top 10 team.
“We were flowing and it was great to see,” UA coach Tommy Lloyd said on his postgame radio show. “We haven’t had a game like that in a while. So, you know, we like where we’re at, but we got that little paranoia where we know if we don’t bring it and play great, we’re gonna be in a ball game. So it was fun to get a game like that. We haven’t had one of those a lopsided one in a long time.”
It helped Arizona get the sweep in the Great Northwest and helped it move to 19-3 overall and 8-3 in the Pac-12 Conference.
Four of Arizona’s starters scored in double figures and had big games, with Tubelis having a game-high 25 points. Ballo had 21 (after having just one on Thursday). Kriisa had 18 points, all coming from beyond the 3-point line. And Ramey came on strong in the second half, scoring 14 points 12 of which came from the 3-point line.
Arizona shot 52 percent from the floor and 42 percent from beyond the 3-point line. It had just nine turnovers and of the 34 makes 25 came from assists.
That is vintage – well the last two years – of Arizona basketball. Arizona went on a 19-3 run and hit eight straight shots.
The second half was much like how Arizona looked in the early part of the season when it had its way with opponents. If only for a game, it was pleasing to the eye. Arizona outscored UW 57-36 in the second half.
When asked if it was the best second half he’s seen a while, Lloyd said, “It felt like it. We just we kind of hit a good flow and you know I thought we played good in the first half. Maybe our defensive pressure wasn’t where we wanted it to be early. They made a few threes and then we settled into the game.
“I thought we defended well … took a four-point lead (and) they cut it to two, But I went into half feeling pretty good. I had my fingers crossed we could make an early run at them and we did. We had them on their heels a little bit and we did it and we just kept throwing haymakers.”
If it wasn’t Kriisa, it was Ramey and if it wasn’t them, it was Ballo or Azuolas.
“The guys were awesome,” Lloyd said.
Unlike the first meeting this year when Arizona struggled against UW’s 2-3 zone, Arizona found a way to get inside and over the top.
What worked?
“Everything,” Lloyd said on the show. “There wasn’t one thing that wasn’t better. The way we shot the ball. The way we moved the ball. The patience we had. We didn’t run a bunch of sets. We let the guys kind of hoop. They did a great job.
“And then our bigs delivered. When our bigs deliver like that …”
Lloyd said he had a good feeling about the inside game when Ballo delivered on his first possession. Of course, it was a score.
“He attacked the guy’s body and went right into him,” Lloyd said. “I said, ‘okay, this is the mentality we need and we carried it on for most of the game and, and it went great.”
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