Tommy Ball is back … if only for a day.
Heck, maybe it’s the start of more. Arizona men’s basketball looked like Arizona basketball from the last three seasons.
Efficient. Defensive. Running. Stunning.
It all added up to a 75-56 win over West Virginia on the road. Arizona has now won five straight games and is 3-0 in the Big 12 Conference.
“We really challenged our guys,” UA coach Tommy Lloyd said on his postgame radio show. “We thought this could be a real defining moment of our season. We’re done talking about the (regular) season; we’re in conference now and we needed to come out here (and play well).
“It’s been a long road trip and the guys did a heck of a job and I’m just really proud of them.”
As he should be as it moved to 9-5 overall.
Arizona played with fluidity and function and again didn’t need the great night from Caleb Love. This time it was guard KJ Lewis who shined off the bench as he finished with 21 points in the rout.
“He was hungry,” Lloyd said of Lewis.
Lloyd said Lewis had not played well against West Virginia in the first meeting this year (an overtime loss). He scored 10 points. “The cool thing is the second time you play a team there’s tape. He watched it and wasn’t too happy with how he played so … he stepped up and delivered today.”
Arizona “responded” to what needed to be done. Get out early, play well and not relinquish the lead (although there was a light scare or two in the second half before pulling away).
Frankly, Arizona continues to grow up with every game.
“We’re figuring it out,” LLoyd said in his post-game comments.
Tuesday night, it was UA’s best start-to-finish game of the season.
“We showed poise, we came back and were nails down the stretch,” Lloyd said in a quick interview after the game.
Arizona reportedly set to take a bus from Morgantown, WV to Pittsburgh then take its charter back to Tucson. The major snow storm made for the change in travel plans.
“We’re ready to get back to shorts and t-shirts,” Lloyd told reporters after the game.
The win helped Arizona get the much-needed sweep in its first trip east in the conference, knocking off two top 25 teams (Cincinnati was ranked on Saturday).
In doing so, Arizona was able to play well, despite WVU trying to slow the pace down but was unable to with UA playing so well. It shot 50.8 percent from the floor, becoming the first team this season to shoot over 50 percent vs. WVU.
“We opened the floor a little bit and we’re adjusting,” Lloyd said. “We’re growing and the guys are getting comfortable. We had great wherewithal. The guys didn’t settle.”
Jaden Bradley added 15 points and Anthony Dell’Orso added 10 points. Love finished with nine points.
And again, Arizona was able to outrebound its opponent 40-31 and limited WVU to just 36 percent shooting.
They were well prepared, and they were very physical,” WVU coach Darian DeVries told reporters at the game. “Hey did a nice job of disrupting us from getting to spots, and I thought defensively they did a good job. We just didn’t match that I didn’t think at the other end. That’s where we’ve been really good. I felt like a good portion of the year, outside of a loss earlier in the year, we’ve been kind of the ones that have been disruptive and getting people off their spots. I felt like that got reversed.”
