No. 1 Arizona enters Saturday night’s game with San Diego State at Phoenix with a 10-0 record for the seventh time in program history, including the second time under coach Tommy Lloyd.
Arizona started 11-0 in Lloyd’s first season of 2021-22 and finished 33-4 with a Sweet 16 loss to Houston as the No. 1 seed.
The game at Mortgage Matchup Center at 8:30 p.m. will be televised by ESPN2 with Roxy Bernstein and former Arizona player Corey Williams calling the action. Brian Jeffries and Reggie Geary can be heard broadcasting the game at Wildcats Radio 1290-AM.
The game in Phoenix is a homecoming for Arizona freshman standout forward Koa Peat, who graduated from Chandler Perry High School.
Peat leads the team in scoring (14.3 points a game) and is shooting 55.7% from the floor. He’s also averaging 5.0 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 1.0 steals.
Arizona is coming off a 96-62 win over Abilene Christian on Tuesday at McKale Center, marking the fifth straight win by 20 or more points. It is the first time the Wildcats have done that since the first five games of the 2010-11 season.
Five of the Wildcats’ wins are against AP Top 25 teams — Florida, UCLA, UConn, Auburn and Alabama.
“I really challenged our guys to not worry about what we had already accomplished,” Lloyd said. “Let’s be more excited about what lies ahead. Let’s really build and galvanize who we want to be.
“Let’s really just write down what our on-court values are, what our on-court identity is. I feel like what I’ve seen from this team is, over the last couple of weeks, they really have galvanized and gotten better and really kind of created an identity that they’re comfortable with.”
ARIZONA’S 10-0 STARTS
| Season | Start | Final | Coach | Finish |
| 2025–26 | 10–0 (Current) | TBD | Tommy Lloyd | TBD |
| 2021–22 | 11–0 | 33–4 | Tommy Lloyd | Sweet 16 |
| 2013–14 | 21–0 | 33–5 | Sean Miller | Elite Eight |
| 2012–13 | 14–0 | 27–8 | Sean Miller | Sweet 16 |
| 1987–88 | 11–0 | 35–3 | Lute Olson | Final Four |
| 1931–32 | 16–0 | 18–2 | Fred Enke | Border Conf. Champs |
| 1912–13 | 11–0 | 13–2 | J.F. McKale | No postseason |
Arizona freshman guard Brayden Burries has started to develop his own identity as a scoring threat.
Burries has led Arizona in scoring three out of the past five games, reaching double-figures in all of those while shooting 61.3% from the field.
He scored at least 20 points in his last two games, producing 20 points on 9-of-11 shooting from the field against Abilene Christian after scoring a career-high 28 points in the win against Alabama at Birmingham, Ala., last weekend.
“I think he just got experience,” Lloyd said. “You prepare as much as you want, but until you kind of go through actual games themselves, you don’t know where you stand.
“You know you’re a good player. I think it’s really important a player goes through that struggle. Anything that’s learned without struggle, there’s not much value to it.”
San Diego State (6-3) has won its last three games, including Wednesday’s 81-58 victory over visiting Air Force in its Mountain West opener.
The Aztecs outscored Air Force 48-28 in the second half after leading 33-30 at halftime.
BJ Davis finished with a game-high 19 points, and his six assists tied true freshman Elzie Harrington for the game high.
Miles Heide had eight rebounds, marking the fourth time this year he has led his team in rebounds.
Arizona will be San Diego State’s second ranked opponent this season. The Aztecs lost 94-54 against No. 2 Michigan at Las Vegas on Nov. 24.
“They’re very physical,” San Diego State coach Brian Dutcher said of Arizona. “They’re very talented. They’re very well coached.
“We have to play well to beat them. Our intention is to go in there with a game plan that we’ll put together with things that have to happen for us to have a chance to win. We’ll try to see if we’re capable of doing that.”
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— This is the second straight week that Arizona is No. 1 in the AP Top 25 poll. It is the 41st week the Wildcats have been No. 1 since the AP poll started in 1949.
— Burries is averaging 19.8 points, 4.6 rebounds, 2.6 assists and shooting 61.3% from the floor and 38% from the 3-point line over the last five games. In the first five games, he averaged 7.8 points, 1.8 rebounds, 2.0 assists to go with 33% from the floor.
— The series between Arizona and San Diego State is 25-7 in favor of Arizona, with the Wildcats
having won each of the last five meetings. The most recent meeting was a 87-70 Arizona win in
Maui on Nov. 22, 2022.
— Arizona head coach Tommy Lloyd is in his fifth season as the head coach at Arizona and has a
record of 122-33 (.787). Lloyd is 17-10 against Top 25 teams in road/neutral settings.
— Senior forward Tobe Awaka is the top offensive and defensive rebounder in the country according to KenPom.com. He has two double-doubles this season and four games with 10-plus rebounds.
— Under Lloyd, Arizona is 26-13 against Top 25 opponents. The .667 winning percentage is tied with UConn for the best in the country. Through games played Nov. 18, Arizona is the only team in the country with five wins over Top 25 opponents this season.
— Against Abilene Christian on Tuesday, Arizona shot 66.7% (30-45) from the floor for the game, the
team’s best since shooting 71.7% against Nicholls on Nov. 7, 2022.
— Burries was named to the Big 12 “Starting Five” weekly award winners list on Monday. It is his first weekly award of the season and the third time a Wildcat has been honored (Peat twice).
— Jaden Bradley finished with 10 points against Abilene Christian, going 10 of 10 at the free throw
line. He’s the first Wildcat since at least 1996-97 to reach double figures in scoring without making
a field goal. He’s averaging 13 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists over the last three games.
— The is the sixth time the Aztecs have faced a No. 1-ranked program and they have a 1-4 record in the previous five occasions, including an 81-89 defeat against No. 1 Arizona on Dec. 7, 2002, and a 71-64 win against No. 1 and 2023 NCAA Tournament top-seed Alabama in that year’s Sweet 16.
— Since the start of the 2019-20 season, San Diego State is 32-16 (.667) record in neutral site games, which ranks No. 8 nationally among those which have played at least 48 neutral site contests.
— San Diego State is playing its second of three games in just over five days: an 81-58 win over Air Force (Wednesday), against. Arizona (Saturday night) and against Whittier (Monday).
— Against Air Force, the Aztecs had a season-high 27 assists on 31 field goals (87.1 percent). It’s 27 assists are the most for an Aztecs team since it recorded 30 against New Mexico on Jan. 15, 2019.
— Since the start of the 1999-00 season, San Diego State has recorded 69 games with at least 20 assists (it is 64-5 in those contests). The only other time San Diego State has assisted on more than 80.0 percent of its made buckets in that time frame was on Nov. 22, 2019 vs. LIU when it had 26 assists on 32 baskets (81.3 percent).
— For a program known for its defense, the Aztecs are producing on the offensive end of the floor. The team is averaging 81.8 points per game through nine contests. Its best scoring team as a Division I program was its 1970-71 team, its first at the Division I level, which averaged 86.9 points per game. San Diego State, in its Division I history, has had five seasons where it’s scored at an 80-plus point per game clip. The program’s best scoring year in the Mountain West era was the 2017-18 squad which averaged 77.1 points per game.
— The Aztecs rank No. 2 in the nation with 43 bench points per game and has totaled at least 40 bench points in each of the last five games and in six of nine games this season. In the last three games, the Aztec bench has scored 60.7% of its total points (150-of-247) and Davis is responsible for 35.3% of those points (53-of-150).
— Davis leads the Aztecs in scoring (13.3 points per game) without starting. Among those who have played no more than 195 minutes without a start, Davis ranks No. 1 in the nation in points per game off the bench and free throw percentage (.947).
— Harrington is the only true freshman in the nation who is shooting at least 73.3% from 3-point range on a minimum of 15 attempts (11 of 15).
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