Arizona Basketball

Arizona attempts to win first Big 12 tournament championship in rematch with Houston

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GAME INFORMATION
Who: No. 2 Houston (28-5) vs. No. 1 Arizona (31-2)
Where: T-Mobile Center (18,000), Kansas City (Mo.)
When: Saturday, 3 p.m., Tucson time
Watch: ESPN — Dan Shulman (PxP), Jay Bilas (Analyst) & Kris Budden (Reporter)
Listen: Wildcats Radio 1290-AM — Brian Jeffries (PxP) & Reggie Geary (Analyst)

In what could very well be a forecast of the national title game in almost three weeks, Big 12 rivals Arizona and Houston will meet for the second consecutive year for the conference tournament championship on Saturday at Kansas City, Mo.

The top-seeded Wildcats (31-2) — coming off the high of Jaden Bradley’s buzzer-beating jumper against No. 5 Iowa State on Friday — and No. 2 Houston (28-5) will play at 3 p.m. on ESPN and Wildcats Radio 1290-AM.

The Cougars, who took care of No. 3 Kansas 69-47 in the other semifinal game Friday, defeated Arizona 72-64 in last year’s Big 12 title game.

Arizona projects to be a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament and Houston is firmly on the No. 2 line. The March Madness Selection Show on Sunday will be exactly 24 hours after Saturday’s tip between the Wildcats and Cougars.

Arizona was ranked No. 4 and Houston No. 2 when the Wildcats pulled off a 73-66 win on Feb. 21 at Houston.

Anthony Dell’Orso scored 22 points in that game for Arizona. He raised his level of performance in Arizona’s 82-80 semifinal victory over Iowa State on Friday.

Dell’Orso scored a season-high 26 points and matched his career best of six point 3-pointers in 29 minutes off the bench.

“You see a couple go down and you just keep getting more and more confidence,” Dell’Orso said of his 10-of-14 shooting performance from the field. “I said it before it’s like shooting in the ocean — you feel like you can’t miss.”

One of Arizona’s finest moments in its illustrious history was Bradley living up to his Big 12 Player of the Year selection with his 15-foot game-winning jumper as time expired over Iowa State’s Killyan Toure.

“I just went with the flow,” Bradley said. “It was a crazy shot. It was great defense.”

Bradley’s winner earned the Wildcats a rematch with the Cougars, who lost in the NCAA title game to Florida last season.

Arizona has won eight consecutive games.

“We put ourselves in position to win a championship, and you don’t get a lot of opportunities to do that over the course of the season,” Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd said. “So (the game against Houston) deserves our best effort.”

The Cougars held Kansas to 24.6% shooting from the field, including 6 of 31 (19.4%) in the second half, in Friday night’s game.

“We’ve been a good defensive team for a long time and we’ve played against a lot of really good offenses that just had a lot of bad possessions,” Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said. “Sometimes you credit the defense and sometimes kids just miss shots. But I thought our defense was connected.”

Kingston Flemings scored a game-best 21 points while fellow freshman Chris Cenac Jr. had 17 and tied his career-high 14 rebounds.

“Going into the game, Coach told me just come in and shoot with confidence when I get it and I’m open, let it fly,” Cenac said. “So I just shot the ball with confidence, trusted the work that I put in every day, and just kept going.”

The Cougars lost three straight games in mid-February — that stretch included the loss to Arizona — but have rebounded with five consecutive wins.

“We were winning some games early, but we weren’t very good,” Sampson said. “But I was OK with that because I knew that January would get here eventually and turn into February and turn into March, and if you come in every day with the right attitude and the right mindset, and you have high-character kids, that you can focus on coaching basketball.

“If you are worried about attitude and effort, then you’re not coaching basketball. You’re being a disciplinarian. And we don’t have discipline problems at Houston.”

ARIZONA NOTES

Arizona is playing in its fourth conference championship game in five seasons under Lloyd. The Wildcats won three Pac-12 tournament title games under Lloyd before losing to Houston last year. … The Wildcats are 11-2 in conference tournament games under Lloyd, the most wins among all major conference schools since the start of the 2021-22 season. … Arizona is 32-15 (.680) against Top 25 teams under Lloyd. The 32 wins break Tom Izzo’s record for most wins over ranked opponents in the first five years as a head coach. … Dell’Orso’s 26-point effort off the bench against Iowa State was the most by an Arizona bench player since Hassan Adams scored 26 against Oregon in 2004. … In six games against top 10 teams this season, Arizona is 5-1 while attempting just 12.7 shots from 3-point range per game. In those same games, Arizona is holding opponents to 31.8% shooting from beyond the arc. … Arizona’s 21-point win over UCF in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Tournament was the 16th win by 20 or more points this season (tie for most in NCAA). … In its 28th appearance in a conference tournament, Arizona has now advanced to the title game 15 times and will be looking for its 10th conference tournament title. … Lloyd has 143 wins as a head coach, an NCAA record for most wins in his first five seasons. … Seven different Arizona players have made 100 or more field goals this year, the only school in the country to accomplish that feat. … Defensively, Arizona is holding opponents to 43.7% shooting on 2-point field goals this season, the second-best percentage in the country. … Bradley’s game-winning jumper at the buzzer to give Arizona the win over Iowa State was the first buzzer-beater by a Wildcat since Azuolas Tubelis against Arizona State in 2021. … Bradley finished with 15 points, seven assists, and no turnovers to become just the second Arizona player in the last 30 years to post that line in a conference tournament game (Dalen Terry did in 2022 against UCLA). … Tobe Awaka recorded his second double-double in as many games with 10 points and 10 rebounds against Iowa State. He has eight double-doubles on the year and 15 games with 10 or more rebounds. … Freshman Ivan Kharchenkov finished with 17 points, five assists, and three steals against Iowa State. He was 6 of 9 from the floor in the game and is 14 of 20 shooting over the last three games. … Freshman Koa Peat, who was recruited heavily by Houston, tied his season high with five assists in the semifinal game against Iowa State. He did not play against Houston in the previous game because he was nursing a muscle strain in his leg. … Brayden Burries was limited to three points (tying a season low) from the free-throw line against Iowa State. ESPN cameras showed with a heat-pad strap on his left thigh and calf early in the second half. He played afterward. In the previous meeting with Houston, he was affected by an illness. He had seven points on 1-of-5 shooting from the field in that game. … Motiejus Krivas has a career-best 61 blocked shots this season, becoming just the sixth Wildcat to record 60 or more blocked shots in a season and the first since Christian Koloko (102) in 2021-22. 

HOUSTON NOTES

Houston has been ranked in each of the last 124 AP polls for the nation’s longest active streak and the 14th longest streak in NCAA history. The streak includes 29 straight weeks in the AP Top 10. … Since 2017-18, Houston is the nation’s winningest team over the last two or more years (95), three-plus years (128), four-plus years (160), five-plus years (187), six-plus years (210), seven-plus years (244) and eight-plus (271) seasons. …With his Cougars’ win over Lehigh on Nov. 3, Sampson recorded the 800th win of his career and the 300th victory during his time in Houston. He became only the 17th coach in NCAA history (with 10 or more years at the Division I level) to record 800 victories and now has 827 in his career to rank 14th in NCAA history. … Sampson moved one step closer to the Naismith Hall of Fame when he was selected as one of 21 finalists earlier this month. Sampson’s name will be sent to the Honors Committee for voting with the Hall of Fame Class of 2026 unveiled during NCAA Final Four weekend in Indianapolis on April 4-6. Earlier this season, Sampson was selected to the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2026. In late January, Vice President for Athletics Eddie Nuñez announced that Sampson would be inducted into the Houston Athletics Hall of Honor later this fall. … Point guard Kingston Flemings became the first freshman in program history to earn All-America honors with his selections to the Second Team by The Sporting News and Field of 68. Flemings and senior guard Emanuel Sharp were named to the All-Big12 Conference First Team. Flemings also was named to the league’s All-Freshman Team while Sharp joined junior forward Joseph Tugler on the Big 12 All-Defensive Team. Tugler and senior point guard Milos Uzan received All-Big 12 Honorable Mention. … Flemings was named one of five finalists along with Bradley for the Bob Cousy Award (top collegiate point guard) while Sharp earned similar status for the Jerry West Award (top collegiate shooting guard) along with Burries. … Sharp continues to rise on the Houston career charts. The four-year letterman is now second in wins (123), 11th in points (1,641) and became the Cougars’ career-3-point field goal leader after draining a career-high eight in a win Feb. 10 at Utah.

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