On Monday night, No. 1 Arizona was looking to wrap up its non-conference slate of games with a win against South Dakota State. The Wildcats were able to cruise to an impressive 99-71 victory over the Jackrabbits at McKale Center.
The Wildcats were led by star freshman forward Koa Peat, who recorded a double-double with 19 points and a career-high 14 rebounds. Peat managed to shoot 58% from the field and even knocked down a 3-point shot from the top of the arc.
This marks the second time this season that Peat has recorded a double-double. His first this season came in the Wildcats’ 71-67 win over UConn.
Now that the Wildcats have wrapped up a perfect non-conference schedule, Arizona has managed to collect five wins over Florida, UCLA, UConn, Auburn and Alabama. Overall, UA has four Quad 1 wins and two Quad 2 wins.
Before Arizona gets ready for the Big 12 schedule, I came up with my three top observations for the Wildcats’ win over the Jackrabbits.
Pressing Defense
Throughout the Tommy Lloyd era, Arizona’s hasn’t been a defensive pressing team despite having fast and athletic teams. However, over the last couple of games, Arizona has started to mix up its defensive looks and has run some variations of a press.
“I think we’ve had spurts where it’s been really good. Today was alright. We got back in transition a couple of times,” said Peat. “They hit a couple of 3s. We got out of it. But, [we’re] just trying to work on that each and every day in practice. That’s something we really work on and I think we’ll keep developing and get better at that.”
Now, it has mostly come in games against mid-major opponents like South Dakota State but it is worth noting and keeping an eye on. This could be a defensive look that Lloyd is trying to develop and get ready for the second half of the Big 12 schedule and would give the team a changeup to throw at teams.
Turnover Bug
Although the Wildcats were able to score 99 points against South Dakota State, Arizona had a hard time at controlling the ball throughout moments in the game and turned the ball over 14 times. The 14 turnovers led to 15 points on the other end for the Jackrabbits.
“I think that’s something that you always gotta be mindful of but it’s a double-edged sword,” Lloyd said. “You want a team to be aggressive and opportunistic and you gotta learn how to push the line and push the envelope there a little bit.
“It’s a simple deal a lot of the time with these turnovers. A lot of the time is you just look across the board and if everyone takes one mistake away from their performance that night, it might cut three to four turnovers down. And now you’re where you want to be.”
This is back-to-back games in which Arizona has turned the ball over 14-plus times and it has led to 32 points for opponents.
Now, in Lloyd’s system, you get a high-number of possessions given the tempo the team plays. However, an average of 14.5 turnovers over the last two games is something the Wildcats can work to clean up.
3-point Defense
Arizona has been a sound defensive team this season but has had moments where the 3-point line has been a struggle to defend. The Wildcats are allowing teams to shoot 32% from the 3-point line, which ranks 135 nationally.
Against South Dakota State, the Wildcats allowed their opponent to shoot 45% from deep and saw the Jackrabbits knock down 10 shots from 3-point range.
“I felt like, at least a handful of them were broken plays where we were on the verge of getting a turnover, or really pressuring them, making them uncomfortable and we didn’t quite get it,” said Lloyd. “They picked up a loose ball, or made an extra pass and banged in a 3 and that allowed them to hang in the game.”
However, the defense did improve in the second half after seeing SDSU go 6 of 9 from deep in the first period.
Arizona will now get ready for Big 12 play and hit the road to take on Utah (8-4) with a 2 p.m. tipoff Saturday with the game being televised on NBC Sports Network, or can be streamed on Peacock.
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