While there’s still some concerns overall with the Wildcats’ defense – which allowed Oregon, North Dakota and Saint Mary’s to all shoot 50 percent or better for a half – Arizona has tightened up in recent weeks.
Their defense is now ranked No. 24 in efficiency, according to kenpom.com, allowing just 94.8 points per 100 opponent possessions. And since UA’s blowout loss in Eugene, Oregon, on Feb. 4, when the Ducks shot 64 percent from 3-point territory, Arizona has kept its opponents under the 33 percent mark from long range in 10 of 12 games.
“Since that loss we’ve had to really buckle down on defense especially,” Jackson-Cartwright said. “Up in Eugene, they played a really good game. We obviously didn’t.”
Last weekend provided a two-part test. Fast-paced North Dakota hit 10 of 22 3-pointers (45.5 percent) in the first round last Thursday.
When Arizona had a chance to settle into its defense more often against slower Saint Mary’s, the Wildcats helped keep the Gaels to just 23.8 percent from 3-point range, despite the heavy screening that had helped Saint Mary’s shoot nearly 40 percent from long range entering the game.
“They were a very difficult team to defend,” Miller said of North Dakota. “I think our players learned a team like that who moves the ball and has such great movement, your margin for error is razor-thin.
“But we really worked on it, really tried to show a lot of film, make that an emphasis.”
Both Miller and Saint Mary’s coach Randy Bennett said the Gaels also just plain missed on some good looks they managed to get, but Bennett said the Wildcats don’t exactly make anything easy.
“They’ll give you 3s, but they’re flying at you when you shoot them and they’re pretty athletic so they can get a big hand up there,” Bennett said. “We had some open ones we needed to make. Sometimes the game comes down to it. A big part of our game is shooting the ball from three and we didn’t shoot it well enough.”
