Motiejus Krivas and Arizona basketball 'don't need to be pretty' as wins continue

After he drew four fouls in a wrestling match at TCU earlier this month, Arizona men's basketball center Motiejus Krivas left the building beaten up both physically and mentally.

Physically, by the Horned Frogs, and mentally, by himself.

“I have to learn from my mistakes and get better,” Krivas said after that Jan. 10 game in Fort Worth, Texas. “I have to get back, watch film, see what I did wrong. Get more balanced. Expect the contact. And make the and-ones.”

There was something else, too. Trying to prop up his discouraged Lithuanian center, UA coach Tommy Lloyd soon found out what that was.

“As we got off the plane, he and I were talking about it, and I just told him to hang in there and focus on a few techniques that can help him out,” Lloyd said after Krivas led No. 1-ranked UA to a 77-51 win over Cincinnati on Wednesday. “He just said to me, 'Coach, I think I just got to be a little bit tougher.'

“When a player tells you that, (while) taking the physical beating he is, you tip your hat to him because that ain't easy to do.”

While Krivas was limited again with four fouls against ASU on Jan. 14, he has dominated inside since. He scored 17 points in each of UA’s past two games and averaged 10.5 rebounds, not holding back an ounce of his 7-foot-2, 260-pound frame.

He's also fighting back if he believes others are taking physicality over the line.

With six minutes left in the Wildcats’ win over Cincinnati on Wednesday, Krivas and Cincinnati’s Baba Miller were mixing it up near the basket. There was initially no call, but replays showed Miller grabbed Krivas’ upper body and tossed him aside.

Cincinnati called timeout, and the normally soft-spoken Krivas went back to the Arizona bench about as livid as he gets.

“He never really complains about anything — and just said, 'Hey, the guy basically horse-collared me,'" Lloyd said.

Lloyd said he was on the floor and couldn’t immediately see a replay, but that his staff was “pretty confident” that Miller had committed a Flagrant 1 foul for the unnecessary contact. So the UA coach appealed to the officials to review it, and the appeal won.

Making an appeal for a flagrant foul is a different process than the limited “coach challenges” that have been allowed this season, mostly for out-of-bounds or restricted-area calls, and even Lloyd says he doesn’t know all the details. Especially in this case, when the official told fans over the PA system that UA had used a “challenge” even though it was an appeal.

“Oh my God, my head’s gonna explode,” Lloyd said when asked about the difference. “I don't know if I'm really comfortable with any of this stuff. I don't know if ‘protest’ is the right word or ‘challenge.’ But this other (appeal) thing is taking on a life of its own so fast. In the (Jan. 14) UCF game, it seemed like every timeout, there was one of them.

“Lots of things to figure out. I'm sure there'll be some changes made to that next year. … it is confusing, and I'm not going to act like I have a complete understanding of it.”

But what really mattered Wednesday for Arizona was that it worked. Krivas was given the chance to shoot two free throws after Miller was assessed a Flagrant 1 foul, making both of them to give the Wildcats a 60-46 lead and nearly putting the game out of hand.

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

The free throws gave Krivas his 16th and 17th points to go with eight rebounds, while he would add another rebound and an assist on a 3-pointer by Brayden Burries before leaving the game with 2:19 left and UA ahead by 23.

“He's just so strong,” Burries said of Krivas afterward. “When I first got here, I didn’t really think he was that strong. He does this little elbow thing, and, like, it hurt.”

After pausing for the laughter coming from the McKale interview room over that comment, Burries went on.

“His touch around the rim” is improving, Burries said. “He’s great screener. He's starting to be more of a lob threat. He’s getting more athletic and he's just a great guy to be around, honestly, not only on the court but off the court. Just a great person.”

Maybe that elbow rubbed off on Burries a little bit, too. Because while Krivas collected 17 points and nine rebounds against Cincinnati, and while forward Koa Peat added 13 points and six rebounds, the 6-4 Burries posted his second double-double of the season with 12 points and 10 rebounds.

Also: Burries only had one turnover in 30 minutes, while point guard Jaden Bradley had none in 31 minutes. Each had four assists.

“He’s just gotten so much better over the course of the year,” Lloyd said of Burries. “I just hope he understands that you're not always going to have 27 next to your name on the stat sheet for points. It's just how it goes at this level.

"I thought he was great today in a lot of areas. I thought he did a good job handling their pressure and handling the ball. For him and JB to run the point against a team that turns a lot of people over and have eight assists and one turnover (combined), that’s a pretty impressive performance.”

On a night when the Wildcats hit only 3 of 13 3-pointers — and one of those came in the final minutes, when mostly deep reserves were playing — the rebounding (UA held a 46-33 advantage over Cincinnati) and ballhandling (UA had six turnovers to Cincinnati's 14) was more than that for Arizona. 

It was critical.

But that's how the Wildcats are getting it done. 

They rank third to last in Division I in the ratio of 3s taken to overall field goals (27.1), while more often letting Krivas and the other bigs get to work inside … where they shoot a respectable 57.3% from two-point range and rank third nationally in offensive rebounding percentage (40.6), giving them a better chance to make up for whatever shots they do miss.

It works. At 19-0, Arizona is now just two games shy of tying the school’s record start set in 2013-14 heading into a home game against West Virginia on Saturday and a showdown at BYU on Monday.

“We don't need to be pretty. We’re not trying to be a pretty team," Lloyd said. "I always tell our guys, 'If we're not gritty, we look like a word that rhymes with gritty.' We want to be gritty. That's our DNA. That's what it takes to win at the highest levels of college basketball, and that's what it takes to win in this conference.”