No. 4 Arizona (25-2, 12-2) at Baylor (14-13, 4-10) | Foster Pavilion, Waco, Texas | 7 p.m. | ESPN2 | 1290-AM
Probable starters
ARIZONA
0 G Jaden Bradley (6-3 senior)
5 G Brayden Burries (6-4 freshman)
18 F Ivan Kharchenkov (6-7 freshman)
30 F Tobe Awaka (6-8 senior)
13 C Motiejus Krivas (7-2 junior)
Key reserves
3 F Anthony Dell’Orso (6-6 senior)
15 F Sidi Gueye (6-11 freshman)
21 G Evan Nelson (6-2 senior)
BAYLOR
5 G Obi Agbim (6-3 senior)
10 G Isaac Williams (6-1 sophomore)
43 F Cameron Carr (6-5 sophomore)
24 F Tounde Yessoufou (6-5 freshman)
44 C Caden Powell (6-9 senior)
Key reserves
0 F Dan Skillings (6-6 senior)
12 F Michael Rataj (6-8 senior)
46 C James Nnaji (7-0 freshman)
How they match up
The series: Arizona took a 7-5 lead in the all-time series after sweeping the Bears in their two Big 12 matchups last season, with the Wildcats winning 81-70 at Waco on Jan. 14 and 74-67 on Feb. 17 at McKale Center. Baylor had swept Arizona in a two-year nonconference series during the Sean Miller era, with the Bears beating the Wildcats 58-49 in 2018-19 at McKale and 63-58 in 2019-20 at Waco.
Baylor overview: The Bears lost everyone who hit the floor during their 20-win season in 2024-25: VJ Edgecombe went third in the NBA Draft, three guys ran out of eligibility and nine others left for the transfer portal. That sort of thing is no longer unusual in college basketball, but the Bears have been struggling to rebuild.
Baylor coach Scott Drew at least had a head start when he took his American players into the World University Games tournament last summer and earned a silver medal. Ultimately, though, it didn’t help much: The Bears went 10-2 against a middling nonconference schedule and have fallen off the map in Big 12 play. They lost seven of their first eight conference games, then lost four in a row before beating ASU on Saturday at Foster Pavilion.
Baylor does rank 38th in offensive efficiency, scoring an average of 121 points per 100 possessions largely because it is effective inside. The Bears shoot 54.6% from two-point range, and when they miss shots, have the 17th-best offensive rebounding percentage in Division I (36.9).
Individually, four Baylor players rank among the top 350 Division I players in offensive rebounding percentage: Center Caden Powell (22.0), forward Dan Skillings (10.0), forward Tounde Yessoufou (8.8) and forward Michael Rataj (9.7) while leading scorers Cameron Carr (58.9) and Yessoufou (55.4) are both potent scorers.
At 6-5, Carr is effective from 3-point range and at getting to the basket and/or the free-throw line. He draws 4.8 fouls per 40 minutes, hits free throws at a 78.8% rate and makes 3s at a 38.3% rate. Yessoufou, a physical and athletic forward who plays bigger than his 6-5 frame might indicate, shoots 55.4% from two-point range and 31.9% from 3.
Guards Isaac Williams and Obi Agbim share ballhandling duties, while Williams also has 10 blocks and 10 steals in 14 Big 12 games.
Also defensively, Yessoufou steals the ball on 3.4% of opponents’ possessions when he’s on the floor, while Carr blocks 4.2% of opponents’ two-pointers when he’s in games, according to Kenpom.
He said it: "Baylor hasn't had the type of season they're used to having. They have a great coach who is not far off from winning a national championship (in 2020-21). And on any given night in this conference, anyone can beat anyone.
"They definitely have talented players, and in playing at home, they probably have a little different energy. So we're going to have to go in there and respect their program, respect their coaches, respect their players and find a way to compete possession by possession." — UA coach Tommy Lloyd
Key players
BAYLOR
Cameron Carr
Baylor guard Cameron Carr (43) dunks the ball during the second half against St. John's, Nov. 25, 2025, in Las Vegas.
The son of a former NBA player who once finished second to Kobe Bryant in the 1997 NBA Dunk contest, Chris Carr, Cameron also has explosive athleticism fueling his versatile game. He played two years at Tennessee, redshirting last season after suffering an early-season thumb injury, and has become the Bears’ leading scorer.
ARIZONA
Sidi Gueye
Arizona forward Sidi Gueye (15) finishes off a big dunk late in the second half against Cincinnati, Jan. 21, 2026, in Tucson.
The Senegalese freshman has picked up 18 minutes over the Wildcats’ last two games, soaking up time vacated by Koa Peat and Dwayne Aristode while gaining experience the Wildcats just might need in the postseason. In eight minutes at Houston, Gueye committed only one foul and blocked a shot.
Sidelines
Familiar faces
Because Arizona pulled out of the race to land Yessoufou out of Santa Maria (Calif.) St. Joseph High School, with the talented native of Benin ultimately picking Baylor over ASU and USC, it wasn’t a surprise to see the Wildcats lose walk-on forward Will Kuykendall last spring.
Kuykendall, who played with Yessoufou at St. Joseph, was offered a full scholarship to play at Baylor, where he has played in seven games this season.
Yessoufou has become the Bears’ second-leading scorer (18.1 points) and continues to be a one-and-done possibility. With 490 points already, he’s on track to easily break the Baylor freshman scoring record of 509 points.
“Tounde’s a really good player,” Lloyd said. “He's had a great year, so I'm really happy for him.”
Baylor has a couple of other familiar faces, too.
Andre Iguodala, Jr., the son of one of UA’s most successful NBA players, is redshirting as a freshman developmental prospect this season.
Also, Baylor forward Rataj hit 2 of 3 pointers while collecting 12 points and seven rebounds for Oregon State when the Beavers upset Arizona 83-80 in Corvallis during the 2023-24 season.
Rataj went on to become a first-team all-West Coast Conference pick last season when the Pac-12 imploded, and Oregon State shifted to a WCC schedule, then leveraged that success into a transfer to Baylor.
He’s still there
When he signed up to join Baylor mid-season, center James Nnaji was the talk of college basketball, his presence a firm no-no in the oid “amateurism” days of the college game.
Taken No. 31 in the 2023-24 NBA Draft, Nnaji had been allowed to play for the Bears because he never signed an NBA contract, and was still within the five-year eligibility “clock” that normally starts during a player’s high school graduation.
A lot of folks didn't like that.
“I was getting a lot of insults and cuss words from people — like really, really, really rude things coming towards me," Nnaji told ESPN in January. "I was like, 'But what did I do, man?' I'm as young as everybody in here."
Since then, there hasn’t been much fuss.
For one thing, Charles Bediako pushed the eligibility boundary even further: Once having signed a two-way contract with the San Antonio Spurs, Bediako played five games for Alabama before his motion for an injunction to allow him to keep playing was denied.
For another: Nnaji hasn’t been much of a factor, anyway. The Bears have lost 11 of 15 games since he first put on a Baylor uniform, and he's averaged only one point and five minutes in the Bears’ past two games.
They’re still there
Despite the rough season that both the Bears and their last opponent, ASU, are having, Baylor nearly sold out its 7,500-seat Foster Pavilon on Saturday when it hoisted the Sun Devils. A crowd of 7,044 was announced for an arena that has 7,000 seats and standing area for 500 students.
“I don't think this happens if our crowd doesn't show up and give us the energy they did,” Baylor coach Drew said after Baylor beat ASU 73-68. “The way we played, it could have been half full, no energy. We can't be more thankful and grateful for our fans that have stuck with us this year."
Guard Williams, who had 14 points and five assists, appeared of the same mindset.
“That meant a lot to me,” Williams said. “They pay money to be here. They didn't have to be here on Saturday at 3 o'clock doing anything else. They all came and they all cheered us on, and it definitely helped us.”
As of Sunday afrernoon, less than 200 seats appeared to be available on Baylor’s ticketing seat map for Tuesday’s Baylor-Arizona game.
Numbers game
3: Arizona wins in five games against teams ranked No. 1 or 2 under fifth-year coach Lloyd: Duke (2) in 2023-24, and UConn (2) and Houston (2) this season.
4: Percent of the time Arizona played Ivan Kharchenkov at power forward before Peat was injured, according to college basketball analytics expert Evan Miyakawa. Kharchenkov played there much of the time in UA’s 73-66 win at Houston on Saturday, collecting 16 points and nine rebounds while playing a key defensive role.
5: Players with double-figure scoring averages at both Baylor and Arizona, if you round up Skillings’ 9.9 average.
– Bruce Pascoe
