Arizona Wildcats facing peak Big 12: Iowa St. and Kansas over next 2 Saturdays

On their first tour through the Big 12 this season, the Arizona Wildcats have traded visits to glamorous West Coast cities with towns on the Plains, taken mostly longer trips and dealt with every sort of adverse winter weather imaginable.

That was to be expected. But so is this: The competition and arena environments have been better than Arizona found in the Pac-12, and both will likely peak for the Wildcats over the final two Saturdays of the regular season.

Already facing mostly strong competition throughout their new conference, the Wildcats now get a chance to face No. 9 Iowa State on Saturday, in front of 14,000 fans at the Cyclones’ renowned Hilton Coliseum and an ESPN audience. Former Iowa State star Tyrese Haliburton is scheduled to be on hand and celebrated for his Olympic gold medal.

A similarly atmospheric and adverse environment also awaits the Wildcats on Saturday, March 8, at Kansas’ storied Allen Fieldhouse.

They won’t be Saturday afternoons at Pauley Pavilion, with all the tradition an Arizona-UCLA game used to carry. But the environments will likely be louder, certainly more so than the Saturday games the Wildcats played in Eugene or Berkeley or even Seattle in years past.

They will be tough for the Wildcats, of course, but maybe also a lot of fun.

“Let’s go,” UA coach Tommy Lloyd said of Saturday’s game at Iowa State. “It’s going to be an awesome. We’re excited to go see what this deal is all about. Obviously, we’ve heard a lot about it, and I’m sure it’s going to be awesome.”

What they may have heard: That Iowa State has won 32 of 33 games over the past two seasons at Hilton Coliseum, where an average of 14,035 fans tend to maximize the building’s noise-friendly engineering.

Iowa State says Hilton Coliseum, named after a former ISU president who pushed for the construction of the facility that opened in 1971, was specifically built to hold in sound with solid concrete structure, steel doors and fan seating that extends to just a few feet from the floor.

Veteran basketball reporter Andy Katz of NCAA.com rates it the No. 6 venue in college basketball, three spots ahead of McKale Center. Two UA coaches who have been there, Steve Robinson and Rem Bakamus, have said Hilton is among the toughest places they have coached at.

“Maybe top 10,” said Robinson, who visited there while working on Roy Williams’ staffs at Kansas. “Loud and enthusiastic fan base.”

Also what the Wildcats may have heard: That those Cyclone fans probably will be waiting for them.

Arizona was trailing most of its Jan. 27 game with Iowa State at McKale, and Caleb Love was shooting 1 for 10, before Love hit an improbable 60-foot buzzer-beater to send the game into overtime. Then Love hit two 3s in overtime as the Wildcats pulled away to win 86-75 and knock the then-No. 3 Cyclones on a slightly downward trajectory since that night.

That makes it easy to guess what individual probably gets the least amount of love inside Hilton on Saturday: It’s gotta be Caleb.

But, while Love has not been made available for comment this week, UA coach Tommy Lloyd pretty much shrugged when asked about what Love might be facing.

“You know how much that kid’s been booed in his life?” Lloyd said. “Probably business as usual.”

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It is worth noting that, while Love has been notably inconsistent, he can get just as hot on the road as at McKale. Love set the single-game scoring mark at Oregon’s Matthew Knight Arena last season with 36 points, after all.

And, while Love missed all six 3s he took in a foul-plagued effort at Wisconsin last November, he combined for 9-of-18 3-point shooting in road games at ASU and BYU in early February.

Love is also known nationally for pasting 28 points on Duke as a North Carolina sophomore in the 2022 Final Four, sending legendary Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski into retirement.

“I think he’s been through the battles and the wars, so I would expect him to show up and be unaffected,” Lloyd said. “That better be what happens.”

But while Love is coming off one of his best overall games of the season, a two-way effort that included 23 points against Utah and defense that helped hold Utes leading scorer Gabe Madsen in check, the Cyclones could be at their peak, too.

For one thing, Iowa State is likely to be a little angry after coming off two straight losses — a 68-59 loss at Houston on Feb. 22 that threw them out of Big 12 title contention, and a humbling, turnover-plagued loss at Oklahoma State on Tuesday.

That’s probably why, when Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger was asked Thursday about the rematch with Arizona, he launched instead into his own team.

“More than anything, it’s about us playing to our standard, doing what we need to do well,” Otzelberger said. “Yes, we want to play great on Saturday at Hilton. Yep, we should have won the game last time. We didn’t finish the job.

“Of course, all that should be built up internally, even more than the opponent. We should have pride in what we do, in a job well done, even before we can worry about the 10% of preparation for Arizona. So we’re putting a tremendous emphasis and focus on our daily habits, what we need to do, how we need to play.”

They also are expected to have their full rotation available. Leading scorer Curtis Jones missed the Cyclones’ Feb. 22 loss at Houston, while point guard Keshon Gilbert missed the Houston and Oklahoma State games.

Iowa State was also notably without starting forward Milan Momcilovic for seven games earlier in Big 12 play, including the Jan. 27 game at McKale.

Overall, the Cyclones are 18-1 when its top eight players are available and 3-6 when at least one is missing.

But nobody may be missing Saturday.

On the bench, or in the stands.

“They’ve dealt with a ton of injuries over the course of this season, and I just have a sneaky suspicion they’re going to be 100% healthy Saturday for the Wildcats,” Lloyd said on his radio show Thursday. “But it’s a battle and it’s a test that we need, and we feel good about where we’re at and where we’re going.

“There’s still a couple opportunities I kind of grit my teeth about but all in all, we’re trending in the right direction. Every game is important.”