Free throws, big men helped Arizona take advantage of rowdy McKale in win over Tennessee

By the time Tennessee big man Uros Plavsic introduced himself to the rowdy McKale Center crowd by repeatedly bumping his chest into Oumar Ballo, it was already on.

Not even three minutes had passed in Arizona’s 75-70 win over Tennessee on Saturday when it was already clear something would have to be different for the Wildcats if they were to hang on for their 25th straight homecourt win.

Arizona (10-1) didn’t fall into anything near the 16-2 deficit they could not overcame last season in a four-point loss at Tennessee (now 9-2), but the Wildcats’ normal tricks weren’t all working, either.

Arizona allowed the mediocre-shooting Volunteers to make five of their first nine shots from the field, and nine of their first 16. The Wildcats’ post defense initially struggled to deal with Plavsic, a Serbian 7-footer who once redshirted at ASU, and the stretch-four shooting of Olivier Nkamhoua.

Offensively, Arizona shot only 42.4% and hit only 5 of 24 3-pointers, getting zero points from its four reserve players. Moreover, point guard Kerr Kriisa was still sputtering offensively after an illness sent him out early in a game four days earlier against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.

Kriisa hit the two technical free throws that resulted from Plavsic’s chest-bumping but was just 1 of 7 from 3-point range. Courtney Ramey (4 of 9) was the only other UA player to make a 3-pointer all night.

This wasn’t going be another 100-point, 90-point or even 80-point game. The Wildcats needed other things to happen.

“I thought we were at times almost too tentative,” UA coach Tommy Lloyd said. “Some of those passes when we got out past the 3-point line, I was holding my breath. You’ve got to fight force with force. It’s really the only way to do it.”

Eventually, they did just enough. Here’s a few reasons why:

Arizona guard Kerr Kriisa draws a charge from Tennessee guard Zakai Zeigler during the Wildcats’ hard-fought victory over the Volunteers.
Kelly Presnell, Arizona Daily Star

1. Tubelis turned it around

Saying he was “lost” in Arizona’s 77-73 win at Tennessee last season, forward Azuolas Tubelis just missed putting together his fifth straight 20-point game, collecting 19 points on 7-for-11 shooting while making 5 of 6 free throws and grabbing nine rebounds.

Combined with what is becoming an almost typical output of 18 points and eight rebounds from center Oumar Ballo, and the Wildcats eventually outdid the Volunteers inside.

“Oumar and ’Zu, we’ve got to get that out of them every night no matter how they guard us, and they’re a force in there,” Lloyd said, also crediting reserve center Henri Veesaar and how wings Pelle Larsson and Cedric Henderson occasionally helped defend big forwards. “Those two are dominant guys and you’re probably going to go back and wish we would have gotten them ball a little bit more in there.”

Tubelis was so motivated that Lloyd tried to pull him back just a little after Tubelis sent a difficult high-low pass to Veesaar at one point.

“I told ’Zu, just take a breath, slow down and be the best player — you don’t have to hit any home runs out there,” Lloyd said, while noting of the Lithuanian junior: “He probably doesn’t know what that means.”

2. They wore out the line

Not only did Ballo and Tubelis combine for 13 trips to the free-throw line, each missing only one, but Larsson went nine times and hit every shot, while Kriisa hit all three he took.

Collectively, Arizona hit 24 of 27 free throws while Tennessee made 8 of 10, meaning the Wildcats took 17 more free throws and scored 16 more points at the line.

“There’s different ways to win,” Lloyd said, “and to be able to get to the free-throw line and make free throws the way we did was huge.”

Larsson led the way by setting career-highs in both free-throw attempts and makes in his 9-for-9 performance, a stat Lloyd called “significant.”

“Pelle — the word I use a lot is force,” Lloyd said. “He plays with force. When they’re that aggressive on the perimeter, you have to go at them and if you go at them and there’s two hands on you, or it’s a hand check, or you get hip checked, those are fouls. Fortunately they called them.”

Or, if you’re Tennessee coach Rick Barnes, unfortunately they called them.

“You know what? I have a lot of respect for these three officials,” Barnes said. “But (I’m) not real happy. Because I didn’t see it that way, although I don’t want to take anything away from Arizona.”

In any case, Larsson said it was imperative to force the issue.

“Guys bang up on you, and you just break through draw a foul, or just simply be aggressive,” Larsson said. “Everyone on our team does a good job of that. O (Ballo) and ’Zu get to the line all the time so we just stay aggressive. Teams have to foul us to stop us.”

Fittingly, Ballo drew a foul under the basket with 27 seconds left and hit both ensuing free throws to give UA a 73-67 lead that put the game away.

“It was great,” Lloyd said. “I tell you guys how happy I am for Oumar but we’re in the middle of a journey. So there’s not a lot of time to reflect but to see him step up and hit two free throws at the end of the game gives him confidence. We need him defensively at the end of the game and we need him to rebound at the end of the game.

“When you close out those games, it’s a luxury when your best defensive players and rebounders can also make free throws.”

3. It was their turn

Arizona’s two-year series with Tennessee was one of those increasingly rare big-time home-and-home series in which two equal teams often wind up defending their home courts.

The Volunteers did so last December, edging the Wildcats before a crowd of 20,408 that was both vocal and somewhat blinding — that is, even Santa Claus wore an orange suit for that one.

But on Saturday, McKale Center was at its best, with a sellout crowd of red- and white-clad fans, and enough human noise that the usual ear-splitting electronic stuff wasn’t really even needed.

While it can’t be known for sure how much the crowd affected the Wildcats (or the foul calls), the home-court edge certainly didn’t hurt Arizona.

“Obviously it’s very significant,” Lloyd said. “I mean, there’s statistics to back it up. … Last year, we got punched at Tennessee. We got ourselves back in the game. We showed some grit. But we dug too big of a hole.

“This game was a little more even. But both games ended up being knock-down, drag-out, right to the end.”