Five takeaways from No. 9 Arizona’s loss to Oregon in Eugene

The No. 9-ranked Arizona Wildcats fell to the Oregon Ducks 87-68 in Eugene on Saturday.

Here are five takeaways from the UA’s latest setback as it falls to 15-3 (4-3 Pac-12) on the season, with a homestand against the Los Angeles schools looming:

1. Making the right moves

Oregon head coach Dana Altman, who is the only head coach currently in the Pac-12 with a winning record against the Wildcats, hinted that he would tweak the Ducks’ starting lineup — or “shake some things up” — following their blowout loss to Arizona State on Thursday, “give some guys opportunities.” 

Altman is a man of his word. 

Oregon installed guard Jermaine Couisnard and center Nathan Bittle into the starting rotation, replacing guard Brennan Grigsby and forward Quincy Guerrier. Couisnard, a transfer from South Carolina who missed 14 games this season with a knee injury, scored a season-high 27 points on 9-for-14 shooting from the field — 6-for-9 from 3-point range. Bittle, a former UA recruiting target, had 10 points and four rebounds.

The 7-foot Bittle and 6-11 N’Faly Dante sized up Arizona’s frontcourt of Pac-12 Player of the Year candidate Azuolas Tubelis and the advancing Oumar Ballo. Dante’s 22 points matched his season-best, which happened on Dec. 1 against Washington State. 

2. Ducks dominate the boards, paint

It’s not often Arizona gets out-rebounded. In fact, the Wildcats have been out-rebounded only 11 times in 55 games all-time under head coach Tommy Lloyd, albeit the UA was 5-2 last season when being out-rebounded. 

Arizona is 1-3 this season when being out-rebounded, including Saturday; the Wildcats were out-rebounded in a win over Washington last week. 

Against Oregon, Arizona was out-rebounded 42-32, including 26-12 in the first half. The Wildcats and Ducks each had 13 rebounds, but Oregon had 14 second-chance points to Arizona’s five. Oregon also had 40 points in the paint; Arizona had 30.

In the second half, Arizona’s frontcourt tandem of Tubelis and Ballo — the Pac-12’s leading scorer and rebounder — combined for six points on 2-for-9 shooting and eight rebounds. In the first half, they had 18 points, knocking down 8 of 14 shots, and five rebounds.

3. Kriisa goes cold (again)

Kerr Kriisa may need to change up his pregame routine on the weekends because Arizona’s point guard hasn’t shot over 25% during weekend games since the Wildcats’ win over Indiana in Las Vegas last month. 

Since then, Kriisa has made 9 of 40 (23%) field goals on Saturdays; he’s 7-for-34 (20%) from 3-point range during that stretch. 

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How does that compare to weekday contests over the last month? Kriisa is 41% from the field, including 44% from beyond the arc, during that time. 

Not only was Kriisa 2-for-10 from the field against Oregon, the third-year guard from Estonia got into foul trouble. Kriisa had four fouls Saturday, including three in the first half. Kriisa’s first foul was an attempted charge at the rim on a fast break in the first minute of the game, but Dante flushed a thunderous dunk and drew an and-one. 

Kriisa picked up his fourth foul with 12:21 left to play, leaving an opportunity for freshman point guard Kylan Boswell to earn more minutes. 

4. Boswell continues to gain more experience, improve

Kriisa’s fault was Boswell’s gain. The 17-year-old freshman point guard, who reclassified from Arizona’s 2023 recruiting class to ‘22, ended Saturday with a career-high 15 points in 24 minutes, the most he has played since logging 26 minutes against Texas A&M Corpus Christi in December. Boswell — also known as “Bam Bam” — was 6-for-11 from the field and was 50% from 3-point range.

Lloyd said at the start of the season to stall evaluations of Boswell’s first season at the UA until January, due to rehabilitation from offseason foot surgery. Boswell has manned the backup point guard role all season, albeit playing spotty minutes in 2022. 

Since the turn of the calendar year, Boswell has averaged 18 minutes. More notably, the former five-star point guard played in the closing minutes of Arizona’s one-possession win over Washington, after guard Courtney Ramey struggled.  

Boswell also has a 38:15 assist-to-turnover ratio this season; Kriisa, who leads the Pac-12 in assists, is 106:55, while Ramey is 52:25.

5. Just one of those days

The vibes from the college basketball realm didn’t quite bode well for Arizona. Eleven teams ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 lost — nine of them to unranked opponents; No. 5 Tennessee was the only other top-10 team to lose on Saturday. 

Plus, the Wildcats are 1-8 at Matthew Knight Arena since it opened in 2011. The Wildcats have not won at Oregon since 2015.

The loss to Oregon puts the Wildcats at 4-3 in conference play and tied for fifth place in the Pac-12 standings behind UCLA, Arizona State, Utah and USC. No. 7 UCLA’s 68-54 win over Colorado kept the Bruins unscathed in Pac-12 play. ASU rallied back from a 16-point deficit to beat Oregon State, completing the road sweep, and moved to 6-1 in conference play for the first time since 1981. 

Arizona faces USC on Thursday, then UCLA on Saturday at McKale Center.

Photos: No. 9 Arizona Wildcats fall to Oregon Ducks, Pac-12 basketball