Arizona forward Brandon Ashley intercepts an alley-oop pass intended for UC-Irvine forward Will Davis II during the first half.
Arizona forward Rondae Hollis-Jefferson celebrates after a slam dunk against 7-foot-6-inch UC-Irvine center Mamadou Ndiaye in the second half. “I definitely told my teammates I was going to dunk on him,” Hollis-Jefferson said.
Arizona forward Rondae Hollis-Jefferson drives over UC-Irvine center Mamadou Ndiaye on his way to the bucket in the second half of the Wildcats’ 71-54 win at McKale Center on Wednesday.
If the Arizona Wildcats once again become the nation’s most efficient defensive team this season, the turning point happened Wednesday.
During a 71-54 win over UC-Irvine that felt closer than the final score indicated, the Wildcats trailed at halftime and for the first 11 minutes of the second half before their defense turned the game inside-out.
With 10:30 to go, the Anteaters of the Big West Conference led by five points against the nation’s second-ranked team.
So, for the first time since the new McKale Center debuted, UA fans stood and yelled at a level normally seen only during major nonconference games and Pac-12 rivalries.
But if there was panic on the outside, there wasn’t on the floor.
The Wildcats, after all, had not yet fully engaged their defense.
“We just said, ‘We’re two or three buckets from going on a big run,’” UA guard T.J. McConnell said. “It starts on defense. We locked down on defense, and we got those two or three buckets.”
And then some. UA actually went on a 15-0 run over a 6:06 stretch, creating and taking advantage of five UC-Irvine turnovers during that stretch. The Wildcats extended the run to finish on a 30-8 note, finally breathing in the final minute.
UA (3-0) finished the game with 11 steals and scored 17 points off the Anteaters’ 15 turnovers.
“I not only feel great about it, but I think we grew up tonight,” UA coach Sean Miller said. “We can’t play any harder or more together on defense.”
Or have more fun. Rondae Hollis-Jefferson can tell you about that. Or he can just show you.
Having accepted a sixth-man role on a team crowded with potential starters, according to Miller, Hollis-Jefferson threw down the dunk of the game — or maybe even the season — during the UA run when he took a baseline feed from Stanley Johnson and drove down the middle for a one-handed dunk over the 7-foot-6-inch Mamadou Ndiaye.
Yes, the 7-6 Mamadou Ndiaye.
If that was a surprise to everyone else, it wasn’t to Hollis-Jefferson.
Johnson “saw me cut down the middle, and my eyes got really big,” Hollis-Jefferson said. “I just knew I had him once I saw him turn slow. I went up and jumped, and from there, the rest was history.
“I definitely told my teammates I was going to dunk on him. And I think that’s my cousin, by the way.”
That last remark generated a few eyebrows and laughter. Hollis-Jefferson kept going.
“Seriously. My uncle’s last name is Ndiaye.”
Maybe. Maybe not. Ndiaye is from Senegal, Hollis-Jefferson from Pennsylvania. Whatever the case, the Wildcats weren’t about to question Hollis-Jefferson, who led all scorers with 19 points.
Already, he had made a surprising decision to benefit them by keep coming off the bench. Miller has essentially six guys capable of starting and Hollis-Jefferson, a projected NBA first-rounder next spring, already played a sixth-man role last year.
But he is willing to do it again, Miller said. That allows the Wildcats to start with the space-creating shooting of Gabe York and the scoring potential of Stanley Johnson on the wings.
“I had a talk with Rondae, and I really left it up to him, because he’s clearly one of our five best players,” Miller said. “He told me that he felt that coming off the bench was not only good for him, but good for the team.
“There aren’t a lot of kids who would come off the bench if they’re him. It wasn’t as if I had to sell it. That’s who he is. That’s his greatest strength. He is unselfish to the core, and I also believe that’s one of the reasons he’s playing so well, because he’s not caught up in himself. He’s caught up in the team.”
Hollis-Jefferson also led the Wildcats in the much-needed category of free-throw shooting, making 11 of 13 shots from the line. As a team, Arizona hit 85 percent of its free throws after averaging 56.7 percent over the first two games.
“I would say it’s a mental thing,” Hollis-Jefferson said. “Every time you go up, you have got to have a shooters’ mentality that it’s going to go in. That’s what I had.”
