Can Arizona men’s basketball win it all without elite 3-point shooting? | Michael Lev

If the Arizona men’s basketball team is to win the national championship — a realistic and attainable goal — it will have to shoot better from 3-point range than it has lately.

Or maybe not.

As the Wildcats were bricking 3-pointers again Wednesday night against Cincinnati, I posed this question on social media:

At what point does Arizona's 3-point shooting become a legit concern? Are we there yet?

It elicited a multitude of responses from Arizona’s ardent fans. Some said it wasn’t a concern. Some said it was. Some said it could become one eventually.

It sure didn’t matter against the Bearcats. Despite making only 3 of 13 shots from beyond the arc, Arizona stomped Cincinnati 77-51 at McKale Center. The Wildcats are 19-0 and the unanimous No. 1 team in the nation. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?

Arizona is so good at so many other aspects of the game that it doesn’t need to be good at 3-point shooting. Or at least it hasn’t needed to be so far.

We might think differently if the shots aren’t falling and Arizona loses Monday night at No. 13 BYU. Or at No. 19 Kansas on Feb. 9. Or against any of the many rugged opponents that dot the back half of the UA’s Big 12 slate.

While the Wildcats insist they aren’t looking past the next game — Saturday vs. West Virginia — we’re under no obligation to do so. Arizona is firmly in the national-championship conversation thanks to its perfect start and its No. 1 strength of record, per ESPN’s metrics.

Which got me to thinking: Would the Wildcats be outliers if they won the natty while shooting around 36% from beyond the arc?

It turns out they wouldn’t be. The past four national champions weren’t great 3-point shooting teams either:

– 2025: Florida, 35.6%

– 2024: UConn, 35.8%

– 2023: UConn, 36.3%

– 2022: Kansas, 36.1%

Those teams ranked between 55th (Kansas) and 83rd (Florida) in 3-point accuracy. Arizona was 51st entering Wednesday night, when its 3-point percentage fell from 36.5% to 35.9%.

The 2021 national champ, Baylor, was the best 3-point shooting team in the country at 41.3%.

There’s more than one way to win a natty.

“There's also this thing called transition,” UA coach Tommy Lloyd said. “And you have to score on us. And you have to rebound on us. There's so many factors that go into it.

“I know isolating that single variable (3-point shooting) is so easy to do and get fixated on. But there's a lot of components that go into winning a basketball game.

“Now, do I want to go 3 for 13 every day? No. But I'm not going to get hung up on it."

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

Will ‘Delly’ deliver?

Aside from not making many 3’s, Arizona authored an analytical masterpiece vs. Cincinnati. Every single point the Wildcats scored came in the paint (48), at the foul line (20) or from beyond the arc (nine).

Lloyd couldn’t help but notice Arizona’s 28 free throw attempts and 48 paint points. Neither was an anomaly.

“Man,” he said. “That's a heavy load to play against.”

This UA basketball team plays like Jim Harbaugh’s Stanford football teams. Motiejus Krivas, Koa Peat (whose older brother, Andrus, played for the Cardinal), and Tobe Awaka are the tight ends. Bully-ball is their M.O.

Those three players combined to make 14 of 20 shots Wednesday — all in the paint. The rest of the team was just 13 of 43.

That included a 0-for-5 performance by senior guard Anthony Dell’Orso, who’s in a horrific slump. Dell’Orso is 0 for 14 from the floor — 0 from 6 from 3-point range — over the past three games. He has just two points, total, over that stretch via a pair of free throws.

A 41.3% 3-point shooter last season, Dell’Orso has made just 29.3% from beyond the arc this season — and has gotten worse every month. That’s a worrisome trend because outside shooting is supposed to be his biggest strength, and the Wildcats don’t have many other threats.

Asked what his message is for Dell’Orso, Lloyd said simply: “Hang with it.”

“I love Delly,” Lloyd added. “I love how he's handling this. I have a real strong belief that we're going to get the best from Delly when we need it.

“Not that we don't want it or need it every night. But he is going to deliver. So I'm going to hang with him. I'm not going to change anything.”

That was a reference to Arizona’s rotation, which has held steady at eight players. Dell’Orso’s minutes have not. He averaged 25.3 minutes in November, 22 in December and is at 18.2 so far in January. Dell’Orso played just 14 minutes Wednesday, his second-fewest this season.

If Dell’Orso can’t make 3-pointers consistently, he’s unquestionably the eighth man in that eight-man rotation. Could the Wildcats still win it all if he never comes out of this slump? Sure. But they might be unbeatable if he does.

‘We'll be all right’

Any perimeter threat will pull defenders away from the lane and give Krivas, Peat and Awaka more elbow room. (Speaking of which, freshman guard Brayden Burries has felt the pain of a Krivas post-up during practice. “That little elbow thing? It hurts,” Burries said, cracking up the postgame press corps.)

Arizona actually has two rotation regulars who shoot over 45% from 3: Jaden Bradley (45.2%) and Dwayne Aristode (48.9%). Bradley just doesn’t take that many — 1.6 attempts per game — preferring instead to drive and draw fouls. Aristode, meanwhile, is still finding his way as an unpolished freshman.

Aristode averages the fewest minutes (15.7) among the rotation players. Maybe that changes if Lloyd feels that Arizona needs more/better 3-point shooting — which, again, hasn’t been the case thus far. By percentage, only two teams in the country take fewer 3-point shots than the Wildcats — who nonetheless rank among the top 15 nationally in scoring.

“It's a figure-it-out-as-it-goes deal,” Lloyd said. “It's a game-by-game deal. I would have to see how a team is going to defend us just to force us to shoot a bunch of 3’s.”

At some point, Arizona will run up against a team that can match its size and strength. If that team packs the paint and double-teams the big men — which Cincinnati did quite a bit Wednesday — we’ll find out whether the Wildcats’ 3-point mediocrity matters.

“We could do better,” said Burries, who leads the team with 29 made 3’s. “But I feel like we'll be all right.”

Photos: Undefeated Arizona muscles its way to a 77-51 win over Cincinnati, Big 12 basketball