Scouting report: No. 4 Arizona Wildcats at Cal Golden Bears

Probable starters

CAL

G Joel Brown (6-3 senior)

G Kuany Kuany (6-9 senior)

F Sam Alajiki (6-7 sophomore)

F Grant Newell (6-8 freshman)

C Lars Thiemann (7-1 senior)

ARIZONA

G Kerr Kriisa (6-3 junior)

G Courtney Ramey (6-3 senior)

F Cedric Henderson (6-6 senior)

F Azuolas Tubelis (6-11 junior)

C Oumar Ballo (7-0 junior)

How they match up

The last time: Azuolas Tubelis (25 points) and Oumar Ballo (17) helped Arizona bounce back from a loss at Utah three days earlier in an 81-68 win over the Golden Bears on Dec. 4 at McKale Center. Kerr Kriisa had eight assists to only one turnover but was 0 for 4 from 3-point range. The Wildcats allowed the Bears to shoot 44.4% from the field but made it to the free-throw line 18 more times, scoring 11 more points on foul shots than Cal. Arizona was 19 of 26, and Cal hit 8 of 8.

Last time at Haas Pavilion: The Wildcats were without Tubelis because of an ankle sprain he suffered three days earlier at Stanford, but Christian Koloko had 19 points and 13 rebounds, and Pelle Larsson scored nine points in his first UA start in the Wildcats’ 96-71 win. Arizona was never challenged, going up 17-3 early, leading by 19 at halftime, then going on an 11-0 run in the second half once Cal pulled within 16 points.

Series history: Arizona has beaten Cal 12 straight times and hasn’t lost to the Bears at Berkeley since Jan. 23, 2016, when Cal won 74-73 after Gabe York missed a six-foot runner just before time expired. The Wildcats lead the all-time series 69-31.

What’s new with the BearsCal is one of the worst power-conference teams in college basketball, in part because of health challenges involving several key players.

The Bears’ two top incoming transfers, Devin Askew (Kentucky) and DeJuan Clayton (Hartford and Coppin State), have been available in the same game only once this season. Cal announced last week that Askew, who scored 25 points at Arizona on Dec. 4, would be out for the season with what Cal termed a “sports hernia.”

Askew wound up playing in 13 games, leading the Bears in scoring (15.5 points) while also collecting 3.4 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game. Clayton, meanwhile, has suffered a variety of ailments and did not play at Utah or Colorado last weekend with an unspecified illness. Cal would not provide an estimate of his status for Thursday.

In addition, Cal’s leading returning scorer, Jalen Celestine, has missed the entire season with a knee injury.

Without Askew and Clayton, the Bears have had to lean hard on Joel Brown to handle point guard duties, while forward Kuany Kuany has moved to shooting guard and power forward Sam Alajiki to small forward, giving the Bears a bigger look on the wing out of necessity. Big man Lars Theimann has been consistently productive inside, while freshman power forward Grant Newell has shown some promise.

The Bears won three of four games around New Year’s, beating Texas-Arlington, Colorado and Stanford at home while losing to Utah. Cal was red-hot from the field in its 92-70 win over Stanford on Jan. 6, shooting 50% from 2-point range and hitting 16 of 22 3-pointers (72.7%).

Since then the Bears have lost seven straight games and haven’t even reached the 50-point mark in the past four games. Since an overtime loss at Washington on Jan. 14, the Bears have lost by double digits to Oregon, OSU, Stanford, Colorado and Utah.

In Pac-12 play, the Bears rank last in many statistical categories, including defensive efficiency (110.9 points allowed per 100 possessions), 2-point percentage (43.0), 2-point percentage defense (55.2), steal percentage (6.8) and ratio of assists to field goals made (43.5).

He said it

“Sometimes it’s just unfortunate that you seem to battle injuries all season. They haven’t had many games where they had a full roster. Mark (Fox, Cal coach) does a good job of keeping those guys together. They compete, and they play hard. It’s a conference game, and everybody’s gunning for an opportunity to get a win.

“They’ve got guys that are capable of scoring the basketball. Clayton hasn’t played a lot of games, but he’s a big-time scorer. He transferred in as a scorer and is still doing the same thing

“(Fox has) had to have some lineups that he probably wouldn’t normally put together, but when you’ve got a partial roster, you have to make some adjustments and move some pieces around, and that’s what he’s done in terms of trying to put the best five guys on the floor.

“Defensively, they get after you, try to make life tough for you. They don’t give you a lot of easy, open opportunities to score.”

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— UA assistant coach Steve Robinson, who scouted the Bears

Key players

CAL — Kuany Kuany

Assuming the Arizona bigs can neutralize Theimann inside, and especially if volume scorer Clayton does not return from an illness, Arizona’s trickiest matchup could be against the Bears’ big wing with Sudanese, Kenyan and Australian roots. At 6-9, Kuany is playing at shooting guard, taking over a third of his shots from 3-point range in conference games and hitting them at a 35.3% rate.

ARIZONA — Henri Veesaar

Arriving with the most recruiting hype of Arizona’s three original class-of-2022 freshman — Kylan Boswell was a five-star prospect in the class of ‘23 before he reclassified — Veesaar has yet to comfortably break into the UA rotation. But the Wildcats need Veesaar or Dylan Anderson to provide an option inside down the stretch and into the postseason. Both freshman bigs should get another extended audition against the Bears.

Sidelines

Beam him up

Between running practice Monday afternoon and all of his Tuesday obligations on campus, UA coach Tommy Lloyd somehow appeared in Flagstaff to watch son Liam play for NAU against Idaho State.

How? Lloyd didn’t want to say, but the timeline suggests he probably didn’t drive.

“I snapped my fingers and I teleported to Flagstaff and it was really cold,” Lloyd said, smiling. “Then I got the hell out of there and got back to where it was a little warmer.”

For the brief moments he was there, Lloyd had to determine how stealth he would be. Would he wear UA gear or NAU gear? Was he Coach or Dad?

“I wore a nice button-down shirt with a vest,” Lloyd said, grinning again when asked if he wore NAU gear. “It was blue and a black vest. Want any other details?”

Whatever the case, and however the case, this is what mattered to Lloyd: He got a rare chance to see his son play, then dine with him after the game before heading home. Liam Lloyd scored seven points off the bench in NAU’s 75-70 loss to Idaho State on Monday. He has started 19 of 25 games overall for the Lumberjacks (6-19) and is their fifth-leading scorer.

“He’s doing awesome,” Lloyd said. “He’s a great kid. Love him to death. The team is going through some struggles. They need to win a close game; it would really help them. But he’s being positive.

“And it was really fun to get up and see him. We took my wife’s parents up there to see him and had a good dinner with him, and we even took big Shemmy (new graduate assistant Przemek Karnowski, who knew Liam when he played for Gonzaga), one of his old big brothers up there to see him. He was happy to see him. So it was a really, really cool trip.”

Kier posts triple-doubleGuard Justin Kier, who played a key reserve role for the Wildcats last season as a grad transfer from Georgia, recorded a G League triple-double last Saturday with 20 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists for the Austin Spurs in their 134-128 win over the Iowa Wolves.

Over 14 games, Kier is averaging 29.3 minutes, 7.8 points, 3.5 rebounds and 5.3 assists. He has a 2-1 assist-to-turnover ratio and is shooting 43.7 from the field (37.5% from 3).

“Justin’s a really good player. I loved having him here,” Lloyd said. “Our time was a little shorter than I would have liked. but he’s always gonna have a special place in my heart. He really, really helped us last year, and he’s one of those ones like, man, if we could have had him this year, he would have been great.”

Francophones UnitedOne of the transitions Adama Bal was expected to face as a freshman from France last season turned out not all that bad: With Bal, Bennedict Mathurin (Quebec), Christian Koloko (Cameroon) and Oumar Ballo (Mali) around, he could still stay comfortable speaking French in the locker room and even on the court sometimes.

But now with Mathurin and Koloko off to the NBA, Bal has to communicate a little differently.

“Yeah,” Bal said. “Now I’m talking way more English than last year.”

Still, Bal said the francophones remain connected, mentioning that he texted with Mathurin earlier this week. Mathurin is averaging 17.4 points for the Pacers as a rookie this season.

“He’s doing good. I’m happy for him,” Bal said. “Oumar, C-Lo, Benn, we all keep in touch with each other, getting news from each other.”

Numbers game5 — National Player of the Week awards Azuolas Tubelis collected this week after scoring 40 points against Oregon last week, from the Naismith Trophy, USBWA, NCAA.com, ESPN.com and Field of 68.

5 — Of the last six seasons Cal has lost 20 games or more. The Bears were 14-18 with at least one more game to play when COVID concerns led to the shutdown of college basketball in March 2020.

74 — Seasons since Cal last failed to reach the 50-point mark over four straight games. The Bears actually did it five straight times in that 1948-49 season — with two of those games being victories.

109 — Years since Cal won fewer than six games. The Bears have won three so far this season with eight regular-season and at least one Pac-12 Tournament game left to play.