Scouting report: Arizona Wildcats vs. Washington Huskies

The Star's Bruce Pascoe previews all of the game day essentials, from projected starting lineups to storylines and series history, ahead of Arizona's showdown with Washington. 

Game info 

Who: Washington (14-16, 4-13) at Arizona (20-10, 10-7)

Where: McKale Center

When: Saturday, 8 p.m.

TV: ESPN

Radio: 1290-AM, 107.5-FM

Follow: @TheWildcaster on Twitter / TheWildcaster on Facebook

Probable starters: Arizona

G Nico Mannion (6-3 freshman)

G Dylan Smith (6-5 senior)

F Josh Green (6-6 freshman)

F Stone Gettings (6-9 senior)

C Zeke Nnaji (6-11 freshman)

Probable starters: Washington

G Marcus Tsohonis (6-3 freshman)

G Jamal Bey (6-6 sophomore)

F Nahziah Carter (6-6 junior)

F Hameir Wright (6-9 junior)

C Isaiah Stewart (6-9 freshman)

How they match up

The last time: Jemarl Baker hit a go-ahead 3-pointer with 44 seconds left and Arizona hung on for its first road win of the season, 75-72 at Seattle’s Hec Edmundson Pavilion on Jan. 30. Baker scored a career-high 17 points while hitting 4 of 7 3-pointers. The Wildcats shot only 38.7% but only turned the ball over six times in the last 36 minutes.

The last time at McKale Center: Arizona had 20 turnovers and shot 37.7% from the field while allowing Washington to shoot 50% in the Huskies’ 67-60 win in Tucson on Feb. 7, 2019. Justin Coleman led the Wildcats with 16 points, while Chase Jeter added 12. David Crisp had 17 to lead the Huskies, who went on to win the Pac-12 regular-season title with a 15-3 conference mark.

Series history: Washington has won two of the last three games against Arizona, but the Wildcats lead 11-7 in the Sean Miller era and are 53-30 in the all-time series.

What’s new with the Huskies: Washington’s Jan. 30 loss to Arizona turned out to be the fourth in a nine-game losing streak that has sunk the Huskies to the bottom of the Pac-12 standings and locked them into the No. 12 seed in the conference tournament. 

However, Washington has won two of its past three games, blowing out Cal 87-52 at home on Feb. 22, losing to WSU at home 78-74 on Feb. 28 and beating ASU 90-83 on Thursday night. The Huskies held Sun Devils standout Remy Martin to 2-of-14 shooting and just six points, though Rob Edwards had 23 and Alonzo Verge had 19 for the Sun Devils. Naz Carter led UW with 23 points on 9-for-14 shooting; the Huskies shot 50.8% overall while hitting 11 of 26 (42.3%) of their 3-pointers.

The Huskies have been playing highly regarded freshman forward Jaden McDaniels off the bench for the past seven games, and McDaniels is averaging 13.6 points and 5.3 rebounds while shooting 41.2% and 80.6% from the free-throw line over his past eight games. To help solve the problem created when point guard Quade Green did not qualify academically for the winter quarter, Washington pulled the redshirt from guard Marcus Tsohonis, who has started seven of the Huskies’ past eight games. Tsohonis had nine points, six rebounds and two assists in 19 minutes at ASU; he’s averaging 9.3 points in his last eight games.

He said it

“All of us in the Pac-12 really respect (Washington’s) Mike Hopkins as a coach. The way they play, their style. When you have that much turnover — and we’ve had the same from one season to the next – and then on top of that you lose Quade Green, it’s hard. You’re depending on these first-year players that no matter how talented they are, there’s ups and downs with those guys.

“But in terms of Washington being dangerous, being capable of beating us, no doubt. That was one of our best road victories of the year (at Seattle) because that game could have gone either way. They have a talented group. Their zone is always unique, and I’d like to think they probably feel better than they have in a long time being that they were able to beat Arizona State.

“But we knew whether they beat Arizona State or not, they’re capable of beating us — and we have to be ready. Our goal is to get 11 conference wins and finish our regular season with 21 wins. It’s going to be a battle, we’re going to have to play more like we played in the second half (against WSU) to beat Washington.”

— UA coach Sean Miller

Key player (Washington): Isaiah Stewart

The Wildcats held Washington’s highly regarded big man to just nine points on 3-for-13 shooting on Jan. 30 in Seattle, which is a pretty far deviation from the norm. Stewart averages 16.6 points and 56.1% shooting this season, and fouling him usually doesn’t work out well, either. He takes advantage of 6.2 average trips to the line by hitting 76.3% of his free throws.

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Key player (Arizona): Jemarl Baker

Baker’s four 3s at Washington weren’t the only difference in the Wildcats’ Jan. 30 win: He also had four assists without a turnover against a team that is often at its best when it can force turnovers in its zone defense and take advantage of them on the other end.

Sidelines

Arizona in 3-6 Pac-12 Tourney seed range

Arizona will receive between No. 3 and No. 6 seed for the Pac-12 Tournament depending on what happens on Saturday.

Oddly ,though, the Wildcats can receive a No. 3 or No. 4 seed – and the accompanying first-round bye – even if they lose to Washington, depending on how other games play out. And the UA can receive as low as a No. 6 even if they beat Washington, in a scenario that isn’t all that unlikely.

The drop to No. 6 would simply require all the favorites (as determined by Kenpom.com) to win on Saturday, with USC beating UCLA at the Galen Center and Colorado winning at Utah.

If that happens, Oregon would win the conference outright at 13-5 and UCLA would be second at 12-6.  Arizona, Colorado, USC and ASU would all be tied for third.  

Colorado would earn the No. 3 based on its collective record against the other three teams, and ASU would get the No. 4 because it is the only team that has beaten Oregon of the three remaining tied teams.

(Under Pac-12 tiebreaker rules, head-to-head competition is considered first, or collective head-to-head competition and then tiebreakers are broken by comparing records against teams at the top of the standings on down).

UA and USC would then be left to settle a two-way tie and, since they were 1-1 in head-to-head competition and neither team beat Oregon, it would come down to USC’s 2-0 record against UCLA. So the Trojans would be No. 5 and Arizona No. 6.

In most cases, the Wildcats would benefit if UCLA beat USC. In the 64 scenarios that the Pac-12 ran through Friday, 18 of them had Arizona sitting with a first-round bye as a No. 3 or No. 4 seed. In five of those 18 scenarios, Arizona lost to Washington, and in 12 of 18 UCLA beat USC.

The key to Arizona getting a higher seed is often being lumped into ties with Colorado and/or Stanford, since the UA is 1-0 against both teams.

Arizona had never played a Wednesday first-round game in the 12-team Pac-12 era before doing so (and losing to USC) last season, but Miller said it isn’t necessarily a disadvantage.

“Playing on Wednesday in some ways, almost in every way, in my opinion, helps you for Thursday’s game,” Miller said. “It gives you a chance to come off a win, get confidence, play in that arena under those circumstances and quickly move to day two where (your opponent) may be rested but on a one-day turn around, I don’t think that’s a big advantage.

“Where you really feel the negative of playing on Wednesdays is if you’re trying to win the tournament. Winning four games in four days is a tall task.”

Only Colorado (2012) and Oregon (last season) have won the Pac-12 Tournament by winning four games.

Wildcats forward Gettings named Pac-12 Scholar-Athlete of Year

Arizona senior Stone Gettings was named the Pac-12’s Scholar-Athlete of the Year for men’s basketball Friday. The starting forward is posting a 4.0 as a graduate student in the Eller School of Management.

Gettings is the first UA player to receive the award since it was established in 2007-08. He earned an undergraduate degree in applied economics and management from Cornell in December 2018.

Upon transferring to Arizona in January 2019, Gettings began graduate studies at Eller. He is expected to receive a masters of science in accounting and an online masters of science in entrepreneurship in May.

On the court, the 6-foot-9-inch Gettings is averaging 6.7 points and 4.0 rebounds per game in just over 20 minutes per game. He’s shooting 50% from the floor. 

Since entering the starting lineup on Jan. 16 against Utah, Gettings has averaged 7.3 points and 4.8 rebounds in nearly 24 minutes per game, with four double-figure scoring outings and a double-double (19 points, 12 rebounds) at Washington State on Feb. 1.

Here today, gone tomorrow

So why did Max Hazzard sit out the Feb. 27 game for what UA is calling a “personal” issue, return on Saturday to play against UCLA — and then sit out Thursday’s UA-WSU game for the same reason?

Miller isn’t saying, nor is he defining what “personal” means in this case.

“I don’t have a comment on Max,” Miller said. “It’s, you know, personal.”

Miller did say forward Chase Jeter would return next week following his two-game suspension for an unspecified violation of team rules. Jeter is still expected to go through Saturday’s pregame Senior Day ceremonies.

Saying goodbye

The Wildcats will formally say goodbye to Jeter, Gettings, Hazzard, fifth-year senior Dylan Smith and walk-ons Jake DesJardins and Kory Jones before Saturday’s game. 

Both DesJardins and Jones have eligibility remaining but are scheduled to graduate this spring, and Miller said DesJardins might play elsewhere as a grad transfer next season. 

The Senior Day ceremonies are scheduled to start about 7:40 p.m., before Arizona’s 8 p.m. tipoff with Washington. Arizona’s three expected early departures — freshmen Nico Mannion, Zeke Nnaji and Josh Green — are not scheduled to be honored.

Numbers game

3 

Total UA players who have been held out for suspensions or unspecified reasons this season: Devonaire Doutrive, Chase Jeter, and Max Hazzard. Their absences will total seven games Saturday if Hazzard doesn’t play; Jeter has already been ruled out.

17.1

 Two-point shots blocked by the Huskies in Pac-12 games, the best block percentage in the conference.

21.8

Percent of Washington possessions that end in a turnover in conference games, the worst mark in the Pac-12.