Sacramento State (3-2) at No. 17 Arizona (5-0)
• McKale Center • 5:30 p.m.
• Pac-12 Arizona • 1290-AM, 107.5-FM
PROBABLE STARTERS
ARIZONA
G — Kerr Kriisa (6-3 sophomore)
G — Dalen Terry (6-6 sophomore)
F — Bennedict Mathurin (6-6 sophomore)
F — Azuolas Tubelis (6-11 sophomore)
C — Christian Koloko (7-0 junior)
SACRAMENTO STATE
G — Zach Chappell (6-3 junior)
G —William Fitzpatrick (6-3 senior)
F — Bryce Fowler (6-6 senior)
F — Cameron Wilbon (6-5 sophomore)
C — Jonathan Komagum (6-9 junior)
HOW THEY MATCH UP
The series: Arizona has never played Sacramento State, which joined Division I in 1991-92 and now plays in the Big Sky Conference.
Game contract: Sacramento State is making a one-time appearance at McKale Center in exchange for a $90,000 fee from Arizona.
Sacramento State overview: Shocked by the sudden resignation of longtime coach Brian Katz just six days before the season opener, the Hornets have managed a 3-2 record with wins over Big West opponents UC Davis and Cal Poly. Led by do-everything super senior Bryce Fowler of Avondale, the Hornets mostly attack with a four-out system featuring versatile players who can match up in several areas.
Fowler and Zach Chappell share point guard duties, with Fowler leading the Hornets in assists, and both players draw around five fouls per 40 minutes played. Cameron Wilbon is a face-up forward who can drive it while guard William FitzPatrick is the team’s best 3-point shooter at 34.4%. Inside, Toledo transfer Jonathan Komagun is a rim protector and rebounder who isn’t a big offensive threat but can get to the line.
Overall, though, the Hornets are not a good shooting team. Against Division I competition, they’ve averaged just 24.7% from 3-point range (the fourth-worst percentage in the country) and 43.0 (the 61st worst) from inside the arc.
He said it: With Katz’s previous teams, “they always played very physical. They would slow the game down and kind of smash mouth and this team isn’t built like that. This team is much more fluid offensively. They have a lot of different guys who can play different spots. They’re much more four-out, one-in, but they have they have a really good big guy (Komagum) who can block shots and defensively do some different things. But the bottom line is they’re not as rock ‘em-sock ‘em, beat-you-up inside as they have been in the past.”
Fowler “is a really good player, a really good kid and does a lot for them. He’ll post you up, they’ll use him handling the ball on ball screens, he’ll set some ball screens. He’ll back you down and go from the perimeter into the post. He’s a great passer. He has an awkward kind of funky game — kind of like an old man’s game — where you never know which angle he’s gonna shoot it from. You’ll see him miss a couple and then he’ll make a few. He’s kind of got a Herky jerky game that keeps you off balance.
“They show you different things defensively. They trapped Utah a lot in the half court. They were really aggressive, trying to turn them over and play fast. In other situations, they’ve guarded ball screens a different way. They’ve shown some zones. So we have to be ready for a lot of different looks and understand that they have a lot of interchangeable parts.” — UA associate head coach Jack Murphy, who scouted the Hornets.
KEY PLAYERS
SACRAMENTO STATE: Bryce Fowler
The 5A Desert West Player of the year in 2016-17 at Avondale’s Agua Fria High School, Fowler has developed into an all-conference candidate in the Big Sky as a super senior this season. Not only is he ambidextrous, shooting left-handed but doing everything else with his right hand, but Fowler has also played every position for the Hornets.
ARIZONA: Kerr Kriisa
Just in case the Wildcats need a little extra energy after some big wins in Las Vegas and a couple of days off before Thanksgiving, their Estonian sophomore point guard is likely to provide some. Just 13 games into his college career, Kriisa is already making a name for himself with an energetic and gritty style.
SIDELINES
An easy sell: While most of the Wildcats’ current starters stayed out of the transfer portal during the tenuous five weeks that UA waited to fire Sean Miller, guard Kerr Kriisa made a move in early April.
Then Tommy Lloyd reeled Kriisa back. The point guard returned after just a week in the portal, apparently after some pivotal conversations with the new coach.
“It was like, ‘Kerr, listen, I’m the most European-American coach in the game — and if you’re gonna walk away from this, you’re gonna regret it,’” Lloyd said.
A week after Lloyd’s April 14 hiring, Kriisa made public his decision to stay. He told ESPN that over the previous week, “I’ve felt from their recruiting that they really want me here. I trust Tommy Lloyd 100% and I’m ready to get back to work.”
Hornets resilient so far: Stepping down shortly before a season for unspecified health reasons can generate some ominous speculation, but Brian Katz put a quick end to that.
“I’m not dying,” Katz told the Sacramento Bee with a laugh after retiring suddenly as Sacramento State’s head coach earlier this month. “I’m retiring. My health won’t let me coach anymore.”
Katz told the Bee that he’s had an ongoing health issue for the past two-plus years, and that his doctor recommended he stop coaching. He told nobody before his decision, not even his staffers. All they knew was that Katz was a health nut who rose early and went running regularly.
So his retirement was a surprise to everyone, even to longtime aide Brandon Laird, who has taken over the Hornets as interim head coach. Laird said Katz has kept details of his health situation private.
“It was with a lot of sadness and disappointment knowing that Coach Katz wasn’t going to be on this journey with us,” Laird said. “I’ve worked side by side with Coach Katz for 11 years now and just to have him come in one morning and tell all of us that, ‘Hey, I can’t do this anymore,’ there was a lot of shock, a lot of sadness.
“Immediately it was, ‘Coach, are you OK? What can we do to help you and your family?’ And then after that, it was, well, let’s stabilize the group. We still have a job to do. We have a game to get ready for.”
After Katz’s retirement, the Hornets opened the season with an easy win over William Jessup and then, after a road loss at Utah, won at Cal Poly. Since then, they’ve lost to UC San Diego and beaten UC Davis.
“Once he reassured us he was going to be OK moving forward, but this is something that he and his family needed to do, it became that our responsibility to reorganize the group and rally together,” Laird said. “I’m not surprised by the guys in the locker room. There’s great character in the locker room and we’ve been able to, at least in the early part of the season, play well and compete.”
Hidden gem: As a second-team all Class 5A pick in 2016-17 by the Arizona Republic, Bryce Fowler was playing one classification of Arizona high school ball below 6A stars such as former Wildcats Alex Barcello and Nico Mannion.
But he was in then-NAU coach Jack Murphy’s backyard, and the UA associate head coach still kicks himself for that.
“Probably one of the one of the many mistakes I made as NAU head coach was not recruiting him,” Murphy said. “He’s a really good player. I would assume he’ll be all-Big Sky.”
Murphy’s loss was Sacramento State’s gain. Laird said Sacramento State made Fowler its top priority in the 2017 high school class, and was rewarded almost instantly. Thinking they might need to redshirt Fowler in 2017-18, the Hornets wound up starting him for 26 of the final 27 games of his freshman season.
He’s started 83 of 117 games played since then, while picking up honorable mention all-Big Sky honors last season.
And so far this year, Fowler made a three-point play with six seconds left to give the Hornets a 58-57 win over Cal Poly and he collected 21 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists on Tuesday in a rivalry game against nearby UC Davis.
“I think Bryce is one of the most versatile players in the country without a doubt,” Laird said. “He’s so good. So unselfish. It’s his fifth year. He’s played all five positions for us. He’s a Mr. Do-everything. He’s our team leader. The guys look up to him.
“I mean, I could go on and on and on about Bryce as a player. But he’s a better person off the court. He’s so kind. He’s so coachable. He’s everything we want in a Sacramento State basketball player.”
NUMBERS GAME
1
Jonathan Komagum’s national ranking in Kenpom’s “free-throw rate,” which measures a player’s ability to get to the free throw line relative to how often he attempts to score.
2
Arizona’s national rank in defensive two-point percentage, allowing opponents to shoot only 36.0% from inside the arc.
20
Weekly AP Top 25 polls (not counting the preseason edition) that Arizona did not appear in between last being ranked at No. 24 on Feb.17, 2020 and an appearance at No. 17 this week. The Wildcats did receive some votes during three different weeks last season, however.
