Arizona's 'unique' big men made life difficult for Jackson-Davis and Indiana

LAS VEGAS — For a coach who enjoys throwing out the occasional boxing analogy, Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd took the Wildcats to the perfect place over the weekend.

Much more so than for college basketball, the MGM Grand Garden is known for megafights, the place where Mike Tyson bit off a piece of Evander Holyfield’s ear, where Floyd Mayweather became a superstar and where Manny Pacquiao sent Oscar De La Hoya into retirement, among other big moments.

So, when the Wildcats were thrown in the ring Saturday against a national player-of-year candidate in Indiana center Trayce Jackson-Davis, Lloyd countered with Oumar Ballo.

“He’s our George Foreman,” Lloyd said, referring to the former heavyweight great, who became a two-time world champ at the Grand Garden at age 45 in 1994. “I mean, those body blows. He can throw some knockout punches, too. He’s hard to play against.”

Jackson-Davis managed 11 points and five rebounds before fouling out in the final minute of Arizona’s 89-75 win over Indiana. Ballo put together his fourth double-double of the season with 11 points and 12 rebounds.

He didn’t punch alone, either. Power forward Azuolas Tubelis, again complementing Ballo’s dominance around the basket with breakaway speed for his size and a variety of offensive skills, led the Wildcats in scoring with 21 points.

Together, they were too much for Jackson-Davis and the Hoosiers to handle.

“Their bigs are dominant,” Indiana coach Mike Woodson said. “I thought they got the better of our bigs tonight. I just do. We didn’t have any answer.”

Of all the highlights, Ballo said his favorite came when he was surrounded inside with the ball but managed to get it over to Tubelis, who made a layup to give UA an 84-73 lead with 2:46 left and pretty much put the Hoosiers away for good.

“That was a great thing because I need to get better when (the) double team comes,” Ballo said. There’s “a little bit of improvement with my passing and kicking the ball out.”

The Wildcats’ inside duo had more help, too. Playing possibly the most effective game of his young college basketball career so far, freshman 7-footer Henri Veesaar had five points, three rebounds and two assists while taking four trips to the free throw line (making 3 of 4 shots) over 12 minutes. Veesaar also played a secondary role in limiting Jackson-Davis on the other end of the court.

That meant the Wildcats actually had not one, but three heavyweights in the middle dealing with Jackson-Davis and veteran Indiana power forward Race Thompson.

Jackson-Davis wound up hitting only 4 of 10 two-pointers and 3 of 5 free throws while fouling out in the final minute. His 11 points tied his season-low in scoring.

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“He’s a great player,” Ballo said. “Thanks to our coaches, we had a great game plan to guard him. ‘Zu sometimes guarded him. Sometimes I guarded him. Henri guarded him. We have a lot of great bigs who can guard anyone.”

Woodson said the Hoosiers haven’t double-teamed anyone often in the post since he took over before last season and, even if they were tempted to this time, they risked creating more opportunity for Arizona’s perimeter shooters.

It was a similar philosophy followed last month by Creighton coach Greg McDermott, who opted to single cover Ballo — and watched Ballo collect 30 points, 13 rebounds and the Maui Invitational trophy.

“Their bigs are unique,” Woodson said. “They average the points they do because it’s hard to double them when you’ve got guys on the perimeter who can make 3s as well — and they still made 3s.”

Arizona shot just 16.7% from 3 over its first two Pac-12 games, but made 10 of 25 this time to make sure the Hoosiers didn’t change course defensively.

Adama Bal came off the bench to hit all three 3s he took, while Kerr Kriisa hit 4 of 10, letting both Hoosier fans — and Lloyd — know exactly how he felt about it.

“Kerr hit a huge 3 during one of those runs right in front of me and I think he might have even looked back at me and said something,” Lloyd said, grinning. “I almost gave him a T for taunting me.”

With just over nine minutes left in the game, Kriisa also poured in four points over 17 seconds, on a technical free throw and a 3-pointer a minute later that gave UA a 72-60 lead.

Twelve seconds afterward, Indiana called timeout. Before he walked over to the UA bench, Kriisa turned toward a particularly vocal patch of Hoosier fans and extended his tongue.

It was kind of spirit the Wildcats didn’t show nine days earlier, in their 81-66 loss at Utah.

“I think we’re playing our best basketball when everybody’s having fun,” Kriisa said, when asked about that moment. “I think the past has shown us that when everybody is smiling and stuff, that’s a huge part of our program. When we were playing against Utah, we didn’t look like we really wanted to be there.”

On Saturday, they did. Smiling, and punching, their way out of the MGM Grand Garden.