After his Wildcats made it to Christmas with only one loss for the second straight season Thursday, Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd gave them a midseason grade of βA.β
He didnβt really need to say who his standout pupils were. Once again in Arizonaβs 93-68 win over Morgan State on Thursday, that much was obvious: Power forward Azuolas Tubelis and center Oumar Ballo.
In what was otherwise a second straight uneven performance from the Wildcats, who beat Tennessee on Dec. 17 but also struggled to put away Montana State on Tuesday, the Wildcatsβ big men were typically efficient and energetic.
Tubelis had 26 points and nine rebounds while Ballo added 21 points, with Ballo hiting all eight field goals he took and Tubelis punctuating his 9-for-10 performance with what might have been one of the Wildcatsβ top plays of the early season.
Midway through the second half, the Wildcatsβ 6-foot-10 Lithuanian stole the ball out of the hands of 6-1 Morgan State guard Isaiah Burke on the perimeter, then dribbled down the left sideline and, when Burke tried to slap the ball away, picked it back up and kept dribbling as if nothing happened, proceeding downcourt for a dunk.
βI donβt know if he can recreate that again β you know, Iβve seen him try some of the things that havenβt worked,β Lloyd said, chuckling. βBut βZu is really coming on. Heβs so consistent, he scores in different ways, (making) a couple of 3s today, heβs handsy on defense, he gets out in transition, heβs hitting the offensive glass.
βI love where heβs at, and I think heβs going to continue to improve.β
On Thursday, Tubelisβ acrobatics helped give the Wildcats some much-needed energy, too. The steal-and-dance-and-dunk gave them a 61-45 lead with 12:28 to go, and UA never led by less than 11 after that point.
With the high expectations of a team that picked up the No. 5 AP ranking after beating Tennessee, Arizona wasnβt even expected to have that tough of a time. Morgan State (4-8), after all, entered the game just 1-7 against Division I teams.
But the Bears had a couple of proven shooters in Burke and Malik Miller, the Bearsβ do-everything 6-foot-4 senior wing. Miller led Morgan State with 23 points while Burke had 22, and both played a big part in the 12-for-25 3-point shooting that kept the Bears from getting blown out.
UA guard Courtney Ramey, in his fifth season of college basketball, didnβt find that sort of shooting all that surprising.
βWhen a team is coming into our building, they see us ranked top five in the country, and they want to knock us off,β Ramey said. βSo theyβre gonna play their best games and weβve got to understand that. We canβt take away every shot that teams have. They did a good job hitting their 3s today. But I think it was good for us to battle back and just remain calm and stick to our principles.β
Burke was 6 for 12 from beyond the arc, and Miller made 3 of 4 3s while commanding UAβs attention immediately. Miller powered Morgan State to early leads of 9-4 and 11-6 almost all by himself, scoring 11 points through the first seven minutes of the game by making all four field goals he took, three of which came from 3-point territory.
Morgan State wound up leading more often than Arizona did in the first half, during which the Bears hit 7 of 12 3-pointers, before UA took a 41-32 halftime lead.
βThey hit a few shots and maybe had us uncomfortable,β Lloyd said. βThese games arenβt going to be just 40-minute fast-break-frenzy, alley-oop dunk contests, you know?β
Well, the Wildcats did have some fun. Like when Cedric Henderson and Henri Veesaar raced down opposite lanes toward the basket, with Henderson passing to Veesaar, who then flipped it back to Henderson for a score that gave UA its first lead, 16-14.
Then, early in the second half, Ramey fed Ballo for an alley-oop dunk that capped a 10-2 run and gave Arizona a 51-34 lead.
But there were also the tough times for the Wildcats. Like when Miller or Burke made something happen, or the 3-pointer from Morgan State forward Khalil Turner that allowed the Bears to cut UAβs lead to just 67-59 with eight minutes left.
βWith teams like that, youβve got to try to take that confidence away early,β Ramey said. βUnfortunately, we couldnβt.β
But the Wildcats eventually started taking 20-point leads with more than five minutes left, despite playing their reserves heavily after halftime.
That was Lloydβs plan. The UA coach has said recently that he wanted more from the reserves, and wanted to play them more, so he did. Even when the Wildcatsβ lead wasnβt much more than a few possessions.
βI tried to cycle them in and get them some run with the main group (but it) maybe disrupted our normal subbing pattern a little bit,β Lloyd said. βAll in all, I was really happy with how they finished the game.β
Now 12-1 overall at the end of nonconference play, the Wildcats are scheduled to take four days off before returning Tuesday to prepare for the resumption of Pac-12 play on Dec. 31 at ASU.
Thatβs when they will start figuring out what sort of grade theyβll get for the rest of the course.
βThe finals are where itβs at,β Lloyd said. βWe gotta see how we play in the Pac-12 and in the postseason. But from this point in the season, I think itβs an A. Itβs pretty hard to argue that. I mean, probably not 100%. Maybe not an A-plus, but itβs a A.β