Arizona Wildcats' hoops-loving Dalen Terry keeps filling up box scores

PULLMAN, Wash. — There are conventional reasons to explain why 6-foot-7 Arizona guard Dalen Terry has pulled down 31 rebounds over Arizona’s last four games.

He’s gotten some long rebounds that bounce far off the rim, possibly some out of sheer luck. Bigger teammates are boxing out opponents, keeping him free to grab the ball.

Terry is also long, bouncy and hard-working.

“D.T. loves hooping,” UA coach Tommy Lloyd said. “I think he’s happy being out on the floor and he plays with amazing effort and energy. When you play with that kind of effort and energy consistently, good things are gonna happen.”

Except after Terry collected 12 rebounds during Arizona’s 72-60 win over Washington State on Thursday, teammate Bennedict Mathurin threw out another “motivation” that might be driving Terry.

“Every time he’s in the air, he’s trying to steal my rebounds,” Mathurin said.

Mathurin then grinned widely, sitting next to Terry on a postgame interview podium at Beasley Coliseum.

Mathurin wound up the Wildcats’ leading scorer at WSU with 20 points while getting five rebounds of his own and dishing four assists, on Thursday while Terry took glue-guy honors.

It was all good for Mathurin and the Wildcats.

“It was great to see,” Mathurin said. “We call him Mr. Do-Everything. Getting rebounds, scoring and making passes. It’s good for the team. A really good thing to see.”

Terry is so versatile, in fact, that he’s already threatened to become the first Arizona player to post a triple-double since Andre Iguodala did it three times as a sophomore in 2003-04.

That fact might be especially worth noting entering Arizona’s game at Washington on Saturday.

As evidenced during the last time the teams met, on Jan. 3 in UA’s 95-79 win over Washington at McKale Center, the Huskies play an uptempo style that gives everybody a lot of chance to score — and their mediocre shooting also conveniently gives everyone a lot of chances for rebounding, too.

Plus, Terry’s sometimes artful passing is often most effective on the break, where he can operate more often in an uptempo game.

Not surprisingly, when Arizona hosted Washington at McKale Center on Jan. 3, Terry posted 13 points, 11 rebounds and eight blocks against the Huskies.

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That the first of two times he has flirted with a triple-double this season. He also did so in a game that was decidedly less uptempo, with 10 points, nine rebounds and seven assists in Arizona’s 76-66 win over then-No. 3 UCLA on Feb. 3 at McKale Center.

Clearly, Terry can fill up a box score. Even when he’s not fully aware of how, exactly, he’s doing so.

“I didn’t know for a lot of the game. They just said `D.T., keep rebounding,’ “ Terry said of his 12 rebounds Thursday. “Luckily a couple of them just came to me. Obviously, I was going to go in (to rebound) a lot, but they were just coming to me. I gotta thank my teammates — thank Christian (Koloko) for blocking people out, Oumar (Ballo), Azuolas (Tubelis), Benn.”

But it was the ones that flew over those guys’ heads that stood out to Lloyd. Getting the long rebound, the UA coach said, has been an issue for the Wildcats.

“I’m thinking back to those last couple games and it feels like a lot of balls have been bounced back to the free-throw line, and we’ve had nobody there,” Lloyd said. “To see him go up and high-point those balls — I mean, it’s pretty cool when you have a wing coming in there rebounding above the rim.”

That sort of production is why, even on a night when Terry had just three points on 1-for-4 shooting, he was still one of the Wildcats’ top players Thursday.

“I know every night is not gonna be a good night for me scoring,” Terry said. “So I always try to impact the game a lot of different ways. I’ll just do whatever my team needs me to do every night, whether it’s scoring or getting rebounds, assists.

“Or all of it, you know?”

No. 4 Arizona 72, Washington State 60

ARIZONA (21-2, 11-1)

A.Tubelis 5-10 4-6 15, Koloko 3-5 0-0 6, Kriisa 2-7 0-0 6, Terry 1-4 1-2 3, Mathurin 7-12 3-3 20, Larsson 3-7 0-0 7, Ballo 5-7 0-0 10, Kier 2-5 0-0 5. Totals 28-57 8-11 72.

WASHINGTON ST. (14-8, 7-4)

Gueye 4-8 0-0 9, Abogidi 3-13 2-3 9, Bamba 1-6 0-0 2, Flowers 7-19 0-0 16, Roberts 3-11 0-0 8, Rodman 1-2 0-0 2, Williams 4-10 0-0 10, Jakimovski 0-2 0-0 0, DeWolf 2-2 0-0 4. Totals 25-73 2-3 60.

Halftime-Arizona 33-20. 3-Point Goals-Arizona 8-19 (Mathurin 3-6, Kriisa 2-5, Larsson 1-2, A.Tubelis 1-2, Kier 1-4), Washington St. 8-32 (Williams 2-5, Flowers 2-7, Roberts 2-8, Gueye 1-2, Abogidi 1-5, Rodman 0-1, Bamba 0-2, Jakimovski 0-2). Rebounds-Arizona 44 (Terry 12), Washington St. 27 (Abogidi 6). Assists-Arizona 17 (Terry 5), Washington St. 10 (Flowers 3). Total Fouls-Arizona 10, Washington St. 12.