Texas-Rio Grande Valley (1-0) at Arizona (1-0)
• McKale Center • 7 p.m.
• TV: Pac-12 Networks • Radio: 1290-AM
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)
UTRGV
G Ricky Nelson (6-1 junior)
G LaQuan Butler (6-0 junior)
F Justin Johnson (6-6 junior)
F Mike Adewunmi (6-6 senior)
C Marek Nelson (6-7 senior)
HOW THEY MATCH UP
The series: Arizona has never really played the school known as UTRGV but is officially 1-1 against what was Texas-Pan American, one of two schools along with Texas-Brownsville that merged into what is now UTRGV.
Game agreement: UTRGV is making a one-time appearance to play at McKale Center.
UTRGV overview: With a core of experienced transfers and a new coach, the Vaqueros are transitioning following the sudden death of head coach Lew Hill at age 55 on Feb. 6 last season. They went 1-6 after he died to finish at 9-10 last season, and then hired Matt Figger from Austin Peay to permanently replace him. A former assistant under Frank Martin at Kansas State and South Carolina, Figger went 49-25 against Ohio Valley opponents at Austin Peay and was named the OVC’s coach of the year in 2017-18.
The Vaqueros are powered in the backcourt with point guard Ricky Nelson while shooting guard LaQuan Butler isn’t bashful about driving to the basket. Forwards Mike Adewunmi and Justin Johnson are big, productive wing forwards.
Picked to finish 11th by the media and ninth by coaches in the 13-team Western Athletic Conference this season, the Vaqueros opened the season Tuesday by beating Division II Texas A&M International 74-59 before 1,711 fans at the UTRGV Fieldhouse in Edinburg, Texas.
He said it: “They like to play with pace. Nelson is a point guard who wants to push it. (Nelson and Butler) complement each other well. Butler is a baller. He's one of those guys where he can shoot it, he can drive it. He's talented. He’s comfortable getting into the paint, playing with his teammates and he becomes the point guard when Nelson is out. (Johnson and Adewunmi) are very important for their system. Johnson can really attack the paint. very comfortable. Adewumni can shoot it, and has a strong body. A lot of their offense goes through those two guys.”
Defensively they’re “mostly man to man. They're very physical team. They fight through. They have length in the in the wings, all these 6-6, 6-7 wings, strong bodies, they fight through ball screen. I really liked watching (their opener Tuesday) how hard they played. It's going to be a challenge for our team to match and exceed their physicality, knowing the history of their head coach (under Martin). It's the pedigree of a coach who likes his teams to be physical, play hard and disrupt offense.” — UA assistant coach Riccardo Fois, who scouted the Vaqueros
KEY PLAYERS
UTRGV: Mike Adewunmi
The well-traveled super senior from Dallas is the prototypical sort of big, strong and experienced wing forward who can thrive in Figger’s system. He began his college career at Houston, played a season of juco ball and then spent the past two seasons at Southern Illinois-Edwardsville before grad-transferring to UTRGV. He also trained with the Nigerian national team last summer.
ARIZONA: Bennedict Mathurin
Expectations are much higher this season for the Wildcats’ sophomore wing forward, who struggled to finish shots inside in the season opener on Tuesday. The Vaqueros will likely try to keep continue that truend by putting a number of older, bigger defenders on him.
Arizona Wildcats guard Kerr Kriisa (25) eyes the basket as Northern Arizona Lumberjacks guard Mason Stark (11) runs after him in the first half of Tuesday's opener.
SIDELINES
‘Swaggy’ Kriisa earns headband
Sophomore point guard Kerr Kriisa said he started wearing a pink headband in October practices in support of breast cancer awareness month. But because he was also practicing well, Kriisa said UA coach Tommy Lloyd encouraged him to keep wearing them.
“Coach said `Man, you gotta get a headband and start playing with it,” Lloyd said. “Because you play good with it.”
Kriisa said he then asked UA equipment manager Brian Brigger for help, and he received white headbands that Kriisa and wing Bennedict Mathurin have been wearing.
Asked if it was true that he told Kriisa to wear the headband, Lloyd smiled and said “probably not,” but he was hardly against the idea, either.
At least as long as Kriisa keeps playing well as he did Tuesday, collecting nine assists and no turnovers in UA's 81-52 win over NAU.
“Kerr has some swag,” Lloyd said. “As long as he's he plays with confidence, he plays with high effort and he plays with intelligence then I'll let him be swaggy, OK? But if he doesn't play with intelligence, he doesn't play with great effort, then he can't wear the headband. So that's the rule.”
Down in front
The last time UTRGV coach Matt Figger and UA’s Tommy Lloyd met, officials were essentially pushing them off the Final Four stage.
Not because of a technical or any sort of penalty. Just because they were trying to do their jobs on the elevated basketball floor that was set up inside Glendale’s State Farm Stadium during the 2017 Final Four, when Gonzaga beat South Carolina 77-73 in the semifinals.
“Tommy and I had the (game) scouts so he and I did all the substitutions and things like that for for our teams,” Figger said. “So we're constantly having to stand up and walk up (to the floor). And then they tell us both that all these people behind us who paid all these money for the tickets are complaining they can't see the game because of me and him.”
Officials delivered the message as the teams entered the floor for the second half, allowing only the head coaches to stand up from that point on.
“I crouched on my knees,” Figger said. “I don’t know what Tommy did. I told Frank, 'Hey, you’re on an island now. I’ll scream at you when something’s going on.’
"It just makes it very inconvenient. You work so hard to get to that moment and as an assistant coach you’re preparing your team to play and one thing that helps the head coach is the scout – and they basically eliminated both of us to where we couldn’t help.”
McKale memories
Figger will have to deal with the McKale Center environment in just his second game as UTRGV’s head coach, but for him it was something of an easy sell.
Figger said he agreed to the game in part because he is a friend of Derek van der Merwe, UA’s chief operating officer for athletics and a former vice president at Austin Peay, where Figger coached for the previous four seasons.
Besides, Figger also has good memories of Arizona's arena.
In the 2011 NCAA Tournament, Figger was an assistant for Martin’s Kansas State team in what turned out to be two of the last tournament games hosted at McKale Center. K-State beat Utah State 73-68 in the first round, then lost 70-65 to Wisconsin in the second.
"It was a great atmosphere,” Figger said. “San Diego State was also in that (pod) so it was well-attended by San Diego State fans but it was a good atmosphere. And the weather was incredible at the time — I just remember how nice I thought Tucson was and especially in March.
"It’s beautiful. You wake up every morning and see palm trees and sunshine. There's a lot of other places worse than that.”
Numbers game
3
Seasons since UA last had as few as six turnovers in a November game, as the Wildcats did against NAU on Tuesday, dating back to their six-turnover effort on Nov. 29, 2018 against Georgia Southern.
5.99
The monthly price, in dollars, to subscribe to UA basketball (or one of several other UA programs) on DYME, a new app that allows fans to view content of and direct message the Wildcats’ American players (international players remain ineligible to profit off name, image and likeness activity).
24.1
Percent of the time UTRGV opponents turned the ball over last season, giving the Vaqueros the sixth-highest defensive turnover percentage in Division I.
