Given a long leash to help set Arizona’s culture as its swaggy-ish point guard, Kerr Kriisa and his teammates may have pushed things a little too far Saturday afternoon.
During the Wildcats’ pregame meal before they beat Utah 82-64 Saturday evening at McKale Center, Kriisa suffered a unspecified injury while “horsing around” with teammates, according to Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd.
With Kriisa sitting out as a result, the Wildcats struggled early. They ultimately rode Azoulas Tubelis’ career-high 32 points, while their defense kept the Utes scoreless for over seven minutes during a game-changing second-half run, en route to their 14th win in their first 15 games.
But afterward, Lloyd spoke often about building a culture and made it clear that too much horsing around was probably not part of the culture he wanted. Kriisa did not sit on the team bench — as nearly all injured players do — and, when asked if he had to tell the Wildcats to dial it back, Lloyd said he would handle “all those issues” internally.
“I will say this, and nothing specific to this situation,” Lloyd said. “Having a great culture is tough. Winning and being consistent and playing at a championship level is tough. And we’re not there yet.”
Lloyd said he wouldn’t get into specifics about Kriisa’s injury but said the guard would return to practice next week and be available for the Wildcats’ three-game road trip against Stanford, Cal and UCLA.
“It’s nothing crazy,” Lloyd said of Kriisa’s absence. “It was a surprise to all of us. We had some guys kind of horsing around at pregame meal and he got hurt. We don’t think it’s anything serious but they held him out tonight. I know that sounds crazy but that’s what happened and we look forward to getting him back and being full strength.”
Wildcats center Christian Koloko (35) gets an armful of Utes forward Dusan Mahorcic (21) while defending the top of the key in the second half.
Just before the game, UA tweeted that Kriisa’s absence was due to “non-COVID precautionary reasons” and it made an immediate difference. The last-place Utes took leads of up to six points in the first half while Arizona’s offense struggled to create and make good shots, making just 1 of 12 3-pointers.
Without Kriisa, Lloyd instead started super senior Justin Kier at point guard in what was the first change yet to Arizona’s starting lineup this season. While Kier has previously started 119 college games between three seasons at George Mason and last season at Georgia, he did so mostly off the ball.
Kier had six points, six rebounds and eight assists with only one turnover, but was just 2 for 8 from 3-point range and also missed three two-point shots.
“I’m proud of Justin,” Lloyd said. “He came here, he’s accepted a different role. He started his whole career. He never played point guard, so he’s kind of learning the position a little bit.”
In the first half, Kier shot 1 for 7 while Bennedict Mathurin was 1 for 6 and Pelle Larsson 1 for 3. Arizona had 10 turnovers in the first half and 16 for the game, leading to 21 Utah points.
Clearly, this was not the usual Arizona offense.
But six of UA’s turnovers in the game were three each from Tubelis and center Christian Koloko, and the Wildcats could hardly blame those guys. Not only did Tubelis score his 32 points on 14-for-24 shooting, while collecting eight rebounds but Koloko added 16 points, five rebounds and four blocks.
“Obviously, turnovers are something we’ve got to address and when you play in that system, sometimes your bigs have a few turnovers here and there because you have multiple handlers of the ball,” Lloyd said. “You don’t just have one guy making decisions, but when they’re playing like that and moving like they were today and connecting on a few high-lows, it’s special.
“It’s a fun office to coach, it’s a hopefully a fun offense to play in and hopefully a fun offense to watch.”
Tubelis indicated he and Koloko had fun with it.
Wildcats guard Pelle Larsson, center, gets squeezed between Utah guard Lazar Stefanovic, left, and guard Marco Anthony while fighting through a pick in the first half.
“Every game we’re looking for each other but it depends how teams are defending us,” Tubelis said. Utah was “guarding us so we had some open looks inside. We just found each other.”
The Tubelis and Koloko show was especially important to the Wildcats in the first half, when they trailed by up to six points and shot only 1 for 11 from 3-point range. The Wildcats even went completely scoreless for a stretch of five minutes and 17 seconds, missing all eight shots they took and committing three turnovers.
But UA managed to take a 34-31 lead at halftime, when Tubelis already had 16 points on 7-for-11 shooting and Koloko added eight points on 4-for-4 shooting.
“They just destroyed us in the paint,” Utah coach Craig Smith said.
In the second half, the Wildcats then cranked up defense to feed their offense.
Leading just 46-45 with 12:24 left, Arizona held Utah scoreless for the next seven minutes and 27 seconds, a stretch in which the Utes committed six turnovers and missed all six shots they took. The Wildcats led 67-45 at the end of the run, with 4:57 left, and had no trouble maintaining a comfortable lead the rest of the way.
“We really, really competed for a long time,” Smith said. “But our team has had this tendency to just kind of all of a sudden stop making certain plays and we got some self-inflicted things that happen.
“Great teams don’t do that. And Arizona is a great team.”
While Utah dropped to 8-9 overall and 1-6 in the Pac-12, Arizona moved to 14-1 overall, its best record after 15 games since 2014-15, when they made the second of two Elite Eight appearances. The Wildcats are also alone in first place in the Pac-12 at 4-0, with the probability of gaining a top-five ranking in Monday’s Associated Press Top 25 poll.
“It’s rat poison,” Lloyd said of the potentially higher ranking. “I mean, this team is sitting around and everybody’s telling them how good they are. They gotta understand what makes them good. What makes them good is when they’re edgy, they’ve got a chip on their shoulder, they play incredibly hard. They pay attention to detail, they take care of the ball.
“I feel like we’ve just slipped a little bit in those areas and we’ve got to fight to get them back.”
No. 6 Arizona 82, Utah 64
UTAH (8-9)
Battin 2-8 0-0 4, Thioune 3-5 4-4 10, Anthony 3-7 0-0 7, Stefanovic 2-5 0-0 4, Worster 0-0 4-4 4, Mahorcic 5-13 0-0 10, Gach 4-9 2-2 12, Madsen 2-5 2-2 8, Jenkins 1-3 0-0 3, Brenchley 0-0 0-0 0, Ballstaedt 1-1 0-0 2. Totals 23-56 12-12 64.
ARIZONA (14-1)
A.Tubelis 14-24 4-6 32, Koloko 7-7 2-2 16, Kier 2-11 0-0 6, Terry 2-4 0-0 4, Mathurin 4-11 3-3 11, Larsson 2-5 1-1 5, Ballo 1-2 3-4 5, Bal 1-1 0-0 3, Nowell 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 33-65 13-16 82.
Halftime—Arizona 34-31.
3-Point Goals—Utah 6-16 (Gach 2-4, Madsen 2-5, Jenkins 1-1, Anthony 1-2, Battin 0-2, Stefanovic 0-2), Arizona 3-18 (Kier 2-8, Bal 1-1, Terry 0-1, Larsson 0-2, A.Tubelis 0-2, Mathurin 0-4).
Rebounds—Utah 27 (Battin 8), Arizona 32 (A.Tubelis 8).
Assists—Utah 9 (Worster, Mahorcic 2), Arizona 24 (Kier 8).
Total Fouls—Utah 18, Arizona 15.
A—14,164 (14,644).
