It'll be Big Boy Basketball — out of necessity — when Wildcats face starter-strapped Stanford on Thursday

Still unsure if or how much Bennedict Mathurin would play Thursday against Stanford, Arizona coach Sean Miller said he might scoot Azuolas Tubelis over to small forward “in a pinch” for the second straight game.

But considering how things are also going sideways on Stanford’s perimeter, Tubelis might as well line up at shooting guard, where he could match up with somebody like 225-pound Spencer Jones or 6-9 Jaiden Delaire at any given moment.

It’ll be Big Boy Basketball, out of necessity, on Thursday when the Wildcats host Stanford at McKale Center in a much-different-looking rematch of the Cardinal’s 78-75 win on Dec. 19.

Stanford is making the trip without its three perimeter starters: Daejon Davis, Bryce Wills and Ziaire Williams. Arizona is without guard Jemarl Baker (broken wrist) and has a major question mark in Mathurin.

Miller said Wednesday that Mathurin had suffered only a Grade 1 ankle sprain on Monday against ASU but that he wasn’t sure what role the freshman might be able to play Thursday, if any, since the high-flying freshman from Montreal has not been through an ankle sprain before.

“I believe that every day that goes by, he’s going to make significant progress,” Miller said. “It’s not as significant as it could have been but I don’t have a yes or no answer on whether he’ll play and if he plays, what role he’ll have.”

Miller said Mathurin was attending all team events this week but not fully practicing. Miller said he might start Dalen Terry or somebody else instead of Mathurin but didn’t rule out keeping Mathurin as a starter if he recovers quickly.

“Right now, it makes no sense to put him out there (in practice) and make him go leading up to the game,” Miller said. “But things can transpire differently from one day to the next with an injury. I just don’t have the answers to those things.”

Without Mathurin, who missed the second half of UA’s 80-67 win over ASU on Monday, the Wildcats have just three players they normally count on for three perimeter positions: Terry plus guards James Akinjo and Terrell Brown, though Miller also played freshman forward Tibet Gorener briefly on Monday.

Miller said during his weekly news conference Wednesday that he could play Gorener or walk-on Matt Weyand if needed. He moved Tubelis briefly to small forward on Monday and could do it again on Thursday.

“But all of that isn’t something that’s going to make us be the best we can be,” Miller said. “It’s just a holding pattern. That would be the best that we can do in (Thursday’s) game based on everything that we’re going through right now.”

Miller also confirmed that he’s been told freshman guard Kerr Kriisa will be eligible to play on Feb. 4 at Utah. That’s one game sooner than the initial expectation of Feb. 6 at Colorado. The NCAA has ruled Kriisa must sit out for 70% of UA’s games, and the move of UA’s second game with ASU from March 6 to Monday appears to have also moved up Kriisa’s timeline.

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Miller said Kriisa also has been cleared for full contact this week after suffering a broken nose and concussion on Jan. 13, meaning he can probably take advantage of the chance to play after just two more games.

While Miller has been juggling all of those issues, Stanford coach Jerod Haase might have a team that is among the nation’s leaders in adversity — especially among those who haven’t even had a COVID-19 pause of their own.

The Cardinal signed up to spend Thanksgiving week in Lahaina at the Maui Invitational, but that event was moved to North Carolina. While en route to the tournament, the Cardinal learned they also couldn’t go home because of a strict health order in Santa Clara County.

Stanford stayed in North Carolina for another week to play North Carolina A&T and practice at the University of North Carolina, then eventually headed west and moved into a new “home” over the hill from campus in coastal Santa Cruz, where they have been permitted to play games in the Golden State Warriors’ tent-like G League arena.

Along the way, Stanford also had four games canceled because of other teams’ COVID-19 issues. The program didn’t pause, as much as Santa Clara County might have wanted it to.

The Cardinal beat Arizona in its first Santa Cruz game on Dec. 19 and has since won all four additional games played near the beach despite suffering a string of losses.

Davis appeared to hurt his knee against the Wildcats and has not played since, while guard Wills went out with an apparent ankle injury on Jan. 4 at Oregon State.

Then, the Cardinal went without Williams last Saturday against UCLA for what the school called “personal reasons.” Stanford won’t have the highly touted freshman back this week, either.

Haase told The Bootleg, a Stanford-focused 247Sports.com site, that Davis, Wills and Williams will all miss the trip to Arizona to play UA and ASU this week.

“All of them will be unavailable for this trip,” Haase told The Bootleg. “I don’t have a timeline still. … Hopefully at some point, after things get settled here, they’ll be back again. No timeline, but nobody will be with us traveling.”

While that news didn’t break until Wednesday afternoon, it was probably no surprise to Miller or anyone who has been following the Cardinal, which managed to beat UCLA on Saturday only after standout Oscar da Silva made a buzzer-beating layup off an inbounds pass in overtime.

“I don’t think we’ve faced a team this season that’s had more adversity, more injuries, illness, different things, that make a season more difficult,” Miller said of Stanford. “I really credit Jerod and his staff. They’ve done an exceptional job, as have his players. They beat UCLA without, in essence three starters, which is quite a feat. It says a lot about Stanford’s quality of depth.

“But it’s what we all have to do. We’re in that situation right now.”