With tight turnarounds ahead, Arizona men's basketball learns to move on after big wins

All the ingredients were lined up to give Brayden Burries, Jaden Bradley and their Arizona Wildcats teammates a pretty nasty hangover earlier this week.

Or at least enough to feel human nature tugging at them.

Before they rolled over Abilene Christian 96-62 on Tuesday, the Wildcats enjoyed a big weekend in Alabama. They beat the Crimson Tide 96-75 in Birmingham late Saturday night, complete with a 28-point breakout performance from Burries, before an ESPN audience and an increasingly quiet pro-Alabama crowd at Legacy Arena.

By Monday morning, that game helped the Wildcats increase their grip on the No. 1 ranking in the Associated Press Top 25 poll, in which they gained nine more first-place votes.

And if all that didn't threaten complacency with mid-major Abilene Christian coming to town Tuesday, fatigue could have. The Wildcats' charter flight from Birmingham to Tucson took over 3½ hours and didn’t land until 2:57 a.m. Sunday morning.

That meant the Wildcats could only try to sleep in later Sunday morning, attempt to re-focus during a Sunday afternoon practice and then go through a full day of prep before a game Tuesday that was sandwiched between Alabama and San Diego State, their opponent on Saturday in Phoenix.

But that was enough, for this team at least.

A team ranked No. 1 and full of NBA prospects who know what life might be like ahead.

“All of us have goals of getting to the next level, and I feel like at the next level, it’s going to be back-to-backs,” said Burries, who followed his 28-point outburst against Alabama with 20 points against Abilene Christian. “You’ve got to be able to practice after a game, or as soon as you land.”

More immediately, as collegians, the Wildcats will also soon be facing a difficult pace in Big 12 Conference play.

In January alone, the Wildcats will be asked to play three road games on a Saturday, including one at UCF, and then return home in time for a Wednesday game at McKale. They’ll also have to fly to Utah the day after hosting West Virginia at McKale and face BYU the day after that.

Similarly, in February, they’ll play at Kansas two days after hosting Oklahoma State at McKale Center, and they’ll finish home conference play by hosting Kansas and Iowa State with just a day between.

It’s a whole different deal than how Arizona has lived lately, facing Norfolk State, Auburn and Alabama over the past three Saturdays — and nobody in between.

“I told our guys, 'This is the rhythm we need to get accustomed to,'” UA coach Tommy Lloyd said. “We had a football schedule. We played three Saturdays in a row, where you build in days off and prep time. That's not normal.

“We’ve got to get more comfortable playing and preparing in tighter windows, so that was the focus this week.”

It wasn’t a perfect exercise for Arizona. While UA led wire-to-wire and was never really challenged after taking an early 10-2 lead Tuesday, the Wildcats did cough up a season-high 19 turnovers that Lloyd suggested was both from a “little bit of casualness" and ACU's aggressiveness.

Otherwise, though, Arizona took care of things. UA shot a season-high 66.7% from the field, outrebounded ACU 38-23 and scored 13 more points at the free-throw line, taking advantage of the flip side of ACU’s defensive style.

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"They're a scrappy defensive team," Lloyd said. "They do a great job stealing the basketball, putting pressure on you, and denying some passes you would normally get.

"So you want to be able to attack that pressure. But one of the downfalls of the way they play, is there's a lot of fouls."

With that sort of context, it's maybe no surprise that Bradley went to the free throw line 10 times in the first 12 minutes of the game, being the Wildcats’ veteran point guard and a proven attacker from the perimeter.

The Wildcats of Texas lunged, they stole, but they also fouled. ACU had 13 steals, scoring 15 points off UA’s 19 overall turnovers, but committed 26 fouls and sent UA players to the line 38 times.

Arizona hit 30 of the 38 free-throw attempts, with Bradley hitting all 10 he took. The 10 made free throws were a career high for Bradley, who also hit as many twice as a freshman at Alabama in 2022-23.

"We knew they were going to be aggressive," Bradley said. "That's what they hang their hat on, steals and just amping up on defense. So it's trying to get to the basket and make layups and (I) just happened to be at the free throw line."

Lloyd said he wanted his players to be strong with the ball and attack ACU, noting that doing so early helped UA pick up enough fouls to get in the bonus quickly.

Burries only shot two free throws, but he went to the basket often, driving inside for layups or jumpers. The freshman combo guard hit 9 of 11 shots while adding two assists, including an alley-oop toss to reserve freshman big man Sidi Gueye, who threw down a rim-rattling dunk with seven minutes left.

Having struggled in UA's first three games against ranked opponents, Burries said he is "starting to get more comfortable" and had support in helping him handle the spotlight he received during and after Saturday's game in Alabama.

"It's just having a small circle and never getting too high, never getting too low," Burries said. "Honestly, it's staying humble and live with the ups and downs."

By the time Burries hit Gueye to record one of his two assists, the game had long been decided. Gueye’s dunk gave UA an 81-49 lead, but the Wildcats really were never seriously challenged, going ahead 51-31 at halftime, and leading by more than 30 for the final six minutes.

The comfortable lead gave Lloyd a chance to experiment with full-court pressure defense on a few possessions, while he inserted backup point guard Evan Nelson with 14 minutes left and Gueye at the nine-minute mark.

None of the Wildcats played more than 26 minutes, potentially putting them in a much better physical and mental position for their Saturday game against San Diego State.

This time, the Wildcats (10-0) will have three full days to rest and prepare, plus an easy bus ride up I-10, and, just in case they need it, probably more guidance.

“Whatever the coaches say, I know they got our best interest at heart,” said Bradley, when asked about the turnaround from Saturday to Tuesday. “Whether it's to practice, or they want us to get a rest and all that stuff, whatever they say, just got to go with it.”