Lineup swap pays off for Cats, who get revenge on Kansas in Big 12 quarterfinals

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Arizona forward Trey Townsend might have struggled much of the Big 12 season, but he’s developed this thing for name-brand teams.

The fifth-year transfer from Oakland, who helped the Wildcats beat Kansas 88-77 in a Big 12 quarterfinal game Thursday at T-Mobile Center, had 17 points and 12 rebounds in Oakland’s stunning first-round NCAA Tournament upset of Kentucky a year ago.

Two days later, he had 30 points and 19 in a second-round loss to eventual Final Four participant N.C. State.

“Knowing that I did succeed against teams like that last year helps,” Townsend said.

So, Kansas? No big deal. Townsend had 13 points and seven rebounds off the bench against the Jayhawks on March 8, a rare bright spot for a UA team that lost 83-76 in the intimidating atmosphere of Allen Fieldhouse.

That’s when you could say Nostra-Thomas took notice.

Having jokingly given himself that nickname two seasons ago, after successfully predicting the exact timeline of guard Kylan Boswell’s freshman-year breakout, UA coach Tommy Lloyd opted to re-insert Townsend into the starting lineup Thursday and moved Henri Veesaar back to the bench.

Then both Townsend and Veesaar played leading roles while the Wildcats avenged their March 8 loss at Kansas, and put themselves in a Big 12 tournament semifinal game on Friday against Texas Tech (25-7) on ESPN2.

Kansas heads into Selection Sunday at 21-12, while UA (21-11) kept open the possibility of receiving a preferential top four NCAA Tournament seed.

Veesaar and guard KJ Lewis led Arizona with 19 points each, with Veesaar hitting two of three 3-pointers he took, while Townsend mostly plowed inside to collect 16 points on 6-for-8 shooting from the field and 4-of-5 shooting from the line.

But Lloyd declined to take credit for predicting the production of Townsend and Veesaar.

Or having anything to do with it, really.

“I’m not Nostra-Thomas. Isn’t that what you called me before?” Lloyd said. “I'm just a coach. I just felt like maybe it would be the right move today. Trey has been trending in the right direction and Trey is a first-class guy.”

Lloyd said Townsend was “nothing but classy” when Lloyd opted to start Veesaar over him at power forward on Feb. 17 at Baylor, when Townsend was coming off five straight single-digit scoring games during a stretch when he also missed two games with a concussion suffered at BYU on Feb. 4.

“Last year he's the mid-major player of the year, he comes to Arizona, has some success, but then has some struggles,” Lloyd said. "I moved the lineup around and he was nothing but classy the whole time. I felt like he was trending in the right direction.”

Same went for Veesaar, Lloyd said. The Wildcats’ redshirt sophomore 7-footer from Estonia played a small role as a freshman in 2022-23, and sat out last season with a preseason elbow injury before emerging this season especially after 7-footer Motiejus Krivas was lost for the season.

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Out, in, out again. Veesaar didn’t care, Lloyd said.

“I asked Henri about it a couple days ago,” Lloyd said, “and he totally said, 'Coach, I'm OK with anything. I don't care what you do. You do whatever you think is best for the team. I will start. I will come off the bench. I will be the 8th guy, the 9th guy, the 6th guy, whatever you want me to be.

“We have guys that understand it takes a group and more than just a starting five.”

The Wildcats pretty much won the game Thursday with players six through eight: Lewis and Veesaar combined for 38 points off the bench, while reserve freshman forward Carter Bryant chipped in seven points and five rebounds, hitting 2 of 4 3-pointers.

As a result, the Arizona “bench” outscored Kansas reserves 45-13, able to overcome Jayhawks starters Hunter Dickinson, Dajuan Harris and Zeke Mayo in a way the Wildcats could not five days earlier.

Leading by up to 12 points in the first half and 45-37 at halftime, the Wildcats trailed by three with 11:37 to go, and a turnaround jumper from Dickinson pulled the Jayhawks within 70-69 with 5:43 left.

Lloyd called a timeout at that point, with Dickinson beginning to hurt the Wildcats inside. Having scored 33 on March 8, Dickinson had 19 points and 12 rebounds at that point but had been previously scoring mostly outside.

After the timeout, Veesaar drove inside for a score and picked up a foul from Dickinson, then converted a three-point play to give the Wildcats a 73-69 lead with 5:02 remaining. UA later scored six straight points to go ahead 82-72 with 1:37 left and hung on from there.

Although Kansas had rallied throughout the game in part by hitting 14 of 31 3-point shots, the Wildcats shut down the inside: Kansas shot just 39.4% from two-point range after hitting 54.3% from inside the arc on March 8.

Townsend and Veesaar had something to do with that, too.

Townsend said UA players rallied around the scouting report assignments of associate head coach Jack Murphy, and “didn’t go off and do our own thing," while motivation also helped.

“We knew their tendencies and we concentrated all week playing against them,” Veesaar said. “At their place we left with a bad taste in our mouth, and we definitely wanted to play against them and execute the plan the way we needed to.”

So while Kansas was sweating it out Wednesday night, needing overtime to beat UCF just to get into Thursday’s game, the Wildcats were sitting back and watching the game, thinking about how tasty revenge might be if the Jayhawks beat the Knights.

“We wanted to play Kansas. It ain’t no secret,” UA guard Caleb Love said. “We laid an egg last game, and for us to come out here and get that win was very important for us, obviously, not (in just beating) Kansas but for the Big 12 Tournament. We've just got to continue to build and build.”

Meanwhile, the Wildcats also had Townsend’s energy filtering through the locker room. As a fifth-year senior, Townsend said he knows he is down to his final games, and that he wanted to enjoy the same sort of experience he had on the big stage last March.

“It's just how fun it was playing in the tournament last year, and now being able to do that again,” Townsend said. “And this tournament honestly feels like a mini March Madness. My conference tournament (the Horizon League) last year didn't have this big atmospheric feel to it, so I kind of get an early taste of that.

“I’m just trying to get these guys excited about it, because it is such a cool experience to be able to play in a tournament.”