When freshman forward Azuolas Tubelis fouled out after just 10 minutes against NAU in Arizona’s third game of the season, it hardly mattered to the Wildcats.
Guard Jemarl Baker poured in 33 points that evening, nullifying much of what the undermanned Lumberjacks tried to do in a 96-53 UA win.
Two weeks later, when Tubelis picked up a technical for hanging on the rim against Montana — something the Lithuanian big man didn’t even know was a problem in the American college game — it was easily shrugged off as a learning experience en route to another Wildcats win, in large part because James Akinjo had 18 points and five assists that day.
But when the shooting of Baker (1 for 7) and Akinjo (0 for 9) went south Thursday in UA’s 87-73 loss to USC, Tubelis couldn’t return the favor, despite a season-high 31 points that featured eye-opening scoring from all areas of the court.
“Not a great feeling right now,” Tubelis said.
In short, the Wildcats may need just about everything working properly to handle an upper-echelon Pac-12 team such as USC — the type of team Arizona is scheduled to face Saturday against UCLA at McKale Center and next Saturday at Oregon.
With length and skill at every position, the Trojans were much better than NAU or Montana, giving the Wildcats little room for error.
And there was a lot of error.
“It was an awesome game” by Tubelis, UA coach Sean Miller said. “I mean, there’s not too many freshmen that I’ve coached that have 31 in a Pac-12 game against the talent level that was on the court. He’s getting better and more comfortable.
“There have been times in the first 10 games where Azuolas has been in foul trouble. He’s had his freshman moments, freshmen mistakes. But we’ve relied on our backcourt, we’ve relied on some guys that have really been consistent and (against USC) it almost flipped — he was terrific and we needed those guys to be better shooting the ball.”
Arizona forward Azuolas Tubelis, left, had 31 points Thursday, but UA still lost by 14 after going cold down the stretch.
Tubelis singlehandedly kept the Wildcats in Thursday’s game, scoring half of their 34 points in the first half after which UA trailed by just a point.
But when things didn’t get much better for the Wildcats in the second half, the fact that Tubelis threw in another 14 points wasn’t nearly enough, and it worsened toward the end.
After UA freshman Bennedict Mathurin hit a 3 to give UA a 53-52 lead with 13:28 left, USC took over for good. USC’s Isaiah White scored inside and then the Trojans hit two straight 3s after blocking Arizona shots.
That made it 60-53 and the Wildcats never really recovered. They cut it to no less than four points the rest of the way, and went scoreless over the final two minutes while White dunked and made a layup, launching a rowdy Trojan celebration that could be heard deep into the McKale Center hallways once the piped music was turned off for the night.
“When you can’t get a stop, and you can’t get a shot, it’s hard to keep fighting — and I don’t think we fought to the end,” Miller said. “I really don’t. It just became too hard. We were overwhelmed. And we gave in down the homestretch, which is disappointing and clearly something that we will fix.”
The Wildcats might need to start with Baker and Akinjo. While Akinjo has shot 1 for 11 from 3 point range over the past two games, against WSU and USC, Baker is a combined 2 for 21 overall from the field in those games. He also rolled an ankle during the WSU game that Miller said might still limit him.
“I think Jemarl will be fine,” Miller said after Thursday’s game. “We’ll be careful (Friday) and like all of our players and our coaching staff, put this game behind us, learn from it, grow from it and have a chance to compete against a very good UCLA team.”
While the Bruins lose some length inside without Smith, who played a wing-oriented power forward role, they still feature veteran bigs Cody Riley and Jalen Hill, versatile wings such as Jaime Jaquez, Jules Bernard and Kentucky transfer Johnny Juzang, plus high-energy, low-turnover point guard Tyger Campbell.
To Ira Lee, Arizona’s veteran post player and an L.A. native intimately familiar with the rosters of both USC and UCLA, the Bruins are another group that could cause UA the same sort of problems USC did.
“It wasn’t just the bigs messing up, it was us as a group,” Lee said of the USC game. “It was a group dysfunction. They were getting in the paint. We weren’t building walls. They were able to straight-line drive us whenever they wanted to — and when they do that, that makes their bigs’ job a lot easier.
“Next game we’re going up against another good group of bigs and we’re gonna have to tighten up those things.”
On the other end of the court, the Wildcats also won’t be able to stretch things out unless their starting guards can turn their shooting around.
“It wasn’t just Jemarl or James,” Miller said after Thursday’s game. “I’m not here to play the blame game. Those guys have been a terrific backcourt for us.
“But (Thursday) they just didn’t have it and in a game like USC, you have to be good. We have to be good on offense, we have to take care of the ball and we have to be much, much better on defense.”
