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No. 11 ARIZONA 94, WYOMING 65

Bennedict Mathurin, 11th-ranked Arizona run wild over Wyoming in 94-65 win

Arizona guard Bennedict Mathurin gets his teammates hopping as he finishes off a fast break with a dunk during the first half of Wednesday’s win over Wyoming.

 Kelly Presnell, Arizona Daily Star

Arizona hosted another one of the nation’s unbeaten teams at McKale Center on Wednesday night, but you could hardly tell the difference.

The Wildcats simply put away Wyoming, 94-65, the same way they have just about everybody else so far this season en route to an 8-0 start and No. 11 national ranking.

Playing without reserve forward Kim Aiken for what UA termed personal reasons, while guards Kerr Kriisa and Pelle Larsson briefly went out in the first half with ankle injuries, the Wildcats still shot 52.8% from the field and clobbered the Cowboys on the glass with a 42-27 rebounding advantage.

Their rebounding helped the Wildcats keep pushing their preferred fast pace over the normally slow-tempo Cowboys, while Bennedict Mathurin, Kerr Kriisa and Azuolas Tubelis led a show that entertained the Wildcats’ biggest and loudest crowd of the season, with more than 12,000 appearing to be in attendance.

“We felt it,” Tubelis said. “Now we just need to fill up those seats on top, those red seats, and it will be amazing to play.”

While Tubelis dominated inside against a strong Wyoming interior with 17 points and eight rebounds, Kriisa brought out cheers while hitting 5 of 10 3-pointers, while Mathurin was simply everywhere.

After scoring 29 points Sunday at Oregon State in a performance that earned him the Pac-12’s Player of the Week award, Mathurin had 24 points on 10-for-16 shooting, along with 10 rebounds and five assists.

Mathurin said it’s been a matter of getting more comfortable with coach Tommy Lloyd’s uptempo scheme of heavy ball-movement while throwing in “max effort,” but he indicated it was also somewhat a matter of freeing up his mind.

“(Lloyd) just told me… I was being too hard on myself,” Mathurin said. “He told me to let loose and be simple, just let the game come to me.”

While Mathurin’s powerful dunks were the attention grabbers, Lloyd said it was Mathurin’s passing and rebounding that helped make a difference in his production — and his teammates’ production.

“In the Sacramento State game, there were three times he forced the ball in transition, and turned it over in the first half and I told Benn “It’s not against the rules for you to push the ball, but you’re so much better when you’re out in front and you’re on the receiving end of the play,” Lloyd said.

Mathurin also continued to hit the offensive glass hard. Mathurin had half of his six rebounds at OSU on the offensive end – and half of his 10 rebounds against Wyoming.

“His offensive rebounding is a difference maker,” Lloyd said. “It makes you go from an average player who your teammates have to serve to now he’s serving the team — and he’s making plays on broken plays. That’s really, really hard to play against.”

Lloyd said Mathurin and the Wildcats made a number of smart plays against a defense that often went under their ball screens, helping them connect on 52.8% of their field goals, and 39.3% of their 3-pointers. The Wildcats also had four fewer turnovers than the Cowboys, scoring 19 points off Wyoming’s 14 turnovers.

Tubelis described it simply: With Wyoming constantly going under screens, the Wildcats adjusted and gave the ball to whatever shooter might be freed open as a result.

Kriisa benefited early, hitting two 3-pointers to help Arizona take a quick 11-2 run, while the Wildcats hit 7 of 15 3s for the game and 11 for 28 overall.

“They show that they do that and other teams have done that this year,” Lloyd said of the Cowboys’ ball-screen defensive philosophy. ”I always think that’s a pretty brave thing to when you’re playing in somebody else’s gym, to go under ball screens and I think our guys did a great job of shooting the right ones.

“They were daring Dalen (Terry) on a couple of them and he drove down there and still got a layin. Benn drove it once, could have shot it, but took his time and got Zu (Tubelis) lay-ins or hit him on the roll. Just real mature decisions.”

Arizona center Oumar Ballo, left, and guard Bennedict Mathurin squeeze Wyoming forward Jeremiah Oden during the first half of Wednesday’s game.

The win moved Arizona to 8-0 entering a Saturday showdown at Illinois (7-2), which is coming off an 87-82 win at Iowa on Monday. Wyoming dropped to 8-1.

After the game, Lloyd said he could not detail the nature of Aiken’s absence, saying Aiken was “working through it” and that he hoped Kriisa and Larsson were OK after briefly visiting the locker room in the first half with ankle injuries.

The absences didn’t appear to make a difference. Ahead 52-33 at halftime, UA built leads of up to 36 points early in the second half before the Cowboys pulled within 27 points with 12:08 left in the game largely thanks to the 3-point shooting of Xavier DuSell.

The Cowboys hit only 1 of 12 3s in the first half, with DuSell going 1 for 4, but the guard from Scottsdale made 4 of 5 from 3-point range over the first eight minutes of the second half.

DuSell finished with 22 points and 6 of 12 3-point shooting to help keep the Cowboys barely under a 30-point loss at the end. Wyoming’s overall shooting of 48.4% in the second half also kept the Wildcats from a bigger blowout win.

While Arizona’s defense let up in the second half, the Wildcats were unstoppable in the first half. Getting 14 points each before halftime from Kriisa and Mathurin, Arizona raced to a 53-22 halftime lead.

That fired up the McKale Crowd, which in turn fired the Wildcats up, and helped result in Wyoming heading home with its first loss of the season.

“To be honest, this was way more fun to play in front of the crowd and McKale Center in general,” Mathurin said. “I just feel like it gives me like a boost, a bounce even more, and more excitement just to dunk the ball.”

No. 11 Arizona 94, Wyoming 65

WYOMING (8-0)

Ike 6-14 5-5 17, Oden 2-5 3-4 7, Dusell 7-17 2-4 22, Jeffries 3-7 0-0 8, Maldonado 4-8 1-2 9, Thompson 0-3 0-0 0, Wenzel 0-2 0-0 0, Foster 1-1 0-0 2, Reynolds 0-1 0-0 0, Grigsby 0-0 0-0 0, Nelson 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 23-58 11-15 65.

ARIZONA (8-0)

A.Tubelis 7-12 3-3 17, Koloko 3-6 0-0 6, Kriisa 6-12 0-0 17, Terry 3-8 0-0 7, Mathurin 10-16 2-3 24, Kier 5-9 0-0 13, Ballo 3-6 0-0 6, Larsson 1-2 2-2 4, Mains 0-0 0-0 0, Nowell 0-0 0-0 0, Bal 0-1 0-0 0, T.Tubelis 0-0 0-0 0, Weitman 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 38-72 7-8 94.

Halftime—Arizona 53-22. 3-Point Goals—Wyoming 8-25 (Dusell 6-12, Jeffries 2-6, Maldonado 0-1, Oden 0-1, Wenzel 0-2, Thompson 0-3), Arizona 11-28 (Kriisa 5-10, Kier 3-5, Mathurin 2-6, Terry 1-3, Larsson 0-1, A.Tubelis 0-3). Rebounds—Wyoming 26 (Ike, Thompson, Wenzel, Foster 4), Arizona 37 (Mathurin 10). Assists—Wyoming 10 (Maldonado 4), Arizona 23 (Kriisa, Terry, Mathurin 5). Total Fouls—Wyoming 11, Arizona 15.

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Contact sports reporter Bruce Pascoe at 573-4146 or bpascoe@tucson.com. On Twitter @brucepascoe