College basketball is still a team game, and nobody has drilled that point home better so far this season than the Arizona Wildcats.
Thereβs also plenty to analyze all the way around about Arizonaβs game at Illinois on Saturday: The Illini are healing from the injury bug, but Arizona has been banged up, too. Illinois will have a sold-out crowd at State Farm Arena, but the Illini canβt stop turning the ball over.
Etcetera.
But, cβmon, Kofi Cockburn vs Christian Koloko? Illinoisβ 7-foot preseason All-American and the preseason Big Ten Player of the Year against β¦ a 7-footer from Arizona who already outplayed another all-American center in Michiganβs Hunter Dickinson?
Illinoisβ 285-pound mass of domination around the basket versus Arizonaβs mobile, rim-running, shot-blocking 230-pounder?
Maybe somebody should bring back another one of those championship belts that Koloko carried around after being named MVP after the Main Event championship in Las Vegas last month.
The heavyweight belt.
Itβs the big matchup within the big matchup.
UA coach Tommy Lloyd called Cockburn βbasically the Shaq of college basketballβ earlier this week and assistant coach Steve Robinson, who has been scouting the Illini, detailed why heβs different than any other big Koloko and the Wildcats have faced.
βDefinitely,β Robinson said. βHeβs bigger, stronger, more physical than all of them. He can take up a lot of space, he can guard a lot of space. He can get to the boards and rebound the ball, finish plays. They try to find as many different ways as they can to get him the ball and score.β
They sure do.Cockburn ends Illinois’ possessions 27.8% of the time when he’s on the floor, the 138th highest percentage of possessions used according to KenPom.com. (No UA player is used more often than Azuolas Tubelis at 25.3%.).
But of course itβs not just about Koloko having to stop him. Robinson says itβs really about team defense more than a βone-on-one thing,β and Illinois coach Brad Underwood says he expects to see Arizona throw double-teams on Cockburn throughout the game.
In other words, it may also be a lot of Cockburn versus Koloko and Tubelis.
βKofiβs gotta be Kofi,β Underwood said Friday at Illinoisβ pregame news conference in Champaign, Illinois. βKofiβs gotta be a big boy and not let the double-team bother him. Heβs gotta take opportunities when theyβre there.
βThey can throw size at you, but where theyβve been really effective is with the double-teams.β
Illinois center Kofi Cockburn, center, drives to the basket between Iowa guard Payton Sandfort, left, and guard Connor McCaffery, right, during the first half of Monday's game in Iowa City.
But Koloko is still likely to be the primary defender for the Illiniβs big man. Both have skills; Cockburn has power, Koloko has athleticism and, unlike when Arizona and Illinois met two years ago, the confidence to match.
On Nov. 11, 2019, Cockburn had nine points and seven rebounds at McKale Center. He was outplayed by a fellow freshman named Zeke Nnaji, who broke out with 19 points on 9-for-12 shooting en route to his surprise race to the 2020 NBA Draft.
In a sense, Koloko struggled even more that day. He didnβt even get to play, with then-UA coach Sean Miller likely worried about throwing out a true freshman center who was listed at only 215 pounds at the time.
βChristian didnβt get in, and it really bothers me because heβs a very good player,β Miller said after that game. βHeβs very good every day, but like I told him, donβt be surprised if you keep watching us that he doesnβt work his way into having a role and help us win a really big game.β
Two years later, Koloko has been doing a lot of that. He blew through the month of November, averaging 16.2 points, 7.5 rebounds and 3.5 blocks per game while picking up Main Event MVP honors.
Koloko was somewhat less effective over the Wildcatsβ last two games, scoring 12 points at Oregon State on Sunday when he was coming off an ankle sprain and just six on Wednesday against Wyoming after running into foul trouble.
Lloyd said Koloko has struggled lately not only because of the ankle injury but also because of an βadjustment period.β Expectations were raised last month, and Koloko has leaped onto the NBA mock draft boards.
Clearly, Koloko is a different player now than he was two years ago, and even last season, when he started 19 of UAβs 26 games in Millerβs final season. Maybe even different than he was last summer, when Robinson arrived from North Carolina.
βOver these past few months, you can see where his confidence level has grown,β Robinson said. βWe hope it continues to grow because heβs an outstanding defender and rebounder. He really does a great job running the floor and finishing plays for us.β
If Koloko can finish and defend effectively on Saturday, his confidence could shoot even higher.
