Arizona men's basketball scouting report: Oregon at No. 6 UA, noon Saturday

Oregon (19-9, 11-6) at No. 6 Arizona (21-6, 12-4) | McKale Center | noon Saturday | ESPN | 1290-AM, 107.5-FM

Probable starters

OREGON

G Jackson Shelstad (6-0 freshman)

G Jermaine Couisnard (6-4 senior)

F Jadrian Tracy (6-5 junior)

F Kwame Evans (6-9 freshman)

C N’Faly Dante (6-11 senior)

ARIZONA

G Kylan Boswell (6-2 soph.)

G Caleb Love (6-4 senior)

F Pelle Larsson (6-6 senior)

F Keshad Johnson (6-7 senior)

C Oumar Ballo (7-0 senior)

How they match up

The last time: Caleb Love tied the Matthew Knight Arena scoring record with 36 points to help Arizona beat Oregon 87-78 on Jan. 27 in Eugene. The win came two days after the Wildcats were upset 83-80 at Oregon State and snapped a string of six straight UA losses in Eugene. Arizona shot 49.1% from the field, hit 10 of 19 turnovers and scored 17 points off 14 Oregon turnovers.

The last time at McKale Center: Azuolas Tubelis scored 40 points, just one shy of the McKale record that Al Fleming set in 1975-76, to lead Arizona to a 91-76 win over Oregon on Feb. 2, 2023. Tubelis was 16 of 21 from the field and hit 8 of 9 free throws while also collecting nine rebounds, three assists, three steals and a block.

Series history: Arizona leads Oregon 54-37 and has won three of the past four since snapping a seven-game skid to the Ducks with an 84-81 victory at McKale on Feb. 19, 2022.

What’s new with the Ducks: Often a late-peaking team under veteran coach Dana Altman, Oregon has won three of its past four to take a seat squarely on the NCAA Tournament bubble entering Saturday’s game. They are also in third place, two games behind UA, in the Pac-12 race.

On Wednesday, freshman forward Kwame Evans led the Ducks to their seventh straight win over OSU, 78-71 at Matthew Knight Arena, when he had 22 points, nine rebounds and three blocked shots while shooting 6 of 7 from the field and 9 of 12 from the line. Oregon won the game at the free-throw line, hitting 23 of 32 free throws, while OSU was 8 for 8.

The Ducks sit in the middle of the Pac-12 in most major statistical categories, and they’re hitting only 49.6% of 2-point shots (ninth in the conference) despite the presence of big man N’Faly Dante and his 63.4% shooting. Dante missed 14 games earlier in the season because of a knee injury but has been active since mid-January, collecting 19 points, five rebounds and two blocks against Arizona on Jan. 27.

Oregon has continued to start juco transfer Jadrian Tracy alongside Jermaine Couisnard on the wings after moving Tracy in the lineup early in the Pac-12 season, while point guard Jackson Shelstad has scored in double figures in five of Oregon’s eight games, with 20 points and six assists in a win over USC and 19 points and seven assists in Oregon’s win over Stanford.

Key players

OREGON — Jermaine Couisnard

The Ducks’ explosive fifth-year guard dropped 27 on Arizona last season in Eugene, but the Wildcats held him to eight points in the rematch at McKale and, earlier this season, made him work hard for his 20 points in Eugene. Couisnard shot 6 of 20 from the field but went to the line eight times and hit seven free throws on Jan. 27. He draws 4.7 fouls per 40 minutes.

ARIZONA — Caleb Love

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Love began pushing himself to the top of the Pac-12 Player of the Year candidate list after scoring 36 points while taking just 18 field goals at Oregon. He’s scored 18 or more in half of the Wildcats since then while also dishing four or more assists in five games since then.

Sidelines

Pastner’s 'homecoming'

Josh Pastner graduated from Arizona and spent 12 seasons on the Wildcats’ bench on the East side of McKale in a variety of playing and coaching roles.

On Saturday, he’ll be sitting on the West side for the first time ever. With a headset on, while working the game for ESPN along with play-by-play broadcaster Dave Pasch.

“I don't think it'll be weird,” Pastner said earlier this week. “I think I'm able to separate that I have a job to do and a responsibility. But think anyone would tell you, McKale Center has a great home crowd and atmosphere, one of the best crowds in the entire country. It will be a great day, and I always felt those early afternoon games on Saturdays, there was great energy.”

The way Pastner described it, the Wildcats will need energy to put away an Oregon team that is desperate for a big win.

“There's a lot at stake for both teams,” Pastner said. “Obviously Arizona is trying to maintain a one seed and win the Pac-12 championship and Oregon has to make they have to win the game to try to get themselves in discussion to be back at that bubble. So it should be a good basketball game.”

Pastner, who has been working for Peacock, ESPN, CBS Sports and the ACC Network, also did the Peacock studio show when that streaming service carried the Dec. 17 Arizona-Purdue game. He said the Wildcats have their best chance yet in coach Tommy Lloyd’s three seasons of making the Final Four.

“They score as well as anybody in the country in transition offense,” Pastner said. “I think it just comes down to that game in the NCAA Tournament where it becomes a grind-it-out halfcourt game. They’ve got to win, and maybe it’s not just outscoring their opponents offensively. They’ve got to defend.”

Mother’s Day

While standout college athletes have long been known to buy houses or cars for their parents upon signing a lucrative pro contract, NIL changed the game for Oregon’s Dante.

According to the Oregonian, he’s buying his mom a new three-story house in Mali with NIL proceeds he earned last summer while in his home country.

“If not for what my mom did for us, we couldn’t have done anything,” Dante said. “Everything I wished for as a kid, I had it.”

Dante told the Oregonian that his mother used to roast peanuts over a flame at the local market to make into peanut butter so she could make enough money to send her kids to private school.

Dante said when he returned home after practicing basketball, she would have hot water ready for him to clean up and a meal ready.

“It was bad, obviously,” Dante said. “I didn’t realize how hard it was for her. When I went home last summer, I was like, ‘Why did you never tell me this?’ And my mom said, ‘I told you, you are my life.’”

Numbers game

1: Rebound Oumar Ballo needs to become the 13th player in Arizona history with 1,000 points and 750 rebounds.

3: Big men from Mali scheduled to be on the floor Saturday: Oumar Ballo of Arizona, and Dante and Mahamadou Diawara of Oregon. The three average 6-feet, 11-inches tall.

33: Players inducted into UA’s men’s basketball Ring of Honor after Kenny Lofton’s formal ceremony Saturday (Lofton qualified based on his Major League Baseball career).

750: Career wins for Oregon coach Dana Altman, the sixth active coach in Division I to reach the mark (340 of which were at Oregon).

— Bruce Pascoe

Photos: Arizona scraps out an 85-67 win on the road at Arizona State, Pac 12 basketball