Wildcats have been more efficient since lineup change; exploring the real reasons why

Arizona’s final regular-season weekend looks every bit as rough as when it was announced last fall. Maybe even worse.

The Wildcats will play at surging USC for the chance to lock up a No. 2 Pac-12 Tournament seed Thursday, then bus across town on Saturday to face regular-season champ UCLA, which is playing for a possible No. 1 NCAA Tournament seed. No doubt the Bruins will be aiming to avenge their 58-52 loss at Arizona on Jan. 21 at McKale Center too.

But the Wildcats at least might be better prepared than ever. Although they have lost two of their past four games, at Stanford and against ASU at McKale, the Wildcats continue to be more efficient almost across the board since moving to a starting lineup that bumped wing Pelle Larsson out of the starting lineup for Cedric Henderson the last time they played USC, on Jan. 19 at McKale Center.

The additional production for both Henderson and Larsson have been well-documented already: Already comfortable off the bench as last season’s Pac-12 Sixth Man of the Year, Larsson has improved his field-goal shooting from 39.4 to 53.5%. Henderson, more comfortable as a starter after being one for three seasons at Campbell, has recorded big jumps in scoring (5.4 to 9.7), rebounding (2.8 to 4.4) and 3-point percentage (27.3 to 50.0).

There are also things worth noting with the Wildcats as a whole.

In a comparison between 11 games against high-major opponents with Larsson as the starter and the 11 games with Larsson off the bench, Arizona’s scoring, shooting, rebounding, assists and assist-to-turnover ratio have all improved.

Individually, the shooting percentages for guards Kerr Krisa and Courntey Ramey have also improved, while Ramey’s assist-to-turnover ratio has jumped from 1.84 to 3.38.

But it’s not clear how much the lineup change has to do with all that, or whether the Wildcats are simply just getting better because they have played together longer. They did lose three NBA players from last season’s starting lineup, while adding grad transfers Ramey and Henderson.

“Hopefully it’s a sign of growth in our team,” UA assistant coach Steve Robinson said. “You have to make changes, but it also goes back to working and just kind of going back over the offense, making sure everybody understands it.

“I think with Ced and Courtney, they haven’t been in the system before, and it just takes time sometimes. It takes time to get it and understanding the ‘why.’ I think they all understood the urgency, which we had to learn. And I think sometimes you have to have setbacks to create some of those positive things —`OK, we’ve got to do better. I’ve got to concentrate better.’ All those things kind of added up to help us.”

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While Arizona’s single most dramatic change between the two 11-game blocks has been its 3-point shooting percentage, which has risen from 30.7% to 41.4%, UA coach Tommy Lloyd said he would need to make a “chi-square analysis” to see if the lineup had anything to do with it.

“I don’t think there’s any significant correlation between those two things, that I can think of,” Lloyd said.

Larsson — whose shooting from 3-point range was just 19.4% in 11 key games as a starter but 42.9% in 11 games off the bench — also said he didn’t see any correlation. But he did acknowledge being more comfortable as a reserve, partly because he no longer has to worry about picking up fouls in the first two minutes.

“My role isn’t that different to me,” Larsson said. “I’m still playing 30 minutes. Sometimes it can be easier to kind of spectate and see what’s going on before you get out there. But sometimes you have to go in there when the other team’s on a run. So it’s both ways. But so far, it’s been going good.”

Another factor that could be just as important, if not more so, than the lineup change: Just two weeks before starting Henderson for the first time, Lloyd had whittled his rotation down to just seven players, keeping big man Henri Veesaar and wing Adama Bal almost permanently on the bench.

“It’s unfortunate maybe for some guys that I made a decision to tighten the rotation,” Lloyd said. “But I think what it’s done is it’s given that group of guys certainty, and with certainty comes comfort and confidence. They can play clear-minded a little bit. Maybe that’s helped.

“But hey, we’ll see what happens this weekend. This time of year, you might have to try another guy here or there and see what happens.”