In the zone: Arizona carves up UW's defense, completes weekend sweep

SEATTLE – After his Arizona Wildcats shredded Washington’s zone defense inside and out Saturday, Coach Tommy Lloyd walked across the floor to visit with family who live nearby.

Smiles, all the way around, were in order. Lloyd remained undefeated as a head coach in his home state, with Arizona beating Washington 95-72 on Saturday after a five-point win at Washington State two days earlier.

Except, he said, the location didn’t matter.

“Listen — we could have been in China,” Lloyd said. “If we got a road sweep, I’d be happy. To me it doesn’t have extra meaning playing in Washington. We’re playing two teams I respect.’

In other words, while music blared jarringly out of a celebratory Arizona locker room afterward, Lloyd might have had reason to be more relieved than anything. Arizona played the Washington schools at home earlier this month, beating Washington by only three points and losing to WSU. The Wildcats proved a much better team this time around.

The road sweep was also a critical step toward staying in the thick of the Pac-12 race. The win moved Arizona to 19-3, 8-3 in the Pac-12, where the Wildcats are a game behind first-place UCLA in the loss column and a half-game overall. The Wildcats will host Oregon and Oregon State next week at McKale Center.

“It felt great,” said center Oumar Ballo, who posted a double-double inside along with forward Azuolas Tubelis. “When they went down (to McKale), we were not at our best. For us to come here on this road trip and win both games means a lot to us.”

Tubelis had 25 points on 10-for-17 field-goal shooting while collecting 10 rebounds for his 10th double-double of the season, while Ballo had 21 points and 12 rebounds. Ballo didn’t miss a shot, going 9 for 9 from the field.

“That’s the Oumar we had in Maui,” Lloyd said, referring to Ballo’s MVP performance in the Maui Invitational.

“That’s one of the best big men in the country. Oumar played really well tonight. I saw the mentality he came out with from the tip when he was attacking guys’ bodies in there, and I knew that it was gonna be a good night.”

Ballo’s performance came after he had only one point and missed all three shots he took on Thursday at WSU, though he had nine rebounds and helped limit Cougar center Mouhamed Gueye to 6-of-19 shooting.

“My ankle was bothering me on Thursday night, and also I didn’t try to force anything,” Ballo said. “I tried to just facilitate and play great defense.”

On the other side of Washington’s zone, Kerr Kriisa poured in 6 of 11 3-pointers for 18 points while also collecting six assists and committing only one turnover. Courtney Ramey added 14 points on 4-of-10 3-point shooting.

“On our team, everybody hit,” Kriisa said. “Just happened to be my day.”

But it didn’t happen right away. Arizona actually trailed most of the first half, though the Wildcats never fell in the sort of trouble that led to the Huskies taking a 14-point lead early in their Jan. 5 matchup at McKale Center.

Washington took leads of up to nine points, leading 23-14 after Keion Brooks converted a three-point play with 12:38 left in the half. But Arizona stayed within two possessions for most of the first half and led 38-36 at halftime.

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“I thought in the first half we started out a little lower energy and settled into the game,” Lloyd said. “I guess you can’t ride high emotions for 40 minutes every game, but we were kind of able to hang in there early and didn’t dig ourselves a hole.”

Leading by just two at the break, Arizona fell behind 44-42 early in the second half. The Wildcats then broke the game open with a 19-1 run thanks to five combined 3-pointers from Kriisa and Ramey.

Kriisa opened the run up with a 3, followed by another from Ramey, putting UA up 48-44. Then, after Ballo scored inside, Kriisa hit two more while a 3 from Ramey and a layup from Tubelis finished the run.

Washington cut it to 73-63 with 5:59 left on a jumper from Cole Bajema, but the Wildcats then rattled off nine straight points to put the game away.

“It was probably like it always is” during a run, Lloyd said. “Stops, rebounds and getting quality shots on offense. I thought our guys settled in offensively a little bit today, and the last time we played these guys we didn’t do a good job attacking the zone — and we turned the ball over. You shore up those two things, and you give yourself a better chance.”

As the game went on, Arizona became more comfortable facing — and succeeding against — the Huskies’ zone.

“It didn’t surprise me,” Ballo said. “All last week and early this week, Coach was focusing on a lot on zone offense. We put in a great zone game plan, and it worked out perfectly.

“The zone was just based on moving, and me and ‘Zu,’ we do a really good job of moving from high to low post.”

Brooks had 25 points and six rebounds to lead Washington, which dropped to 13-10, 5-7.

No. 6 Arizona 95, Washington 72

ARIZONA (19-3)

A.Tubelis 10-17 5-6 25, Ballo 9-9 3-4 21, Kriisa 6-11 0-0 18, Ramey 4-10 2-3 14, Henderson 3-9 2-2 9, Larsson 0-3 4-4 4, Boswell 0-2 0-0 0, Anderson 0-0 0-0 0, Bal 0-1 0-0 0, Borovicanin 0-0 0-0 0, Veesaar 2-3 0-0 4. Totals 34-65 16-19 95.

WASHINGTON (13-10)

Brooks 9-19 3-3 25, Meah 3-4 0-0 6, Bajema 1-5 2-2 4, Menifield 8-17 3-3 21, Williams 4-7 1-1 10, Bey 1-2 1-2 4, Johnson 0-5 0-0 0, Wilson 1-3 0-0 2, Fuller 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 27-62 10-11 72.

Halftime: Arizona 38-36. 3-Point Goals: Arizona 11-26 (Kriisa 6-11, Ramey 4-10, Henderson 1-2, Boswell 0-1, Larsson 0-1, A.Tubelis 0-1), Washington 8-27 (Brooks 4-9, Menifield 2-5, Bey 1-2, Williams 1-3, Wilson 0-1, Bajema 0-3, Johnson 0-4). Fouled Out: Meah. Rebounds: Arizona 36 (Ballo 12), Washington 28 (Brooks, Meah 6). Assists: Arizona 25 (Ballo, Kriisa 6), Washington 8 (Menifield 3). Total Fouls: Arizona 15, Washington 19. A: 9,268 (10,000).Contact sports reporter Bruce Pascoe at bpascoe@tucson.com. On Twitter: @brucepascoe

Photos: No. 6 Arizona Wildcats vs. Washington Huskies in Seattle