Game info

Who: No. 11 Arizona (16-4, 6-1) vs. Colorado (12-8, 4-4)

Where: McKale Center

When: 6:30 p.m. Thursday

Watch: FS1

Listen: 1290-AM, 107.5-FM

Follow: @TheWildcaster on Twitter / TheWildcaster on Facebook

Probable starters: Arizona

Probable starters: Colorado

How they match up

The last time:

Arizona suffered its only Pac-12 loss — and only one in the United States — when Colorado had five players score in double figures to beat the Wildcats 80-77 on Jan. 6 in Boulder. Freshman McKinley Wright led the Buffaloes with 16 points and 10 assists, while freshman center Dallas Walton scored a career-high 15 points. The UA shot just 38.4 percent against the Buffaloes and made just 7 of 25 3-pointers (28 percent).

The last time at McKale:

Colorado bolted to a 10-1 lead and later, after trailing by 20, cut the UA’s lead to just four points in the final minutes but the Wildcats held on for an 82-73 victory at McKale Center. The UA’s Kadeem Allen scored a career-high 18 points while helping limit Buffs guard Derrick White to just seven points. White, a first-round pick of the San Antonio Spurs last June, scored 31 points in the Wildcats in Arizona’s 92-78 win over Colorado in the Pac-12 Tournament.

Series history:

Arizona leads the series 11-5 overall since Colorado joined the Pac-12 in 2011-12 and has never lost to the Buffaloes at McKale Center, though CU took the UA to overtime before losing to the Wildcats in 2012-13. Overall, Arizona leads 16-12.

What’s new with the Buffs

Colorado has played unevenly since beating Arizona, splitting its last four games. The Buffaloes had 22 turnovers and 10 shots blocked in a 70-58 loss at USC on Jan. 10 but beat UCLA for the first time ever at Pauley Pavilion on Jan. 13, when George King had 26 points and 10 rebounds, going 6 of 10 from 3-point territory.

Colorado beat Washington State at home on Jan. 18 but let a 26-point lead slip all the way down to five before the Buffs held WSU scoreless for the final three minutes. Then they were outrebounded 50-34 and shot just 35.4 percent in a home loss to Washington last Saturday, prompting CU coach Tad Boyle to say “we got punked, we got manhandled.”

Colorado hasn’t made any changes to its starting lineup, sticking with Missouri transfer Namon Wright in the backcourt after moving him into the lineup against Arizona.

He said it

“They’ve gone to UCLA and had a big road win and I think the players that hurt us, George King being at the top of the list, have hurt a lot of other teams. He’s a senior. He can do it from beyond the 3-point line. I think he’s the third-leading rebounder in the conference (King is fourth with an average of 8.3 in Pac-12 games), which is some statement for somebody his size. I think they’re an improving defensive team and they’re one of our conference’s overall best defensive teams.” — UA coach Sean Miller

Key player: George King

The 6-foot-6 senior has evolved into one of the Pac-12’s best all-around players. He had 11 rebounds against Arizona on Jan. 6, and while the Wildcats held him to 2-for-8 shooting in that game, he’s a 41.7 percent 3-point shooter in league play, having collected double-doubles at USC and UCLA.

Key player: Rawle Alkins

After taking Reid Travis off Deandre Ayton’s hands late in the game at Stanford last Saturday — while putting up an all-around offensive game with 13 points, five assists and two offensive rebounds — Alkins will be needed to again defend King and be able to help solve what will likely be more zone defense.

No visitor records

So how often did sports agent Christian Dawkins really attend Arizona’s closed basketball practices? Arizona says there’s no written record of it.

After a 3½-month delay, Arizona responded to an Oct. 4 public records request filed by the Star for any log or record of attendees to Arizona men’s basketball practices, including NBA scouts, sports agents, coaches or others not on the UA’s coaching or playing rosters.

“The University has no records responsive to your request,” the UA wrote in response on Wednesday.

Arizona still has not responded to other multiple public records requests filed by the Star regarding issues raised after the Sept. 26 federal investigation was made public.

In the federal complaint, Dawkins was quoted saying that a current UA player has already been paid and that he’s able to attend the UA’s normally closed practices “like I’m on the team.” Dawkins became a central figure in the FBI probe and was arrested on four counts of wire fraud.

Former UA assistant coach Book Richardson was accused of soliciting payments from Dawkins and financial advisor Munish Sood to give to recruits in exchange for influencing current Wildcats to sign with them when they turned professional.

Richardson was fired on Tuesday after his appeal at the UA failed.

Global perspective

Dusan Ristic is rooming with Australian Keanu Pinder on the road this season and the Serbian center smiled when he was jokingly asked if that’s why road trips can seem particularly long.

“Keanu is a great guy,” Ristic said. “I’ve had a lot of different roommates and Keanu’s one of the best. He’s a really cool guy, always positive. All he thinks about is winning. He doesn’t care about his individual performance. He cares about his team. It’s really good to have somebody like him on this team.”

Miller out of charity contest

After several years of success that earned five-figure sums for charity, UA coach Sean Miller did not receive enough votes to advance from the opening round of 48 to the second round of 24 in the Infiniti Coaches Charity Challenge this season.

As it turns out, all of the Pac-12 coaches involved have had a rough go so far. UCLA’s Steve Alford also did not make the cut of 24, while Oregon’s Dana Altman and Colorado’s Tad Boyle made it but were ranked No. 23 and 24 as of Wednesday. Stanford’s Jerod Haase ranks the highest in the conference, at 15th with 2 percent of the vote.

Miller will be supporting several charities this weekend, however. His staff will wear sneakers as part of “Coaches vs Cancer” weekend, while wearing ribbons Saturday as part of the Coaches for Literacy campaign.

Numbers game

5

Straight times Arizona has won a regular-season game against a Pac-12 team that it lost to in the first game of that season.

4.3

Parker Jackson-Cartwright’s assist-turnover ratio in Pac-12 games, best in the league.

65.1

Deandre Ayton’s field goal percentage in Pac-12 games, best in the league.