Scouting report: No. 5 Arizona at Arizona State

Probable starters

ARIZONA

G Kerr Kriisa (6-3 junior)

G Courtney Ramey (6-3 senior)

F Pelle Larsson (6-5 junior)

F Azuolas Tubelis (6-11 junior)

C Oumar Ballo (7-0 junior)

ARIZONA STATE

G Frankie Collins (6-1 sophomore)

G DJ Horne (6-1 junior)

F Desmond Cambridge (6-4 senior)

F Devan Cambridge (6-6 senior)

C Warren Washington (7-0 senior)

How they match up

The series: Arizona leads 157-85 in the 110-year-old intrastate series and the Wildcats have captured the last four matchups since losing 66-65 in Tempe on Jan. 23, 2020. Arizona won 84-82 before about 75 staffers and family members at Tempe in the COVID-plagued season of 2020-21, when Azuolas Tubelis scooped up what appeared to be a missed 3-pointer from James Akinjo and put it in the basket. Last season in Tempe, UA overcame a 14-1 deficit at the beginning of the game to take a 40-36 lead at halftime and lead by up to 26 points in the second half of a 91-79 win.

This season: UA and ASU are also scheduled to meet at McKale Center on Feb. 25, in UA’s home regular-season finale.

Arizona State overview: The Sun Devils have been one of the Pac-12’s overachievers so far this season, being picked seventh but playing like a conference contender throughout the first two months of the season. But their two losses have been confounding: A 67-66 loss at Texas Southern as part of the Pac-12/SWAC series and a 97-70 thumping at San Francisco that took the Sun Devils out of the AP Top 25 a week after they first made it.

Using a mix of veteran returnees and transfers, ASU has also survived without its arguably most talented player, forward Marcus Bagley. Guard DJ Horne leads ASU in scoring with 12.5 points per game while point guard Frankie Collins averages 11.4 points and 5.5 assists.

Without Bagley at power forward, ASU has been going mostly with 6-6 Devan Cambridge or 6-9 Alonzo Gaffney, while Gaffney is also a backup center behind 7-footer Warren Washington. Together, the ASU front line has posted the 29th best shot-blocking percentage in Division I (blocking 13.9% of all opponent shots) while helping hold opponents to just 40.5% shooting inside the arc (the second-best two-point percentage defense in the country). Washington has the 28th best block percentage individually, blocking 9.3% of opponents’ shots when he’s on the floor while wing Desmond Cambridge has the 59th best steal percentage (4.2).

Key players

ASU — Frankie Collins A key backup at Michigan last season, Collins announced he would enter the transfer portal a day after the Wolverines landed a commitment from grad transfer guard Jaelin Llewellyn. That proved to be a good move for Collins and the Sun Devils: Collins is one of five double-figure scorers at ASU, takes the second-most shots and dishes 5.5 assists per game.

Arizona — Oumar Ballo

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Before he morphed into a consistent double-double threat this season, Ballo helped UA correct its early stumbles at Tempe last season by collecting 13 points and 10 rebounds over 21 minutes. This time, he’ll be facing an aggressive interior defense that allows just 40.5% two-point shooting.

Sidelines

Hobbs nobbing In its ongoing effort to built up an NIL collective benefiting Arizona men’s basketball players, the Arizona Assist held a pregame function on Thursday night at the Culinary Dropout in Tempe.

“Trying to establish an annual event in “enemy territory” that we can build on,” Arizona Assist director Adam Lazarus said via text message.

Players and coaches appeared at the private event, which was open only to 100 Arizona Assist members, while another public figure coincidentally happened to be around elsewhere in the restaurant.

“Ran into some @ArizonaMBB Wildcats in Tempe tonight,” tweeted Arizona governor-elect Katie Hobbs. “Looking forward to a great game with @SunDevilHoops on Saturday.”

Accompanying the tweet was a photograph of Hobbs in the center of a group that included the Wildcat players, coach Tommy Lloyd and player relations director Jason Gardner.

Calorie burn While UA players all managed to return without issue following their Christmas break, despite bad weather and the Southwest Airlines meltdown, ASU coach Bobby Hurley said he had three guys who didn’t make it back for the resumption of practices Monday.

“They missed two days and there was nothing” that could be done, Hurley said. “We did everything in our power, and the school did, to try and get them back sooner. But it was crazy.”

When they did get back, the tardy Sun Devils didn’t have to run suicide-style drills but Hurley did make them pay to some extent.

“They ran my conditioning drill (Wednesday) just to make sure I got all the Christmas cookies out of their system,” Hurley said.

History buff Having only Saturday’s game to coach this week meant Lloyd had a chance to tune into on other games around the Pac-12 that began Thursday and Friday.

And he planned to, “conditions” permitting.

“I watch college basketball, just like you guys do,” Lloyd told reporters Thursday at the Richards Jefferson Gym. “So unless something really good is on the History Channel that that I’m really into, I’m going to probably just flip it on to sports and watch college basketball. I’ll be watching the games and paying attention for sure.”

So... if Oregon was playing UCLA, for example, what sort of history could draw Lloyd away? Saying he did particularly enjoy World War II-related programming, Lloyd chuckled.

“That’s a tough one,” he said.

Numbers game 1 — Arizona’s pace-adjusted national ranking in offensive efficiency (120.3 points per 100 possessions), effective field-goal percentage (60.0) and two-point field goal percentage (62.5), according to KenPom.

1 — Arizona’s raw Pac-12 ranking in scoring (90.2), field goal percentage (53.2), rebounding margin (10.46), assists (20.8), defensive rebounds per game (31.4) and 3-pointers made (8.2).

3 — Of Tommy Lloyd’s five career losses as head coach that have come during Pac-12 road games.

— Bruce Pascoe