Scouting report: No. 8 Arizona Wildcats vs. Cal Baptist Lancers

The Star's Bruce Pascoe breaks down the starting lineups, storylines and stats as the No. 8-ranked Arizona Wildcats prepare to take on the Cal Baptist Lancers on Saturday afternoon at McKale Center. 

Who: Cal Baptist (8-2) at No. 8 Arizona (10-0)

Where: McKale Center

When: 4 p.m. Saturday

TV: Pac-12 Networks

Radio: 1290-AM, 107.5-FM

Social media: @TheWildcaster on Twitter / TheWildcaster on Facebook

Probable starters

Arizona

G Kerr Kriisa (6-3 sophomore)

G Dalen Terry (6-6 sophomore)

F Bennedict Mathurin (6-6 sophomore)

F Azuolas Tubelis (6-11 sophomore)

C Christian Koloko (7-0 junior)

Cal Baptist

G Taran Armstrong (6-5 freshman)

G Ty Rowell (6-2 junior)

F Reed Nottage (6-7 sophomore)

F Chance Hunter (6-6 junior)

C Daniel Akin (6-9 senior)

How they match up

The series

Though the teams were scheduled to meet last season before COVID-19 issues hit the Lancers, Arizona has still never played California Baptist. In the final season of a four-year transition to Division I, the Lancers joined the WAC in 2018-19 and first played in the league’s tournament last season, but will not be eligible for the NCAA Tournament until 2022-23.

Game contract

The Lancers signed an agreement in January 2020 to play on Dec. 16, 2020 at McKale Center in exchange for a $90,000 fee and 75 tickets. That game was called off three hours before tipoff because of a positive COVID test within the Lancers’ program and a new contract was made on Jan. 25, 2021, scheduling Cal Baptist to return to Tucson on Saturday. The pot was sweetened slightly this time: UA agreed to offer Cal Baptist $92,000 and 100 free tickets for Saturday’s game. If the game can’t be played this time for COVID reasons, efforts will be made to make it up or it will be canceled with neither school liable.

Cal Baptist overview

The Lancers didn’t get back on the court until Jan. 8 last season after the COVID pause that started in Tucson, and they went only 8-8 against Division I teams after that point, losing to Seattle in their only WAC Tournament game. But they’ve gotten off to a more successful start this season, winning six home games while losing on the road to Texas and cross-town rival UC Riverside.

One of the nation’s top 15 teams in 3-point shooting percentage over the past two seasons, the Lancers return three prolific shooters who hit more than 37% from 3 last season — Reed Nottage (40.9), Ty Rowell (39.0) and Tre Armstrong (37.2). But so far CBU is shooting just 32.8% overall from 3 and is actually doing its most efficient work inside. They shoot 56.4% from two-point range, with British grad transfer Dan Akin hitting 74.5% — the 16th-highest two-point percentage in Division I. Tasmanian freshman Taran Armstrong gets inside to hit 52.5% from two-point range while Nottage hits 41.5% from two-point range and 38.7% from 3-point range. Akin is also an active rim-protector, blocking opponents shots 3.9% of the time when he’s on the floor.

According to Kenpom.com, the Lancers are average rebounders and rank just 283rd in defensive efficiency, while they also give the ball up on 10.6% of their possessions because of non-steal turnovers. Like Arizona, though, Cal Baptist dishes assists to a high percentage of made baskets — Cal Baptist ranks No. 1 in assist percentage (68.9) while Arizona is third at 65.8. Armstrong leads the way with the nation’s highest assist rate (47.7), which divides assists by field goals made when a player is on the floor, and Rowell has moved mostly off the ball as a result of his presence.

Key players

Cal Baptist — Taran Armstrong

The Tasmanian guard has become one of the more impactful freshmen in the nation so far this season, dishing 8.3 assists per game with a 2.8-1 assist-turnover ratio and drawing 4.4 fouls every 40 minutes. He has four double-doubles so far.

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Arizona — Azuolas Tubelis

The Wildcats’ consistently productive power forward added eight assists on Wednesday against Northern Colorado, happy to dish to his open teammates. But he’ll be needed especially for defense against the Lancers’ efficient big men.

SIDELINES

She’s got swag, too

While sophomore guard Kerr Kriisa may have inherited his basketball skills from his father, a pro player in Europe, there’s a decent chance his toughness and determination stems from mom.

At least if you consider the journey that Kersti Kull made to see her son play for the Wildcats this month.

Long involved with figure skating back home in Estonia, Kull traveled to Tucson in time to see the Wildcats’ Dec. 2 game with Washington and then, after that game was postponed, opted to make the 2,800-mile round trip drive to Corvallis, Oregon, to catch a single game the Wildcats played at Oregon State on Dec. 5.

She drove back to Tucson in time to watch the Wildcats’ Dec. 8 home game with Wyoming, then flew to Chicago to help reach UA’s game at Illinois on Dec. 11. Then Kull flew back to Tucson to catch one last UA game, on Wednesday against Northern Colorado.

Efforts to reach Kriisa and Kull through UA for comment were not successful but, clearly, this may be a case where actions speak louder than words, anyway.

They’re not that young

While Ken Pomeroy’s website has long been the standard-bearer for college basketball analytics, thanks to a quirk resulting from the COVID-19-prompted eligibility waiver last season, it has one metric this season that doesn’t tell the Wildcats’ true story.

Kenpom.com lists Arizona as the fourth-least experienced team in the nation using a formula that weighs the experience of each player on a roster based on minutes played. But the problem is that the “experience” component is based on the official class each player is listed at, and there is no standard in college basketball for listing players’ classes.

Since the NCAA allowed all active players last season an extra year of eligibility, the lack of a standard means a freshman last season could be listed this season as a freshman or a sophomore. UA’s official roster lists it both ways — for example, listing sophomore Azuolas Tubelis as a “So./Fr.”

Since Kenpom’s system reads that as “freshman,” that means Tubelis and UA sophomores bring “zero” years of experience for every minute they are on the floor. And since six of UA’s top eight players are second-year players, that’s a lot of “inexperience” that results in a low rating.

Pomeroy told the Star that he should start using games played as the basis for the experience formula but that as of now it is based on official classes listed. At this point, Kenpom.com’s “minutes continuity” formula might provide a better view of the Wildcats — it computes what percentage of a team’s minutes are played by the same player from last season to this season — and ranks UA nearly in the middle of Division I at No. 183 overall.

They are the world

Like Arizona, Cal Baptist has gone global to pull in its best talent.

Both the Wildcats and Lancers have eight international players, and each start four of them. A total of seven countries outside the U.S. are represented on UA’s roster, while Cal Baptist has players from five foreign countries.

This season, the Lancers received two huge international boosts: Their leading scorer and rebounder, Dan Akin, is an Englishman who transferred in from UMBC and their point guard, Taran Armstrong, is a freshman from Tasmania who dished 15 assists in a single game and averages 8.3.

Akin started for the 16th-seeded UMBC team that knocked off No. 1-seeded Virginia in the first round of the 2018 NCAA Tournament — the game that dwarfed UA’s upset loss to Buffalo nationally — while Armstrong made a name for himself playing within the same NBA Academy system that produced Bennedict Mathruin and Omar Ballo (Armstrong played for the Academy’s Australia outfit while Mathurin and Ballo were based in Mexico).

While Armstrong also had an offer to play in the Big Ten for Rutgers, it helped the Lancers that his older brother, Tre, is now a third-year player at CBU.

“We’ve had a number of really good Australian players and Tre’s had a great experience,” Croy said. They’re from “a very tight family. We started recruiting Taren and things have worked out really well.”

Armstrong’s success has allowed playmaker/shooter Ty Rowell to move off the ball more often, too, while Akin helped offset the Lancers’ loss of center Gorjak Gak, who averaged a double-double last season.

“We were fortunate to kind of show him the success that Gorjak had last year as a grad transfer from Florida, and that helped us land Dan,” Croy said. “He’s been a great fit for our program. A great competitor, great defender, rebounder and now he’s showing a much improved offensive game.”

Numbers game

2

Arizona’s national rank in two-point percentage defense (39.2)

19

Cal Baptist’s national rank in two-point percentage offense (56.4)

101

Seasons since a Pac-12 coach began his career with as many as 11 wins without a loss, as Tommy Lloyd will if UA beats California Baptist. (Johnny Dawkins went 10-0 in his first season at Stanford in 2008-09).