Scouting report: No. 9 Arizona Wildcats at Oregon State Beavers

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)

OREGON STATE

G Christian Wright (6-3 sophomore)

G Dexter Akanno (6-5 junior)

F Glenn Taylor (6-6 sophomore)

F Michael Rataj (6-9 freshman)

C Rodrigue Andela (6-8 senior)

How they match up

The series: Arizona leads the Beavers 70-22 and has won the last five games in the series, beating OSU twice during its Elite Eight season of 2020-21. OSU has won two of the past seven games in Corvallis and took the then-No. 14 Wildcats to overtime at Gill Coliseum in 2017-18.

Last season, Arizona beat the Beavers 90-65 in Corvallis on Dec. 5, when Bennedict Mathurin scored 29 points; and 83-69 at McKale Center on Feb. 17, when Azuolas Tubelis had 22 points, seven rebounds, three assists, two steals and three blocks.

This season: The Wildcats and Beavers will meet again at McKale Center on Feb. 4.

OSU overview

After reaching the 2021 Elite Eight, Oregon State won just three games last season and, predictably, blew the whole thing up afterward. The Beavers parted ways with a total of nine players who headed to pro basketball or the transfer portal, keeping around a core of forward Rodrigue Andela and wings Dexter Akanno and Glenn Taylor, while loading the roster back up with freshmen and big men.

The Beavers have already more than doubled their win total from last season, though they are still only 1-4 in Pac-12 play. In the early Pac-12 games last month, OSU beat Washington 66-65 and lost to USC just 63-62 in Los Angeles but has mostly struggled since then. The Beavers won three home games against low-major teams before Christmas but have since lost three straight, losing at Oregon, at Utah and at Colorado by an average of 16 points.

But OSU still has enough defensive tricks to cause opponents trouble, holding foes to just 30.9% from 3-point range (the 70th-best defensive 3-point percentage nationally) and 48.5% from two-point range (137th nationally).

On the other end of the floor, Akanno and Taylor have a knack for getting to the basket — or the foul line — to led the Beavers offensively. In conference play, Akanno averages 12.8 points and draws 4.4 fouls per 40 minutes while Taylor averages 9.2 points and draws 5.5 fouls per 40.

While freshman combo guard Jordan Pope has been a 40.3% 3-point shooter, ranking 267th nationally, the Beavers overall aren’t particularly efficient offensively. They are shooting just 47.6% from 2-point range and 33.1% from 3. Last weekend, they shot 40% overall at Utah and just 34% at Colorado.

Pope, Akanno and Georgia transfer Christian Wright handle point guard duties. Wright started his first game of the season Saturday at Colorado after missing the first nine games of the season and then coming off the bench because of a knee injury suffered on an exhibition trip to Italy last summer.

Inside, Andela is joined by San Francisco transfer Dzmitry Ryuny, a stretch-four from Belarus who hits 41.5% of his 3s, and 6-9 freshman Michael Rataj, a pick-and-pop weapon offensively who is also an effective rim protector.

He said it

“Defensively they’re gonna play a lot of different types of zone and man. They’re gonna pick up full court. They’re gonna pick up in the half court. You have to be ready to adjust on the fly and just play with confidence and pace.

“They’re a good man defensive team, and I think that they do a good job with their full-court pressure. They’ve disrupted teams this year with their man and zone press.

“Offensively, they have three really talented perimeter players in Taylor, Akanno and Pope. Pope’s one of the best freshmen in the conference. And with their bigs, they have some interchangeable parts. They have guys that can pick and pop (and) can really shoot it. They have guys that can score it on the block, so they present different problems.

“Akanno is a good player. When they play well, he’s shooting them with confidence and making them. When he’s making that 3, it just accentuates what he does really well, which is drive to the basket. So you really have to be prepared as a team and defend him and try and not let him get going too much too early.

“Taylor is really talented and one of the best in the country drawing fouls. He drives and puts pressure on the defense. Certainly he can make the 3, but he knows what he’s really good at, and that’s driving to the basket, attacking the rim and getting fouled, going to the free-throw line.

“I think (Wright) is starting to play better and better and with more confidence. He gives them (an) even better passer and playmaker.

— UA associate head coach Jack Murphy, who scouted the Beavers

Key players

Oregon State — Dexter Akanno

Lightly used as a Marquette freshman in 2020-21, then a part-time starter last season at OSU, Akanno has emerged as a go-to guy this season as a junior. He shoots 52.5% from 2-point range, and has been at his best from 3-point territory in big games: Akanno shoots 25.7% overall from 3 but 39.1% against Pac-12 teams, including 4 of 6 against Oregon and 3 of 5 against USC.

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

Arizona — Adama Bal

The Wildcats may need 3-point shooting and help from their bench to survive the Oregon swing this weekend, but the sophomore wing from France has struggled lately. He hasn’t scored in the Wildcats’ past three games and hasn’t made a 3-pointer since Dec. 13 against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.

Sidelines

UA pickleball king?

While emceeing Tommy Lloyd’s radio show earlier this week, UA broadcaster Brian Jeffries offered the coach a careful chance to rate who is the best pickleball player among the UA coaches who have an ongoing friendly competition: The competitors include Jedd Fisch (football), Chip Hale (baseball), Clancy Shields (men’s tennis) and Ryan Stotland (women’s tennis) along with athletic director Dave Heeke.

“I don’t know if you want to delve into that or not,” Jeffries said.

But Lloyd, who takes the sport seriously year-round, had no need for such a softball approach.

“I think I’m comfortable saying me,“ Lloyd said. “Me and Chip have been playing really well together. We’ve been playing a bit. Jedd’s been making a few appearances now, getting a little bit of time. Jack Murphy on our staff plays with us a little bit every once in a while. He rips a nice forehand.”

Although Lloyd went on to say the UA tennis coaches are actually the best, he added that “they should be” considering the similarities between pickleball and tennis.

“I remind them every time I beat them,” Lloyd said, “that they’re losing to a guy, a basketball coach, who grew up more likely with a hammer in his hand than a tennis racquet.”

Fans may get a chance to make their own judgments soon: As part of their “Our Stories” series, the Pac-12 Networks have scheduled Arizona for Jan. 19. Clips of Lloyd playing with Heeke, Fisch, Hale and assistant coach Riccardo Fois are expected to be shown.

“Pay-per-view,” Lloyd said jokingly.

The Big O

The nickname of UA center Oumar Ballo might have another meaning: When Jeffries led a discussion over whether UA bigs should aim for the occasional 3-pointer against zone defenses, the sort Arizona will face this weekend at OSU and Oregon, Lloyd nodded in agreement when Jeffries noted that Ballo has not taken a 3-pointer all season.

“I’m good with that, yeah,” Lloyd said. “Oumar — his little thing’s gotta become that floater push shot that he shoots. Every time he takes it, he’s been making it, so I’ll give him some rope. But I like it when those guys are down there dominating that charge circle.”

Lloyd added that Ballo’s floater has a strategic advantage in helping the Wildcats’ high-low attack.

“It’s a good shot for him because he’s big and he’s developed a nice little touch on it,” Lloyd said. “And when teams are playing off of him, it’s not a crazy difficult shot to make.

“Teams are kind of picking their poison sometimes. They’re playing off him when he catches the ball in the high post and because he’s probably not going to be a great driver or anything like that, they’re thinking, ‘We’ll sag on Oumar and we’ll sandwich Tubelis — we’ll play behind and in front of him so that takes away the high-low game.’

“That’s kind of the thinking on that. But if occasionally you could throw in one or two of those shots, maybe it helps loosen it up a little bit.”

Tough-guy bloodlines

Freshman forward Tyler Bilodeau entered OSU as a three-star recruit last summer, but it might also not be a complete surprise that he’s scored in double figures in three of his past six games and pulled down 12 rebounds last Saturday at Colorado.

At least not if you look at his parents: Bilodeau’s father, Brent, was taken with the No. 17 pick in the 1991 NHL draft, and his mother, Cass, played in the ABL and WNBA for seven years.

OSU coach Wayne Tinkle also saw something else when Bilodeau arrived in Corvallis last summer.

“He’s just a relentless competitor,” Tinkle told Blue Ribbon Yearbook in August. “He’s a great, great kid who brings it every day. He did not have a day off all summer.”

After Bilodeau played 28 minutes against Oregon on Dec. 31, collecting 10 points and six rebounds, Tinkle told the Corvallis Gazette-Times that Bilodeau had “flipped the switch” and began playing without fear of making mistakes.

“He’s much more confident in himself and what we expect him to do. Now we’re hoping for him to develop the next part, which is the feel” of making on-court decisions on the fly, Tinkle said. “But I think that will come because he’s a high-IQ guy.”

Numbers game

11.1 – Percent of UA’s points coming from its bench in its two games last weekend (at home against Washington and Washington State)

44.4 – Percent of OSU’s points coming from the bench over its two games last weekend (at Utah and at Colorado)

77 – Arizona’s Kenpom rank in Division I experience, a calculation of each player’s experience on the team weighted by minutes played

331 – OSU’s Kenpom rank in Division I experience

74.9 – Oregon State’s free-throw percentage in all games, best in the Pac-12.

— Bruce Pascoe