When Draft Express updated its mock NBA drafts last week, Arizona Wildcats freshmen were plastered all over the place.
Lauri Markkanen was No. 8 in 2017. In the 2018 mock, UA signee DeAndre Ayton — a freshman next season — was No. 1, followed by current freshmen Kobi Simmons at 30 and Rawle Alkins at 40.
Upside, yes, all of them. But there are still games to play, like the one Arizona won 82-73 over Colorado on Saturday at McKale Center.
Markkanen’s 22 points notwithstanding, this one was about the veterans.
It was about the four fifth-year seniors on the Colorado roster who helped the Buffs bolt out to a 10-1 lead and then later keep playing when it looked like they had little reason to, cutting UA’s 20-point second-half lead to four points in the final minutes.
It was also about UA senior Kadeem Allen, who threw in a career-high 18 points while helping limit Buff guard Derrick White to just seven points two days after he had 35 at ASU.
UA coach Sean Miller said Allen’s effort was the team’s “biggest story” for what he did on both ends of the court.
“You know, seniors have a source of pride inside of them,” Miller said. “You don’t’ have to be a senior, sometimes a junior or sophomore. … Kadeem wants to win. It’s that simple. He competes, focuses, practices.”
It was also about another UA veteran, center Dusan Ristic, who continued his offensive tear through Pac-12 play so far with 17 points on 7-for-15 shooting, as well as junior point guard Parker Jackson-Cartwright, who had eight points, six assists and two turnovers.
What it wasn’t as much about: Simmons, who missed his first five shots, or Alkins, whose torrid rebounding of late cooled off to just two, while Markkanen found himself again wrapped in foul trouble.
Miller found Markkanen, as efficient out of the gate as he’s been in his college career, even made a freshman mistake at one point: trying to take a charge and picking up a foul instead, when the risk of losing him to foul trouble was too great.
But the bottom line was this: Arizona moved to 15-2 overall and 4-0 in the Pac-12 despite playing with only eight scholarship players yet again while Allonzo Trier remained suspended past the midway point of the regular season. Trier has missed all 17 games for a suspension that neither UA nor the NCAA will comment on.
It just wasn’t easy, at the beginning or at the end, to get there this time for the Wildcats.
Arizona struggled to defend Colorado inside and out early, with the Buffs hitting 5 of 7 shots to begin the game and taking a 10-1 lead. The Wildcats were also getting out-rebounded 11-2 when Colorado held an 18-12 lead with 13 minutes left in the first half.
“They played extremely hard in the beginning,” Markkanen said. “We weren’t able to match that.”
Those numbers turned around for the most part afterward, until Colorado made it close again in the final minutes.
Arizona went on a 19-2 run later in the first half, led by 12 at halftime and up to 20 points in the second half. During UA’s 19-2 run, Colorado hit just 1 of 14 field goals.
However, Colorado began to make it interesting heading into the final four minutes. A 9-0 run, capped by a 3-pointer from Wesley Gordon, cut UA’s lead to just 67-60 heading into the final media timeout with 3:58 left.
Colorado then cut Arizona’s lead to just four points twice in the last three minutes.
“We still have a young team,” Allen said. “We were up 20 and felt like the game was over.”
Allen knew better, and Miller did too. They had seen Colorado and lost to pretty much the same team — though one that had center Josh Scott but not White nor the injured Xavier Johnson — last season in Boulder.
The Buffs’ comeback wasn’t a surprise to Miller. Again, it was about the veterans.
“They have an older, veteran team and they came in here to compete,” Miller said. “We felt that.”
The Wildcats also hurt themselves by allowing Colorado to shoot 43.5 percent and out-rebound UA 38-32. Colorado had 12 offensive rebounds and scored 18 second-chance points on them to help make the game close.
It was the second straight game Arizona had allowed an opponent to shoot over 43 percent and the first time all season that a team scored 70 points or more against the Wildcats.
Johnson, a longtime UA nemesis, had 26 points and six rebounds for Colorado (10-6, 0-3), firing up 10 three-pointers and making four of them, while George King added 12 points and 11 rebounds.
“Xavier Johnson must be averaging 30 points against us,” Miller said. “Every time he shoots a three, I think it’s going in.”
But even though the Buffs made it close near the end, a layup from Ristic, turnover by Colorado’s Johnson and field goal from Jackson-Cartwright put the Wildcats ahead 75-66 and then a free throw from Alkins at the one-minute mark made it 76-66.
Arizona held on from there, and remains undefeated in league play heading into their in-state game Thursday against ASU at McKale Center.
