LAS VEGAS — The Arizona Wildcats came to the Pac-12 Tournament needing some elimination-game and down-to-the-wire experience, plus maybe even a little extra adversity of some sort, for potentially scarier times ahead.
They received the whole package all on their first day. The top-seeded Wildcats held off ninth-seeded Stanford 84-80 in the Pac-12 Tournament quarterfinals and then pushed point guard Kerr Kriisa out of T-Mobile Arena in a wheelchair afterward.
That became a necessity after Kriisa collided with teammate Christian Koloko with just 32 seconds left, with Kriisa falling down awkwardly and remaining on the floor for several minutes afterward. He was eventually helped off the court, went into the locker room and then exited the Wildcats’ locker room in a wheelchair.
After the game, UA coach Tommy Lloyd said only that Kriisa suffered a “sprained ankle of some kind” but would not estimate Kriisa’s status for the Wildcats’ semifinal game Friday against fourth-seeded Colorado, an 80-69 winner over Oregon in another quarterfinal game Thursday.
“I have no idea the severity of it or anything like that, but obviously it's a quick turnaround,” Lloyd said. “So it'll be tough.”
Will it, though?
Never one to lack confidence, the Estonian sophomore wouldn’t even let his swagger — or belief in his teammates — get restricted by a wheelchair. Less than an hour after the game, Kriisa posted a photo of himself sitting in the wheelchair, guided by UA manager Luke Handley, in front of the Wildcats’ bus.
Handley had one hand on the wheelchair and another extended with his thumb up.
Kriisa had both his thumbs up, with his right ankle wrapped in a black boot.
“Watch us win it all,” Kriisa said. “Bear Down, Go Cats.”
Watch us win it all. Bear Down, Go Cats 🤪 pic.twitter.com/JEg0ElSC7F
— Kerr (@KerrKriisa) March 10, 2022
If Kriisa can’t play Friday or beyond, the Wildcats will likely turn to super senior Justin Kier to start at the point, as Kier did when Kriisa missed a Jan. 15 game with Utah after Lloyd said he did some pregame “horsing around,” and as Kier did last Saturday against Cal on his Senior Day.
Of course, the Wildcats also have other capable ballhandlers in Dalen Terry, who has nearly a 3-1 assist-turnover ratio, and Pelle Larsson, who started at point guard for Utah late last season.
A loss of Kriisa would shrink UA's rotation to just seven players plus freshman wing Adama Bal, who received some meaningful minutes for the second straight game Thursday.
And even when the Wildcats are at full strength, Stanford (16-16) showed for the second time in a week that they aren’t perfect, even with a 29-3 record and probably a No. 1 NCAA Tournament seed all wrapped up at this point.
Arizona's Justin Kier and Stanford's Maxime Raynaud scramble for the ball during the first half of Thursday's Pac-12 quarterfinal game.
Coming off a comeback 71-70 win over ASU on Wednesday, in which it ended the Sun Devils’ season by going on a 16-1 run to end the game, the Cardinal kept its momentum going Thursday leading the second-ranked Wildcats with less the four minutes to go in a game that featured 22 lead changes.
“I knew this game was going to be hard,” Lloyd said. “These first games in these tournaments, especially when you have a bye, the other team has a little rhythm and a little bit of belief from a special game the day before. (Against ASU, Stanford) kind of pulled a rabbit out of a hat so to speak, but you give them a ton of credit. They're a spirited group, a high-character group.”
Led by Spencer Jones, who followed up a 26-point effort against ASU on Wednesday by dropping 28 on the Wildcats, Stanford shot 54.2% overall — including 58% in the second half.
Arizona compensated by shooting 47.7% itself and turning 16 offensive rebounds into 18 second-chance points, outrebounding Stanford 37-31 despite the fact that the Cardinal had outrebounded 26 of its previous 31 opponents.
Koloko led the Wildcats with 24 points, nine rebounds and four assists while Bennedict Mathurin had 20 points and seven rebounds.
But offense wasn’t really Arizona’s problem. The Wildcats simply couldn’t stop Stanford from matching their physicality inside and hitting 11 of 20 3-pointers on the outside.
“The idea was to be a physical team. That's part of our identity,” Stanford coach Jerod Haase said. “We are physical inside. We had guards on their bigs at times; we had bigs on the guards at times and all that requires the toughness, the physicality that I thought our guys brought today. They embrace it. They like that.”
The Cardinal was that team much of the time a week earlier at McKale, leading Arizona 39-37 at halftime on March 3 and trailing by just two points with eight minutes to go before the Wildcats won 81-69.
This time, Stanford led Arizona 75-74 with 3:25 left in the game in part because Jones was going berserk, tying the career-high of 26 that he set a day before with 11:50 left when he hit a 3-pointer to give Stanford a 59-58 lead.
At that point, Jones was 11 for 14 from the field and had made 4 of 6 3-pointers, while he finished with 28 points on 12-for-18 shooting.
Stanford’s Spencer Jones shoots against Arizona during the first half of Thursday’s Pac-12 quarterfinals.
“We might have had a mistake here and there but when a guy's that hot, there's contesting the shot and there's not allowing somebody to have a shot,” Lloyd said. “He probably slid over to that (requiring the second) category. We gave him a couple and it felt like good defense, but he's got a quick trigger and a high shooting pocket and he's tall. You put those things together and he kind of can shoot right over the top of defenses. Not many guys can do that.”
Jones’ last bucket gave Stanford a 70-67 lead with 6:21 to go. Even after he cooled off down the stretch, the Cardinal still led 75-74 with 3:25 left.
From that point, Stanford was 1 for 5 from the field, with missed three 3-pointers and a layup, while also turning the ball over once.
Meanwhile, Mathurin gave the Wildcats the lead for good when he dunked with 3:17 left to put UA up 76-75, and Arizona had the game in control when James Keefe missed a driving layup with 50 seconds left and the Wildcats up by three.
From there, after Kriisa left the game, the Wildcats went ahead 82-77 on a dunk from Koloko. An ensuing 3 from Stanford’s Harrison Ingram pulled the Cardinal within 82-80 with 13 seconds left but, after Stanford fouled Larsson, the sophomore guard hit both free throws with eight seconds left to clinch it.
The Wildcats survived. They still have played only five regulation games settled by four points or less — and none settled by two points or less — but this one might have been close enough to learn from.
There probably will be even tougher ones ahead in the NCAA Tournament and, if so, maybe, the Wildcats can draw from the experience they went through Thursday.
“We have a young team so we need these games to get ready for what’s next for us,” Koloko said. “Luckily, we won today and we’ve just got to prepare for tomorrow.”
