Unselfishness helped Arizona Wildcats cruise to perfect November

Twenty-one minutes into Arizona’s 105-59 destruction over Sacramento State on Saturday, Christian Koloko stole the ball from the overwhelmed Hornets, raced down the right side of the lane toward the basket and had a decision to make.

The 7-foot center could have tried to work around an oncoming defender, maybe drawn a foul or made a contested layup, but instead Koloko neatly bounced a pass to his left toward Kerr Kriisa and began elevating while waiting for the ball to come back.

Of course, the ball came back.

Kriisa held it for only a split-second before lofting the ball up to the right of the basket, where Koloko swooped it up and threw it in to give Arizona a 56-22 lead, sparking a 15-0 UA run immediately after halftime.

That was the game, and the Wildcats’ 6-0 season so far, in a nutshell.

Ranked No. 17 after a Main Event wins over Wichita State and Michigan a week ago, the Wildcats have dominated inside, in transition and defensively through a perfect month of November. But they arguably shined the most in how they share the ball.

Nobody in America dishes more assists per field goal made than the Wildcats, who score off assists 73.8% of the time, and Saturday’s game was even more extreme: They had 31 assists on their 38 made field goals, a stat that former Oregon and Washington State coach Ernie Kent called a “coach’s dream” while analyzing the game for the Pac-12 Networks.

It was the first time Arizona had 30 assists in a game in over two decades, since recording 30 against Washington State on Feb. 10, 2001. UA last had 31 against ASU in 1997-98, when the Wildcats were defending national champions.

‘It’s just the way we play and the chemistry that we have,” guard Pelle Larsson said. ‘We just like playing with each other. We like passing it to each other and if a guy has an open shot, we don’t mind giving up a good one to get a great one.’

Not surprisingly, when it was over, the box score revealed another balanced effort. UA had five players in double figures, with Azuolas Tubelis leading the way with 22 points on 9-for-13 shooting.

Koloko added 20 points and seven rebounds despite leaving the game after just 14 minutes played because of a sprained ankle. UA coach Tommy Lloyd said he did not think the injury was serious, and Koloko is expected back for the Wildcats’ Pac-12 opener against Washington on Thursday.

Larsson, meanwhile, added a career-high 17 points to break an early-season slump that appeared to have stemmed from a preseason foot injury.

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Dominant inside throughout, outscoring Sac State 54-24 in the paint, the Wildcats sprinkled in some 3-point shooting off the bench, too. Larsson hit 3 of 4 3-pointers while fellow reserves Kim Aiken and Justin Kier each hit two 3s to help keep the Wildcats comfortable even after Sac State managed a 9-0 run after Arizona’s initial second-half outburst.

“It was nice to knock down some shots, but I felt the same way as I felt for other games, too,” Larsson said. “You’ve just gotta go in with the mentality that you’re gonna have a great game and you just try to put the effort in. Especially us guys coming from the bench, I think we did a great job coming in with effort and keeping that high pace that we had.”

And then there was Kriisa, whose 1-for-5 shooting almost didn’t even matter — because he dished a career-high nine assists to two turnovers, picked up three rebounds and verbally ignited his teammates and a sometimes subdued crowd of about 10,000.

“I think it was really cool to see his effort and energy,” UA coach Tommy Lloyd said of Kriisa. “He really broke that game open in the first half. He got us going up and down and he’s trying to get the crowd in the game — then you look at the end of the day, I think he made one basket.”

The one basket Kriisa made came after a repayment of sorts from his teammates. While Kriisa had been setting the Wildcats up throughout the game, becoming the first player this season to dish nine assists against a Division I opponent while playing 18 minutes or less, he received the luxury of getting not one, but two second chances at a 3-pointer in the first half.

Kriisa missed a 3 from the left wing, then took a second crack at it after Dalen Terry rebounded the miss and threw it back to him. But when that one also missed, Aiken rebounded it and threw it again back to Kriisa, who this time put it through the net to give UA a 26-10 lead.

“I think we have a team rule: If you get three 3s in one possession and you miss the third, you’re done for the day,” Lloyd said, smiling. “So he had a lot of pressure on that shot.”

Scoring 17 points off 13 offensive rebounds, the Wildcats also dominated the glass on the other end of the court. Until the last four minutes, when Lloyd cleared his bench, the Wildcats allowed Sacramento State to collect just one offensive rebound from its 32 missed shots to that point.

“I’d have to go back and watch the film, but I thought we were able to kind of break them out of their offense a little bit,” Lloyd said. “They were trying to make some tough individual plays. I think our guys are pretty good individual defenders and I noticed a lot of those rebounds, especially in the first half, we had like three or four guys around the ball and none of theirs.”

UA wound up not only outrebounding Sacramento State 48-25 overall, but also scored the most points it has in regulation since 2008-09, when Russ Pennell was the Wildcats’ interim head coach during a 106-97 home win over Washington.

In short, the Wildcats’ win displayed no signs of a letdown after routing then-No. 4 Michigan in Las Vegas, though there were a few moments here and there in practice when Lloyd said he addressed some things that needed addressing.

“Nothing out of the norm,” Lloyd said. “We have a great group of guys. A number of our players are putting effort first and that’s a great step. When you put effort first, and then you follow it with intelligence and unselfishness, that’s a heck of a combination, and we’re getting there.”