Cover 5: Bruce Pascoe's most memorable games on the Arizona beat (No. 3)

This summer, each member of the Star’s sports team will assemble a list of the five most memorable Arizona games they’ve covered since joining the beat. This week, Bruce Pascoe will reflect on five UA basketball games.

Pascoe’s No. 3:

Unranked Wildcats

roll over No. 4 Michigan

to win Main Event title

What went down: Center Christian Koloko had 22 points, seven rebounds and four blocks to lead unranked Arizona to an 80-62 win over No. 4 Michigan in the Main Event championship game at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena in what turned out to be a coming-out party for the Tommy Lloyd era.

What we wrote at the time: The combination of new Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd’s free-flowing system and a core of athletic returning talent meant all the Wildcats’ early blowouts over NAU, UTRGV and North Dakota State weren’t much of a surprise.

But almost the same thing, in a 80-62 win over No. 4 Michigan?

Christian Koloko blocking preseason all-American Hunter Dickinson, not some 6-6 low-major post player? Fifty percent shooting against a team rated third nationally in defensive efficiency entering the game? Repeatedly skirting down the left baseline off screens to score easy dunks and layups, helping total 54 points in the paint?

It all happened Sunday when Arizona pulled off the championship of the Main Event at T-Mobile Arena.

The Wildcats continued their efficient, selfless offensive ways, with five players in double-figure scoring and assists on 20 of their 29 baskets. Koloko led the way with 22 points, seven rebounds and four blocks, while Benn Mathurin added 16 points on 7-for-13 shooting.

While point guard Kerr Kriisa shot only 3 for 11 from the field, he also set the tone by dishing seven assists to no turnovers along with four steals. Azuolas Tubelis added 13 points and eight rebounds, while Dalen Terry had 13 points and five assists.

At the end, though, it was Koloko who was given the postgame microphone to dedicate the game to his mom, who had traveled from Cameroon to watch her son play over the weekend. And it was Koloko who picked up the Main Event championship “belt” and carried it out of the interview room.

“For me, it was just another game,” Koloko said, but it clearly wasn’t.

For one thing, Koloko was able to show off his skillset to his mother. “This was the first time she’s seen me,” Koloko said. “It’s just … I don’t know what to say.”

And for the Wildcats as a whole, it was something of a national coming-out party. The game was televised to an ESPN audience and, predictably, the Wildcats and Lloyd drew plenty of praise from national basketball media all over the country on Twitter.

Now 5-0, the Wildcats are also likely to head well into the Associated Press Top 25 poll that will be released Monday, while Michigan dropped to 3-2 after a homecourt loss to Seton Hall, a Main Event win over UNLV and the loss to Arizona. The Wildcats have not been ranked in the AP poll since Feb. 17, 2020, and only Koloko and walk-on Jordan Mains are still around from that team.

— Bruce Pascoe

Player of the game: Koloko’s big numbers notably came while matching up against Hunter Dickenson, a much more well-known player at the time. Combined with his efforts in UA’s 82-78 overtime win over Wichita State two days earlier, Koloko averaged 17.5 points, 9.0 rebounds and 4.0 blocks and was named the Main Event’s MVP. “I’ve told you guys forever how good I think C-Lo is,” Lloyd said. “I think he’s a problem for anybody. For a while the biggest thing was just making sure he believed it, but I think he believes it now.”

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By the numbers: Arizona hit only 4 of 21 3-pointers but ripped Michigan apart inside the arc by passing, cutting and opportunistically taking what shots or drives were there. The Wildcats shot 65.9% from two-point range, setting up 23 of their 33 field goals with assists.

The aftermath: The win moved Arizona into the Associated Press Top 25 at No. 17, putting the Wildcats back on the national stage after four dark seasons played under the shadows of FBI and NCAA investigations.

The Wildcats fell out of the AP Top 25 three weeks before COVID hit at the end of the 2019-20 season and spent the entire 2020-21 season unranked and under the radar, with UA self-imposing a postseason ban during a season that probably would have had the Wildcats squarely on the NCAA Tournament bubble.

While Mathurin kept on playing as the star he was expected to be as a sophomore in 2021-22, becoming the No. 6 pick in the 2022 NBA Draft, Terry (No. 16) and Koloko (33) also grew into draft picks. The three helped Arizona put together a season that exceeded all expectations of Lloyd’s debut: The Wildcats went 18-2 in Pac-12 play, with losses only in a Tuesday night COVID makeup game at UCLA and at rowdy, high-altitude Colorado.

The Wildcats then won the Pac-12 Tournament and earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, though they were kept out of the West Region because Gonzaga, Lloyd’s former employer, became the No. 1 overall seed. Arizona beat Wright State in the first round but struggled with physicality in the second round, needing overtime to beat TCU. UA lost to Houston in a Sweet 16 game in San Antonio.

Personal reflections: Contractually made Gonzaga’s head-coach-in-waiting, Lloyd was one of college basketball’s most well-regarded assistants when Arizona hired him to replace Sean Miller in April 2021. But he still had never been in the head coach’s seat, so there were questions: Like, could he coach?

Could he make the right decisions as the top guy? Could he get players mostly recruited by Miller to buy into a much-different coaching style, personality and philosophy? Could he help draw regular sellout crowds back to McKale Center?

Could he help the Wildcats ignore the elephant that had been hanging around McKale Center since September 2017, when the FBI arrested then-assistant coach Book Richardson as a result of its investigation into college basketball?

Could the Wildcats, finally, have fun?

The answers to those questions first started showing up in Las Vegas that weekend.

Yes, to all of the above.

Especially the one about having fun. After the Michigan game, Lloyd showed up at the postgame interview podium wearing a white UA T-shirt instead of the blue pullover he had worn on the sidelines.

His players had taken the pullover out of commission.

“This water deal, I don’t know about it,” Lloyd said. “I like to stay in my normal clothes. But they’re excited and they should celebrate because they played their hearts out and they played with great intelligence.

“And we always talk about swag — our Arizona swag is confidence but it’s backed up with intelligence and effort and they’re getting that. They’re showing the way they’re able to scheme and game plan and start understanding game situations. That’s a ton of fun as a coach, because you know the things you’re trying to help them with are working and all credit goes to them.”