Scouting report: Arizona Wildcats vs. UCLA Bruins

The Star's Bruce Pascoe previews all of the game day essentials, from projected starting lineups to storylines and series history, ahead of Arizona's showdown with UCLA. 

Game info

Who: Arizona (19-9, 9-6) at UCLA (18-11, 11-5) 

Where: Pauley Pavilion, Los Angeles

When: 8 p.m.

TV: ESPN

Radio: 1290-AM, 107.5-FM

Follow: @TheWildcaster on Twitter / TheWildcaster on Facebook

Probable starters: Arizona

G Nico Mannion (6-3 freshman)

G Dylan Smith (6-5 senior)

F Stone Gettings (6-9 senior)

F Ira Lee (6-7 junior)

C Zeke Nnaji (6-11 freshman)

Probable starters: UCLA

G Tyger Campbell (5-11 freshman)

G David Singleton (6-4 sophomore)

F Chris Smith (6-9 junior)

F Jaime Jaquez Jr. (6-6 freshman)

C Jalen Hill (6-10 sophomore)

How they match up

The last time: Arizona had its worst shooting game in the history of McKale Center, hitting just 25.4% from the field in a 65-52 loss to UCLA on Feb. 8. The Wildcats made just 3 of 19 two-pointers in the first half and then missed all 12 3s they took in the second half. Nico Mannion was 2 for 14 overall (1 for 5 from 3-point range) and Josh Green was 3 for 11.

The last time at Pauley Pavilion: Arizona shot just 33.3% from the field and was outrebounded 47-30 in a 90-69 loss at UCLA on Jan. 26, 2019, completing the worst two-game Pac-12 weekend in the Sean Miller era, with UA having earlier lost 80-57 at USC. Brandon Williams led the Wildcats with 19 points while fellow Southern Californian Ira Lee had 11 points and seven rebounds. Moses Brown had 11 points and 15 rebounds for UCLA.

Series history: UCLA has won five of its last nine games against Arizona, but the teams are tied 12-12 in the Sean Miller era. UCLA leads the all-time series 59-45.

What’s new with the Bruins: UCLA has won five straight since beating the Wildcats at McKale Center, becoming the seventh team to take a share of the Pac-12 lead this season when it beat ASU on Thursday on a last-second 3 from Jaquez. Having gone 7-6 in nonconference play, then 1-3 to start the Pac-12, the Bruins first bought in to first-year coach Mick Cronin’s defense and have developed a more efficient offense over the past few weeks to go with it.

Central to UCLA’s offensive revival is the play of point guard Tyger Campbell, who missed his true freshman season in 2018-19 with a torn ACL and started slowly this season.

Jaquez and Chris Smith are big shooters who can play either forward spot, while freshman Jake Kyman has brought additional shooting off the bench, averaging 16.5 points in his last two games. Inside, Jalen Hill and Cody Riley are skilled, physical big men who can score efficiently around the basket and defend. They helped limit the UA’s Zeke Nnaji to just 2-for-8 shooting on Feb. 8, though Nnaji took 10 free throws. However, guard Prince Ali and forward Alex Olesinski have been reduced to smaller bench roles lately.

He said it

“Campbell’s confidence is through the roof and offensively he’s the catalyst for a lot of what they want to do. His ability to get downhill, get in the paint and make good decisions drives them offensively. And then they have difficult matchups with Chris Smith and Jaime Jaquez. They’re able to isolate them on matchups that they feel are in their favor. Then (Thursday) night Jake Kyman comes off the bench and scores at a high rate, able to make 3s and really open up the defense. They’ve become really hard to guard. In a lot of ways, their offense is driving them because of their efficiency, and they’re number one in the league in offensive rebounding. They don’t miss much but when they do, they get it back, so they’re scoring at a high rate.

“(Defensively) they’ll throw the matchup zone at you every once in a while but they trust what they’re doing defensively in their man (to man defense). They’ll switch ball screens some. They do a great job of walling up with their bigs — Jalen Hill, Cody Riley, those guys do a great job of not fouling and making it difficult to score twos around the paint. They make it difficult for you to score over the top. … When we have good shots down low, we have to be able to finish them and we have to win the rebounding battle.”

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

Key player (UCLA): Tyger Campbell

The Bruins’ redshirt freshman point guard outplayed Nico Mannion at McKale Center earlier this month and he’s been mostly on fire since then, with 12 points and five assists against Arizona earlier this month. He’s totaled of 25 assists and 25 points in his past two games.

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Key player (Arizona): Ira Lee

Not only will Lee likely have to start again in a bigger lineup, but he also may have to stretch out to guard Smith or Jaquez when they play the power forward spot. Lee was in a similar spot last season at Pauley, starting in place of the injured Chase Jeter but coming through with 11 points and seven rebounds.

Sidelines

Pauley comes to life

UCLA is expecting at least a near-sellout Saturday at Pauley Pavilion and, this time, it isn’t largely because of locally based UA alums that arrive in four-figure numbers elsewhere around the Pac-12.

The Bruins have ripped off six straight wins to pull into a first-place tie in the loss column with Oregon and ASU, and their fans are following suit.

“I’ve never seen UCLA like this since I’ve been here,” ASU coach Bobby Hurley said after UCLA beat ASU 75-72 on Thursday, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Maybe the Lonzo Ball year (2016-17) in terms of crowd and the energy in the building.”

The Bruins drew 9.626 fans into 13,800-seat Pauley Pavilion on Thursday for ASU, despite an 8 p.m. weeknight tipoff, and had about only 700 seats remaining for the Arizona-UCLA game as of Friday afternoon.

“We hope for more” Saturday, UCLA freshman Jaime Jaquez said. “It was great. An atmosphere like that is fun. Hopefully, the crowd had fun. I know we had a lot of fun jumping around after the game, hitting shots, everybody going crazy.

“So hopefully, come out Saturday, please.”

Crosstown buzzer-beaters

Jaquez was actually the biggest part of all that excitement for the Bruins: He hit a game-winning 3-pointer with 0.6 seconds left to beat the Sun Devils on Thursday.

The shot was so big it actually carried more meaning than the preposterously difficult 72-footer that USC’s Onyeka Okongwu hit over at USC — while being tripped by UA’s Dylan Smith — just before the halftime buzzer against Arizona.

While Okongwu shot gave the Trojans momentum and a 26-21 lead entering the second half – “It was a big one… we had held them to 23 points,” UA coach Sean Miller said — Jaquez’ shot won the game and knocked the Sun Devils down from sole possession of first place into a tie, the latest accomplishment in UCLA’s remarkable revival over the past five weeks.

“It feels great right now,” Jaquez said. “We believed from the start that this could happen … even when we were losing games. This is what we’ve worked for — playing for first-place games, trying to get a shot into the (NCAA) Tournament, and just doing big things like this.”

Jaquez had made that kind of shot before ... but only in his childhood fantasies. “I used to go to the park just by myself and just run up and down the court, counting down from 3-2-1, hitting big shots like that,” Jaquez said. “It’s something that every kid dreams about. To do it tonight, it was amazing. It was an unreal feeling.”

Okwongu, meanwhile, said he had been working on ultra-long-distance shots with USC’s graduate assistants and, after he saw Nico Mannion miss, decided to go for it.

He arguably could have received an and-one out of it, too, with Smith cutting in front of Okongwu and appearing to knock him down as he shot it.

“I just took a chance,” Okongwu said. “Got fouled. No call, but it still went in anyways.”

Sharing the love

While explaining the Bruins’ rise during a 30-minute interview on an “Inside the Pac-12” podcast earlier this week, UCLA coach Mick Cronin noted how life is pretty swell all of a sudden.

“It’s good to be on a roll,” he said. “We’d rather win than lose. It’s amazing, too — your friendship base goes way up when you’re winning.”

Cronin said UCLA’s turnaround was basically a matter of taking players who wanted to win but needed first to gain the experience and toughness needed to do so, learning through mistakes and resisting opponents’ efforts to impose their will.

Ultimately, he indicated, it was the players who made it happen.

“I give the kids a lot of credit,” Cronin said, “because in this day and age there’s a lot more people who pack it in than dig in and fight and turn your season around.”

Numbers game

1.58

Nico Mannion’s assist-turnover ratio in Pac-12 games, fourth-best in the conference

3.14

Tyger Campbell’s assist-turnover ratio in Pac-12 games, best in the conference.

31.4

Arizona’s offensive rebounding percentage in Pac-12 games, the second-highest in the conference.

34.0

UCLA’s offensive rebounding percentage in Pac-12 games, the highest in the conference.

46.3

Arizona’s two-point shooting percentage in Pac-12 games, the third-worst in the conference.

49.0

UCLA’s two-point percentage in Pac-12 games, fourth best in the conference.