ARIZONA SCOUTING REPORT
Colgate (4-3) at No. 2 Arizona (6-0)
McKale Center • 1 p.m. • Pac-12 Networks • 1290-AM, Varsity Network
Probable starters
ARIZONA
G Kylan Boswell (6-2 sophomore)
G Caleb Love (6-4 senior)
F Pelle Larsson (6-6 senior)
F Keshad Johnson (6-7 senior)
C Oumar Ballo (7-0 senior)
COLGATE
G Braedon Smith (6-0 sophomore)
G Ryan Moffatt (6-7 senior)
F Nicolas Louis-Jacques (6-4 junior)
F Keegan Records (6-10 senior)
C Jeff Woodward (6-11 senior)
How they match up
The series: Arizona has never played Colgate.
Game agreement: Colgate is making a one-time appearance in exchange for a payment expected to be in the $90,000-$100,000 range (a public records request to UA made in September for the game contract remains unfulfilled).
Colgate overview: Colgate has become a top mid-major program in recent seasons under 13th-year coach Matt Langel, reaching four of the five past NCAA Tournaments and winning a school-record 26 games last season. The Raiders do it with a patient, high-efficiency offense that led the nation in 3-point percentage last season (40.1).
Colgate forward Keegan Records looks to shoot in front of Texas forward Dylan Disu in a first-round NCAA Tournament game in March. The Raiders are expected to win their league again this season.
While Colgate lost last season’s Patriot League Player of the Year in small forward Tucker Richardson, center Keegan Records was named the conference’s preseason Player of the Year this season, having lifted his career field goal percentage to 64.8% after shooting a Patriot League record 67.5% last season.
At point guard, Braeden Smith has a nose for scoring at multiple levels while also drawing 4.8 fouls per 40 minutes — and hitting free throws at an 84.4% rate.
Small forward Ryan Moffat is comfortable scoring inside or out but most effective from 3-point range, where he holds the third-highest career percentage in Patriot League history (43.3). Nicolas Louis-Jacques is the reigning Patriot League player of the week after scoring 22 points on Harvard, while he and Moffat are tied as the Raiders’ second-leading scorers with an average of 10.0 points a game.
The Raiders have run the 41st-slowest adjusted tempo in Division I but scored 75 points in a four-point loss at Syracuse on Nov. 14 and 84 at Binghamton on Wednesday.
He said it: “They’re certainly capable of knocking down shots from 3, and they’re not bashful about taking those shots, too. So I think it’s this part of their DNA in the way that they play.
“They cut back door, they find the open man, they’ll post up and score, so they come at you in a variety of ways, and they stick to what they do.
“(Smith) knows how to play. He’s a confident scorer and he can definitely find guys. He presents problems. (Records) is a load inside. He knows how to score, he’s crafty in there and he can muscle his way up to baskets. He’s a good rebounding big, he can run the floor.
“Moffat is probably the most versatile guy on their team because he plays inside and he can play outside. He’s a glue guy for them in terms of so many things that he does.”
“(Defensively) they’re a team that likes to get into gaps, and they try to cover the paint and they do a good job of contesting shots from outside. — UA assistant coach Steve Robinson, who scouted the Raiders.
Key players
Colgate — Braedon Smith
A well-regarded quarterback at Seattle Prep two years ago, Smith has translated his ability to read action onto the basketball court. A Patriot League all-Rookie team pick last season, Smith leads the Raiders in assists (5.9) and steals (2.3) as well as scoring (15.7). And, at just six feet tall, he’s also second in rebounding at 6.1 per game.
Arizona — Oumar Ballo
The Wildcats’ returning all-conference center didn’t have nearly the November this season that he had in 2022, notably dropping off in rebounding (5.2) and shooting free throws (42.1) last month. With a difficult late December schedule coming up, the Wildcats will need more.
Wildcats center Oumar Ballo, left, talks to guard Kylan Boswell during the Nov. 19 game against UT Arlington.
Sidelines
NIL-proof
With four NCAA Tournament appearances over the past five times it was played, Colgate might appear the kind of place a lightly recruited high school player can go, gain some playing time and recognition for a few years, then hop in the portal and seek NIL bucks at some other place.
But after all-league center Keegan Records spent two weeks in the transfer portal last spring, hearing from 50 schools, including some in the ACC and Big East, he opted to stay. Just like Colgate standouts Tucker Richardson and Oliver Lynch-Daniels did a year earlier.
Records “could have graduated last year from Colgate, got the degree and said, `Hey guys, thanks. We’ve had a great run, but I’m gonna go pursue whatever else is out there,’ “ Colgate coach Matt Langel said. “Just using him as an example, the things that were important to him weren’t `how much money can I get?’
“Every guy’s in a different situation but … we’re able to coach guys who come from families that have worked hard to be in position to get an education at a place like Colgate. That’s of the extreme value, not just in the short term, but the long term for them as well.”
Colgate, a liberal arts school in upstate New York, reported accepting just 12% of 21,130 applicants for its 2027 class, with admitted students averaging a 3.97 GPA in high school.
Atlantic slammed
While the Raiders are able to play Patriot League games throughout New York state and around the Northeast, their nonconference travel has already spanned four time zones so far this season.
In order to reach Tucson about 24 hours before Saturday’s game, Colgate players loaded on a bus at 5:30 a.m. Eastern Time on Friday and rode one hour to the Syracuse airport. There, they boarded a flight to Denver and another from Denver to Tucson.
Two weeks earlier, the Raiders went in the other direction, taking a five-hour, cross-border bus ride to Toronto, where they flew to Moncton, New Brunswick for the Atlantic Slam, an MTE that brought college basketball to Atlantic Canada for the first time.
There, Colgate lost to Yale but beat Gardner-Webb and Weber State, two teams that are in the same 100-175 Kenpom range that Colgate is in.
“With these multi-team exempt events, you’re always looking to find something that’s going to make sense with where our program is positioned,” Langel said. “We played three teams that are going to compete in their own conferences for championships, so we felt that might make sense, even though it’s not easy to get there.”
Heads up
After working with Langel during USA Basketball’s U18 training camp in 2022, UA coach Tommy Lloyd knew what sort of coach he might be facing off against Saturday.
Then he watched some game video.
“I know he’s a good coach, and it’s fun to watch them play because they do some really unique things,” Lloyd said. “He’s not afraid to think outside the box. He’s got smart players. They’ve been to the last three NCAA Tournaments in a row. They were a unanimous pick to win their league this year.
“So I looked at TJ (Benson, UA special assistant) like `what the heck are you doing? These guys are really really good.’ He just laughed at me. But these are the type of games we want to play. I’ve got a lot of respect for Matt and a lot of respect for what his program has done.”
Numbers game
8 — Colgate’s national rank in defensive rebounding percentage (78.3)
27 — Colgate’s Kenpom rank in minutes continuity (65.4), the percentage of a team’s minutes that are played by the same player from last season to this season.
252 — Arizona’s Kenpom rank in minutes continuity (29.5).
— Bruce Pascoe
Arizona Basketball Press Conference | Tommy Lloyd | Nov. 30, 2023 (Arizona Wildcats YouTube)
