Arizona men's basketball scouting report: No. 8 Wildcats at Washington State, 4 p.m. Saturday

No. 8 Arizona (12-3, 3-1) at Washington State (11-5, 2-3)

Beasley Coliseum; Pullman, Washington | 4 p.m. Saturday | Pac-12 Networks | 1290-AM, 107.5-FM

PROBABLE STARTERS

WASHINGTON STATE

G Myles Rice (6-3 freshman)

G Kymany Houinsou (6-7 soph.)

F Jaylen Wells (6-8 junior)

F Andrej Jakimovski (6-8 senior)

C Oscar Cluff (6-11 junior)

ARIZONA

G Kylan Boswell (6-2 soph.)

G Caleb Love (6-4 senior)

F Pelle Larsson (6-6 senior)

F Keshad Johnson (6-7 senior)

C Oumar Ballo (7-0 senior)

How they match up

The series: Arizona leads the all-time series 70-18 and has beaten WSU 11 straight times in Pullman, though the Cougars beat the Wildcats in two of the last four matchups at McKale Center. Last season, WSU beat Arizona 74-61 at McKale on Jan. 7, when the Cougars held the Wildcats to just 31.7% shooting and received 24 points and 14 rebounds from center Mouhamed Gueye. The Wildcats received payback on Jan. 26 in Pullman, winning 63-58 when they held WSU to just 32.8% shooting and received 18 points and 12 rebounds from Azuolas Tubelis.

WSU overview: The Cougars lost four of six games after going 9-1 early this season during a relatively weak nonconference schedule, but three were against Pac-12 contenders Utah, Colorado and Oregon. Then they pulled off the biggest victory of their season so far on Wednesday, winning 72-64 at USC. WSU held the Trojans to just 38% shooting while forward Isaac Jones had 26 points and 11 rebounds in what was his first game off the bench after 15 starts. USC was without starting center Joshua Morgan (illness) and lost guard Isaiah Collier during the game to a hand injury that is expected to keep him out for a month (Arizona hosts USC on Jan. 17).

Using a mix of zone and man-to-man defense, WSU holds opponents to just 39.9% shooting, the best field-goal percentage defense in the Pac-12 and 40th best in Division I. WSU is particularly tough to deal with inside: With former Cochise College center Oscar Cluff and Jones, a power forward transfer from Idaho, the Cougars keep opponents to just 44.0% two-point shooting, the 18th best 2-point percentage defense in Division I, and block 14.2% of opponents' shots.

The Cougars lost transfer point guard (from Kansas) Joseph Yesufu after six games due to a hip injury, but scoring-minded point Myles Rice has been leading the way. Rice is WSU’s second-leading scorer (14.4), shooting 50.8% from two-point range and 32.1% from 3-point range. He’s dished five assists in each of WSU’s past two games.

On the wings, WSU also has shooters in senior Andrej Jakimovski (34.5% from 3), freshman Isaiah Watts (34.6% from 3) and Jaylen Wells (40.0), a transfer from Division II Sonoma State who scored 17 points against USC on Wednesday in what was his first start of the season. WSU has been starting 6-7 sophomore Kymany Houinsou at shooting guard, though he played only six minutes at USC because of an apparent illness.

He said it: “Washington State is one of the best-coached teams in the country. Coach (Kyle) Smith does a great job. They do five or six things. They don't do 100. But those five or six things, they do really, really well. Each one that they do, they can run it a couple of different ways. And there's a beauty in the simplicity.

“This year, they really are utilizing two of the better bigs in the conference, Isaiah Jones, and Cluff. (Nigerian freshman) Rueben Chinyelu is talented as well. He’s a big strong, body, a good shot blocker. They have the right mix of guards that are aggressive downhill — Myles Rice and (Kymany Houinsou) — and have a great mix of shooters – (Jaylen) Wells, (Isaiah) Watts, Andrej Jakimovski and Jabe Mullins, who hurt us a lot last year (3 of 4 3-pointers at McKale). Those guys are great shooters.

Rice “is an amazing story. They didn't have him last year, but they knew how talented he was. He's a fantastic player. Really good with the ball, aggressive, can go right and left. You have to make sure that you don't allow him to just totally control the game because he's got that ability.

“I really like the combination of their team. It's gonna be one of the hardest games that we've had up to this point in the season.”

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

Key players

WSU — Myles Rice

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Picking up two Pac-12 Freshman of the Week awards this season, being the Cougars’ second-leading scorer (14.4) and leading them in assists (3.2) pales in one sense to what he accomplished as a redshirt last season. Rice was declared cancer-free after having to sit out while battling non-Hodgkins lymphoma, finishing up his last round of chemo just as the Pac-12 Tournament was playing out.

ARIZONA — Keshad Johnson

Always a good bet to create energy in any sort of environment, the Wildcats’ all-out, all-the-time power forward transfer will also have his hands full helping guard Isaac Jones, who shoots 64.4% inside and is a force in rebounding and rim protecting.

SIDELINES

Skipping Seattle

Playing the sort of one-off road game that could be a feature of their Big 12 schedules in future seasons, the Wildcats aren’t passing through Seattle to play the Huskies this weekend.

It’s a quirky feature of what has become the Pac-12’s final schedule in its current makeup. Since the conference moved to 20 games in the 2020-21 season, it took the four games each team was scheduled to skip on the old 18-game schedule rotation and added two of them back in early December — one from a two-game road swing that was to be skipped and another from a two-game homestand scheduled to be missed.

But because of how the college basketball calendar broke this season, with Selection Sunday not until March 17, the Pac-12 opted to cram in all 20 games after Christmas — and sprinkle in the “added back” games during the third, eighth and 10th weeks.

In Arizona’s case, the Wildcats received a single game this week at WSU, while the Wildcats will only face ASU at home on Feb. 17 during week eight — but have to play at ASU on Feb. 28 in Week 10, three days before facing Oregon at home on March 2.

Pun and won

Even if all those headlines that play off his last name seem a little much sometimes, Caleb Love doesn't mind.

He does it too, announcing via social media that T-shirts saying “Sending Love From Tucson” are for sale (he did so with a heart emoji, of course).

“I love my last name,” Love said with a grin at UA’s press conference this week. “No pun intended.”

Love also has no problem using others’ names. He replaced his profile photo on X and Instagram with a shot of the back of walk-on Luke Champion’s No. 24 jersey.

“Manifestation,” Love said. “Obviously, his last name is Champion and the national championship in 2024, that's our goal. That's what we're gonna do. That's why I changed it.”

Eyes on the prize(s?)

While the Wildcats used the week-long break between games to rest and get in some extra practice work, Murphy and Lloyd took advantage by heading to Southern California for some opportunistic recruiting.

On Tuesday, they watched UA signee Carter Bryant lead Corona Centennial over Roosevelt High School 82-78 before a standing-room-only crowd while also probably taking another long look at Brayden Burries, a five-star 2025 guard at Roosevelt the Wildcats have long been targeting.

Despite starting the season briefly ineligible and then struggling, Bryant wound up Tuesday with 39 points and 11 rebounds while making 13 of 20 shots despite heavy defensive attention.

“Those were NBA-level shots,” Centennial coach Josh Giles told the Riverside Press-Enterprise. “I felt Roosevelt played amazing defense on him, but that is what he is capable of doing. We’ve been kind of waiting for a game like this all year.’

“Of all the great players that have come through here, I don’t know if there’s been someone scrutinized as much as him. It seems like nothing is ever good enough, no matter what he does. S, to see him do what he did, in such a big game like this, was great.”

Both Lloyd and Murphy said they have been impressed with Bryant on and off the court (they can’t discuss unsigned recruiting targets such as Burries under NCAA rules).

Bryant “started slow, but these last couple games, he's been fantastic,” Murphy said. “Carter is just an amazing young man. He's amazing kid, and I think his best days are ahead of him. He's with a really good high school coach there at Centennial. It was great to great to get to see him play.”

Giles also coached UA sophomore guard Kylan Boswell in 2020-21 at Centennial.

Numbers game

5.4: WSU’s blocks per game, ranking 17th among NCAA Division I teams.

61.7: Collective 2-point shooting percentage of WSU big men Oscar Cluff, Isaac Jones and Rueben Chinyelu.

319: Arizona’s national rank in percentage of overall field goals that are taken from 3-point range (30.7).

— Bruce Pascoe