With key starters out, Arizona basketball's Dylan Anderson, others, get long looks in exhibition win

Even as a guy who twice won the Arizona Gatorade Player of the Year award, has a season of experience with the Wildcats and stands seven feet tall, Dylan Anderson again faces a difficult path finding minutes this season.

He is reminded of that every day, when Pac-12 first team center Oumar Ballo and two other 7-footers, Lithuanian freshman Motiejus Krivas and Estonian sophomore Henri Veesaar, can crowd around him in the post.

“It's always a battle. We’re going at each other every day in practice,” Anderson said Friday, after Arizona beat Lewis-Clark State 110-70 in an exhibition game at McKale Center. “It's making us all better."

But on Friday, things were different. Ballo and Krivas were out with undisclosed injuries UA coach Tommy Lloyd has described as minor, and while Veesaar was around, he’s been fighting off a high ankle sprain for the past few months and playing mostly at power forward thanks to Krivas’ arrival.

So this time, Anderson had the center spot almost all to himself, at least for the 19 minutes he played. He started against Lewis-Clark and collected 12 points on 5-for-9 shooting while pulling down four rebounds.

“Dylan's really been practicing well and making big progress,” Lloyd said, “and those other two guys (Ballo and Krivas) he's been battling with are really good players.”

Even though the Wildcats were decidedly uneven for the first 14 minutes of Friday’s game, trailing the Warriors 29-28 before eventually going on a 17-2 run to close out the first half and turning the game into a blowout in the second half, the injuries gave Lloyd a chance to take a longer look at his guys in a different role or environment.

Such as:

• Veesaar playing center.

After Anderson, there was Veesaar, who played both center and power foreward last season but has concentrated on the four, since Ballo, Krivas and Anderson could combine for nearly all the minutes at center.

“With how the lineups played out, he had to play more five,” Lloyd said. “It’s not a big difference in how he plays but I want to see him continue to grow as well. A few things stick out in my mind that he did well. I can't wait to break down the film and show him some of the things he did good and show him some a few of the things that we want him to get better at.”

• Paulius Murauskas playing power forward.

After spending nearly all of his time at small forward since joining the Wildcats over the summer, the Lithuanian freshman was forced into action at the four, meaning he would have to adjust to his first game against a college team and a new position all at the same time.

He was 1 for 6 from the field and did not collect a rebound.

“He's just not really comfortable there, because our four and five move differently than our one, twos and threes within the flow of the offense,” Lloyd said after the game. “So it's probably unfair to judge him based on tonight.”

• Filip Borovicanin playing power forward (maybe).

“I was at one moment at the five or four, I don't know,” the Serbian sophomore said. “Me and Paulius were at the five and four. We've never done it before in practices but we didn’t have many guys.”

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This one worked out fine for the Wildcats. Borovicanin is mostly a wing but he’s also versatile and 6-foot-9, having already demonstrated a big jump from last season. He collected 10 points, eight rebounds and two steals in 18 minutes.

• Caleb Love as the team’s efficiency leader.

There might be no more individual stats more discussed about the Wildcats this preseason than the fact that Love took 299 3-point shots for North Carolina last season and hit them at a 29.9% rate. He took another 253 from inside the arc and made those at an also less-than-efficient 45.5% rate.

But on Friday, Love went 9 of 12 from the field while making 3 of 6 3-pointers, including a 25-footer just before the halftime buzzer. While the competition was only NAIA level, Love also showed restraint and selflessness, dishing seven assists, including an alley-oop pass to Keshad Johnson, who threw down a dagger dunk that gave UA a 91-53 lead with 8:42 left.

“I’ve just asked him to be aggressive and make good basketball decisions,” Lloyd said of Love. “He seems to be bought into that.

"I don't know if we're gonna see that level of efficiency every single night, but obviously, he's capable of doing some great things," Lloyd said. “I think that that also carries over to the defensive end. I want to see him keep growing there and playing with great effort and toughness. And rebounding is one of the areas I've really been on him about and I think he rebounded a little bit better in the second half. So it seems like he's gonna rise to the challenge.”

• Freshman KJ Lewis making his official return 'home'

 The freshman guard with roots in El Paso and Vail, who stood out on UA’s Middle East exhibition trip and then won the Red-Blue Showcase dunk contest, made his McKale game debut Friday. In 19 minutes, he had 13 points, four rebounds, two assists and three steals but also two turnovers.

“I think over the course of the year, he'll figure out how to temper his aggression a little bit to make sure he is not putting himself in difficult situations,” Lloyd said. “A couple of times where he got subbed into the game, he (quickly) tried making a pass I know he can make on a ball screen, but maybe that's the time you turn it down. I think he'll figure that stuff out

"But again, he's the kind of guy who could change the game with his effort and energy. So the last thing I want to do is make him conservative.”

• A perimeter power trio even without Larsson.

While Love led the Wildcats with 23 points, Lewis had 13 and Kylan Boswell scored all 15 of his points in the first half. Starter Jaden Bradley was quieter offensively but collected two rebounds, two assists and two steals along with his two points while Spanish freshman Conrad Martinez added two points and three steals.

“I liked seeing those three guards play together a little bit and I think if you throw Pelle in that mix, they're pretty dynamic with how they can play,” Lloyd said. “When you have guys that can play like that — handle the ball, score, and make decisions.

"I want those guys to get comfortable, being able to understand that the way we play, we're gonna get a lot of great opportunities. Maybe one game you get a few more than the others, but kind of trust it overall. I think if we can establish that, that'll be powerful.”