Top-ranked Arizona adds new chapter in history with Wisconsin, blowing out Badgers 98-73

Oumar Ballo and Pelle Larsson were young teenagers growing up on the other side of the Atlantic, one in Africa and one in Scandinavia, when Wisconsin broke the Arizona Wildcats’ hearts in back-to-back Elite Eight games nearly a decade ago.

They had no idea about all that back then, of course. But they did before playing the Badgers on Saturday, told in pregame sessions about the frustrating chapter of their program’s mostly proud history.

Then the top-ranked Wildcats went out and clobbered Wisconsin 98-73, making the 23rd-ranked team in the country look like the same sort of mid- and low-major opponents the UA men’s basketball program had already booted out of McKale Center in five previous home games at McKale this season.

“The Wisconsin game was bigger than us,” Ballo said. “You need to think about the past, present and future, especially playing against Wisconsin and knowing that story. We had to come out and do it for the city and ourselves.”

The Wildcats (8-0) learned about the losses before Saturday’s game, part of UA coach Tommy Lloyd’s recent efforts to drill in the program’s culture and history to his current players, and they heard after the game from another Wildcat of the past, Warriors assistant Bruce Fraser.

Walking around campus and town also helped. The culture was embedded.

“We play for the city and the school every night but this one was for sure special because of the history,” Larsson said. “Having teammates and friends from Tucson explaining what happened maybe gave us a little extra juice.”

It only took about 11 minutes until the Wildcats’ motivation helped turn what was expected to be a tense matchup of teams with polar-opposite tempos into a shocking rout. The game was tied at 23 midway through the first half when UA went 20-2 run.

The Wildcats led by 17 at halftime and never by fewer than 15 the rest of the way, becoming the first team to score 90 points on slow-moving Wisconsin since 2015-16.

Larsson scored a game-high 21 points while hitting all four 3-pointers he took and Ballo collected 15 points and nine rebounds. Caleb Love was all over the court, putting in 20 points, grabbing seven rebounds and dishing five assists, while hitting 7 of 13 from the field.

Arizona shot 58.3% overall from the field, and then there was the defensive side of things. The Wildcats relentlessly defended the Badgers regardless of how deep they went into the shot clock, holding Wisconsin to just 41.4% shooting, and they held the Badgers to just six offensive rebounds, taking away another of their prized advantages.

Arizona outrebounded Wisconsin 39-30 overall and, since rebounding success is often viewed as a measure of effort as much as skill, it wasn’t hard to connect that production to the motivation the Wildcats cited.

“A lot of (rebounding) is effort and toughness and grit and want-to,” Lloyd said. “We want to be a great rebounding team and it’s something I never take for granted. I never assume we’re gonna go make that happen.”

When they did that Saturday, combining rebounding with defense and efficient shooting, the Badgers had nowhere to go. Especially after the Wildcats began coating things with a layer of 3-pointers, with Jaden Bradley, Love and Larsson all hitting one during their 20-2 run.

The Wildcats wound up making 8 of 17 3s in the first half and 10 of 21 (47.6%) for the game, forcing the Badgers to tweak their defense outward and allowing Ballo more room to operate inside.

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“Them making 3s like they did in the first half, it plays with your mind a little bit,” Wisconsin coach Greg Gard said, “in terms of how extended you didn’t want to get but now you have to go play a Larsson on the perimeter. We knew (Kylan) Boswell can shoot it and Love is streaky at times but it just changes what you can do and how much you can compact the paint.”

Gard said the change also led to the Badgers making some mistakes when they put the ball on the floor and the next thing anybody knew Ballo was scoring inside to give Arizona a 43-25 lead with 3:29 left in the first half, the end of Arizona’s 20-2 run.

“Is that what it was?” Gard said. “It felt more like 50-2.”

The Badgers couldn’t make a viable adjustment in the second half, either. Arizona led 48-31 at halftime and never by fewer than 15 points in the second half. All five UA starters hit double figures with over 11 minutes to go.

The Wildcats let up slightly on defense in the second half as they sprinkled in substitutes, allowing the Badgers to shoot 43.6% overall and hit 7 of 14 3s after halftime, but Arizona shot 60.7% after halftime.

There was real no letdown, no slacking off. History may have told them that was not a good idea.

For Wisconsin, maybe it was different. Gard dismissed any connection in Saturday’s game to the 2014 and 2015 NCAA Tournament Elite Eight West Region games, in which the Badgers edged the Wildcats both times to reach the Final Four.

“Our guys were like nine years old when that was going on,” Gard said. “They were still taking recess and milk breaks. (The games in) ’14 and ’15 had nothing to do with this game. They were better than us today.”

But the team that was better Saturday has been taught, over and over throughout the offseason and into this season, about the culture and history of Arizona basketball history.

When Saturday’s game tipped off, the Wildcats knew what Wisconsin represented. They knew what the 14,000-plus fans on hand, the graduates of their university and the residents of Southern Arizona, might have been feeling.

So it ultimately didn’t matter that Ballo is from Mali. Nor that Larsson is from Sweden.

On Saturday, both were from Tucson, Arizona.

“We are part of the family,” Ballo said. “This is our home and our family, and whatever happened in the past, it will affect us. No matter if we were here or not (for those games) we still have to represent the family.”