During college basketball’s conference tournament week, sometimes a loss is a win.
Because Arizona appears to be locked into a No. 2 NCAA Tournament seed, especially once North Carolina beat Pittsburgh earlier Friday to position itself for the final No. 1 seed, Arizona’s Pac-12 Tournament semifinal game with Oregon meant little in a bracketology sense.
Maybe nothing at all.
Losing the game, as Arizona did 67-59, probably wasn’t enough to knock the Wildcats down to a No. 3 seed, and also gave them a bonus day off to rest and refocus before they likely will have to open NCAA Tournament play on Thursday.
Arizona guard Kylan Boswell drives against Oregon guard Kario Oquendo during the first half. Boswell has struggled in the past three games, and UA needs him at the top of his game if it plans on making a deep run in the NCAA Tournament.
Consider, too, what happened to the Wildcats in the opposite scenario last season: They swept through the Pac-12 Tournament by winning three games in three days through Saturday, wearing down their seven-player rotation while center Oumar Ballo broke his hand and point guard Kerr Kriisa injured his shoulder.
Then, five days after snipping the nets in Las Vegas, the Wildcats lost to 15th-seeded Princeton in the NCAA Tournament’s first round.
But while UA coach Tommy Lloyd said he would try to take advantage of the opportunities given the extra time off, he expressed a different view of the Wildcats' loss, played before another strongly pro-UA crowd at T-Mobile Arena.
“We're a program that competes for championships,” Lloyd said. “We've got a great fan base. We wanted to perform for them, and we weren't able to.”
Besides, the Wildcats may have more issues than an extra day of rest and preparation can fix.
Arizona will enter the NCAA Tournament having lost two of its past three games, giving a blueprint to potential NCAA Tournament opponents by struggling against the opposing defenses of USC and Oregon.
Arizona guard Jaden Bradley, left, fouls Oregon guard Kario Oquendo during the second half Friday. UA had been 7-0 in Pac-12 Tournament games under Tommy Lloyd until the loss to the Ducks.
Their perimeter, in particular, has broken down. Over the Wildcats’ past three games — a 13-point loss at USC in the regular-season finale on March 9, a 21-point win over USC in the Pac-12 Tournament semfinals and a loss to Oregon in Friday’s semifinals — point guard Kylan Boswell, shooting guard Caleb Love and small forward Pelle Larsson have all played below their season averages.
In the case of Love, the Pac-12 Player of the Year, well below. Love has averaged just 7.3 points over the three games while shooting a collective 4 for 18 from 3-point range. He also has 11 turnovers, outweighing his seven assists.
“Caleb's had a great season,” Lloyd said. “We're trying to do the best we can to lighten the load on him and make sure he knows he belongs with us. We love him. He just hasn't played well.
"The one thing I know about him is he's high character, he's tough, he's a fighter. And I expect him to come back full force next week."
Boswell averaged just 3.7 points over the Wildcats’ last three games while shooting 4 for 23 from the field, including 1 for 10 from 3-point range — and he his nine turnovers have been accompanied by six turnovers. The Wildcats’ general offensive uneasiness has contributed to Boswell being limited in catch-and-shoot situations, one of his strong points.
“There's two ways to catch-and-shoots. No. 1, you move the ball. And, two, you've got to hunt them,” Lloyd said. “I think Kylan's had some opportunities (where) maybe he's shot-faking himself out of a little bit. But those are Kylan's decisions to make.
Oumar Ballo and Arizona had reason to flex early Friday as it looked like the Wildcats would win in a rout.
“You trust your players to make decisions they're comfortable with and shoot shots they can feel like making. We'll take a look at that. But Kylan shooting the ball is usually a really good weapon for us. Hopefully we'll get more of that going forward."
Larsson, meanwhile, has shot 40.9% but has had 12 turnovers to go with his nine assists. As a team, Arizona has averaged 15.3 turnovers over those last three games.
“A lot of sloppy plays,” Larsson said. “Had a few on my end today where we are just trying to make hard plays when we don't need to. We have so many good players that we don't really have to try to make hard plays. We just take the easy ones and good things will follow. Just poor decision-making, I think.”
The decision-making also led to an inability to feed Ballo, who had 11 points while shooting 5 for 5 from the field in the first half Friday against Oregon — but didn’t take a single shot during a 17-minute second-half appearance.
“We've got to help him find his opportunities,” Lloyd said. “It's tough. We have a lot of success when he's up setting ball screens. We have some success when he's down low posting up. Today, maybe he got caught a little in between some of those.
“He's got to take advantage of the opportunities he gets. But getting him the ball more in better position is something that we can definitely take a look at.”
The Wildcats will have three days to keep looking at it after Selection Sunday. For what it’s worth, they should be more rested while doing so.
