'We got some dogs': Arizona basketball's defensive prowess attributed to total team effort

College basketball coaches may like to say team success leads to individual awards but that isn’t always the case with defense.

Arizona found that out again this week. After holding Michigan State to 40.6% shooting in a 74-68 Top 25 win over the Spartans last week, the school nominated Keshad Johnson for Pac-12 Player of the Week in part by noting his 10 rebounds and a game-preserving blocked shot.

And, while nominating KJ Lewis for Freshman of the Week, UA promoted that the guard played “outstanding defense” on Michigan State’s perimeter players.

But Johnson scored only 13 points and Lewis six. Neither won the award.

Then again, it isn’t easy to attribute Arizona’s improved defense so far this season to any one player. The way UA coach Tommy Lloyd has spoken about it on several occasions, it’s about a lot of guys, pretty much most of his rotation.

“Look at our bodies,” Lloyd said after UA beat Duke on Nov. 10. “I mean, we got some dogs and they played like it. You have Pelle (Larsson) and Oumar (Ballo). Caleb (Love) has played really well defensively. Kylan (Boswell) and Jaden (Bradley) and KJ, Keshad. That’s some dudes right there.”

Lloyd has even gone out of his way to praise the defense of Bradley, who has been, overall, quiet offensively so far this season, while the toughness, athleticism and hustle Johnson brought over from San Diego State has been obvious.

Together, those are just two pieces of a fabric that has Arizona rated the eighth-most efficient defense so far, allowing just 91.4 points per 100 opponent possessions, and 63.8 points in games. The Wildcats are also the No. 3-rated team in defensive rebounding percentage, scooping up opponents’ missed shots 80.4 percent of the time.

Individually, the 6-7 Johnson is 164th nationally in block percentage, swiping away opponents’ shots 11.4% of the time he’s on the floor.

With 362 D-I men's college teams, that translates to more than 1,800 starter-level players nationwide; according to Kenpom, Johnson also ranks among the top 500 D-I players in defensive rebounding percentage, collecting opponent’s misses 18.5% of the time when he’s on the floor, and in steal percentage, taking the ball from opponents on 2.9% of their possessions.

“I just don't back down," Johnson says. "I give all my effort and that just shows. It's toughness, and it's contagious. If you're not backing down, then that gives your teammates courage to want to step up. I even get courage from Oumar, who comes over and helps. A lot of my teammates help out. It’s not just me. It's everything. It's contagious all around the whole arena.”

Of course, the Wildcats all have a common goal. Johnson made it to the NCAA title game with San Diego State last season but both he and the returning UA players still went home for the season on a sour note. 

“We know we can't let each other down. We know we can't take nothing for granted,” Johnson said. “They know they lost the Princeton last year. I know I lost in the big game. We want to make it to that last game and we'll come home with the trophy.”

So far, two of the Wildcats who played in their first-round NCAA Tournament loss to Princeton are also among the nation’s defensive leaders — Boswell ranks 289th with a steal percentage of 3.4 and Ballo ranks 374th with a 3.5 block percentage — while Lewis’s 4.8 block percentage ranks 229th, according to Kenpom.

It’s “Kylan. KJ Lewis, he’s getting a lot of deflections. Pelle is getting charges. There was a notion that Caleb Love wasn't really a good defender. You don't see that now. We see him killing. He's making people scared."

Though four of UA’s six games so far have been against low- or mid-major teams, the Wildcats are holding opponents to just 38.1% overall shooting, the 32nd lowest mark in the nation.

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Arizona’s improvement in two-point defense has been especially notable so far this season. The Wildcats allow opponents to shoot just 42.3% inside the arc, ranking 19th nationally, after allowing 46.2% last season.

That’s still off slightly from the 41.8% Arizona opponents shot from two in 2021-22, but the Wildcats had rim-protecting center Christian Koloko changing countless shots that season en route to becoming the No. 33 pick in the 2022 NBA Draft.

Three-point defense is a little trickier to measure, because it includes variables such as an opponent’s shooting talent and a coach’s decision to sometimes slack off some shooters in an effort to better secure other areas. But Arizona has improved that also, to 31.5% so far, holding Michigan State to just 29.4% shooting from 3-point range.

When asked after the game about the 5-for-16 shooting Michigan State guard A.J. Hoggard put up, Lloyd credited just about everyone.

“What I really trust is these guards fighting their asses off on ball screens,” Lloyd said. “These guys must have got screened 50 times and I don't think I don't think many of them are illegal. I might have been begging for a few illegal ones here just trying to get lucky but I mean, they were setting really hard screens and these guys were fighting over the top of them.

“And then I thought we had a lot of what we call `rear view contests,’ kind of contesting in our recoveries. If you can do that with effort, and we could trust our bigs down low, that puts a lot of pressure on teams to make tough shots.”

In the end against MSU, the Wildcats were able to flex defensively, too.

Ballo played just nine seconds after hitting a free throw that gave UA a 63-61 lead with 4:59 left. But Lloyd said he didn’t remove Ballo as much because of his poor free throw shooting (42.1%) as to protect him from getting “hung out to dry” in ball-screen defenses UA was attempting.

Also sitting out freshman center Motiejus Krivas for the final 12 minutes, Lloyd opted to place Johnson at center, being especially motivated to do so after MSU went with 6-8, 220-pound Malik Hall there during the final 26 seconds.

Lloyd had inserted Ballo with 35 seconds left but took him out again nine seconds later.

“I was like, `Let’s get Key out there and give us some more versatility on defense,’ Lloyd said.

Ten seconds later, Johnson recorded his blocked shot, on a driving layup attempt by MSU’s Tyson Walker. MSU kept the ball but its ensuing inbounds pass was intercepted by Love, leading to a dunk by Lewis.

Defense. Defense. Dagger.