Arizona basketball scouting report: Morgan State at UA, 7:30 p.m. Monday

Probable starters

ARIZONA

G Kylan Boswell (6-2 sophomore)

G Caleb Love (6-4 senior)

F Pelle Larsson (6-6 senior)

F Keshad Johnson (6-7 senior)

C Oumar Ballo (7-0 senior)

MORGAN STATE

G Wynston Tabbs (6-3 senior)

G Kamron Hobbs (5-10 junior)

F Will Thomas (6-6 junior)

F Myles Thompson (6-7 senior)

C Christian Oliver (7-0 junior)

How they match up

The series: Arizona leads 2-0 after beating Morgan State 93-68 last season when Azuolas Tubelis had 26 points and nine rebounds while Oumar Ballo had 21 points. The Wildcats also beat the Bears 115-53 on Nov. 20, 1997, at McKale, their first game after winning the 1997 national championship.

Morgan State overview: The Bears lost guards Malik Miller and Isaiah Burke, who combined for 45 points at McKale Center last December, along with seven other players from last season. But they might wind up being better than the 15-16 team they became after coach Kevin Broadus dove largely into junior college recruiting to re-infuse his roster with talent.

Last season, the Bears hit 12 of 23 3-pointers at McKale and shot 36.3% overall from 3-point range, the 61st-best 3-point mark in Division I. They struggled inside, shooting just 44.9% from 2 (ranking 342nd) and were mediocre on the rebounding glass. But they were one of Division I’s most disruptive defenses, ranking 28th nationally in steal percentage and fourth nationally in non-steal turnover possessions by opponents. They also ranked No. 71 in block percentage at 11.2.

This season, guard Kamron Hobbs brings back dangerous 3-point shooting, having hit 44.0% from long range. While Hobbs is the Bears’ only returning starter, Tabbs probably would have been a multiple-season starter had knee injuries not bothered him since he averaged 13.9 points as a freshman at Boston College in 2018-19.

Small forward Will Thomas was named a preseason second-team all-MEAC pick this fall after scoring 20 or more points in five games last season, while Kiran Oliver will likely bring energy and defense off the bench.

In the frontcourt, Broadus has expressed enthusiasm about power forwards Myles Thompson and Trent Edwards, along with centers Christian Oliver and Allen Udemadu, telling Morgan State’s website that Edwards will play considerably as a freshman, while Christian Oliver is skilled around the basket and Udemadu brings physicality inside.

Morgan State was 10-2 at home last season but, like most mid- and low-major teams, plays regular one-time road games to generate revenue. Arizona will pay Morgan State $105,000 for this season’s game, while the Bears will also play one-time games at Fresno State and BYU later this month.

He said it

“Kevin Broadus does a great job. He has sort of a Georgetown-Princeton style offensive background with a lot of backcuts. They’re trying to get double gaps, trying to get their 3-point shooters some space. They play a good tempo. They're gonna play pressure defense, so we have to be ready to handle it. They're a much better version of the New Mexico Highlands team we just played and we had 20-something (24) turnovers in that game, so we have to show improvement.”

“They were ninth in the country in turnover percentage, 30th in pace. So these guys are not slow. They’re not soft. They want to come right at you and play their style and they believe in it. I have a lot of respect for that.” — UA associate head coach Jack Murphy, who scouted the Bears.

Key players

Morgan State — Kamron Hobbs

Hobbs had a quiet 27 minutes for the Bears at McKale Center last season, with five points and three assists, but proved a dangerous 3-point threat overall after transferring from D-II North Greenville. He wound up ranked 40th nationally in 3-point percentage.

Arizona — Filip Borovicanin

UA coach Tommy Lloyd has one more opportunity to settle on a playing rotation before the Wildcats travel to Duke, and where Borovicanin fits in is one of the Wildcats’ bigger questions. Borovicanin played in only 14 of 35 games last season but showed promise as a big wing player during UA’s Middle Eastern trip and home exhibitions.

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Sidelines

Educated guessing

Morgan State may not be a high-major opponent, but that didn’t make scouting them any easier for UA associate head coach Jack Murphy.

In fact, it may have made it harder.

The Bears return only one starter from the team that played at McKale Center last season, and did not play any sort of public exhibition or scrimmage that Murphy could view, making it difficult to sketch together an idea of what sort of opponent the Wildcats would be facing.

It helped that UA at least played Morgan State last season and knew Broadus’ style.

“You have to base it a lot of last year's (game) tape,” Murphy said. “You watch our game (with Morgan State), you watch their end-of-the-season games. You also do as much research as you can on their newcomers, whether they're junior college guys or transfers.

“This is a tough one because I have such little information.”

Baltimore treasure

Founded in Baltimore in 1867 and established in Northeast Baltimore in 1917, Morgan State has been designated a “National Treasure” by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The Baltimore Sun reported in 2016 that the designation meant the National Trust would work with the school to develop a plan to preserve its historic buildings. Dale Green, a professor of architecture and historic preservation at Morgan State who is working with the National Trust, told the Sun that the template will be used to preserve historic buildings on other HBCU campuses.

"They have significant rich legacies that most people are unaware of," Green told the Sun. "They're more than black schools. ... They are the only institutions that never barred other races. They very much reflect the American story."

The Sun said the 20 Morgan structures included in the designation were Classical, Italianate and Modern styles, as well as Collegiate Revival and Brutalist.

With over 9,000 students, the school also noted that it now has state-of-the-art facilities for business, management and behavioral and social science, along with an $88 million student services building.

Roundabout way back

Morgan State's Kiran Oliver will play his first college game in Arizona since taking a long route from the end of his high school career.

A native of Chicago, Oliver played for Surprise Shadow Ridge High School and PHH Prep, where he averaged 19.8 points and 5.6 rebounds as a senior in 2020-21. He then enrolled at New Mexico State and redshirted in 2021-22 but, after the season, with coach Chris Jans leaving to take over at Mississippi State, Oliver moved on to Indian Hills Community College in Iowa.

There, he averaged 5.7 points and shot 37.8% from 3, then impressed Broadus upon transferring to Morgan State in the offseason.

“He’s way, way better than I thought he was,” Broadus told Blue Ribbon Yearbook. “He’s a freak athlete. He can really shoot, really knows how to play. He’s that 6-4, 6-5 guard in the backcourt. … He’s lean, long and athletic.”

Out of the ’Zu

Azuolas Tubelis might be struggling this fall, having been cut by the Philadelphia 76ers despite having signed a two-way deal with them following the NBA Draft, but there was a moment in UA’s win over Morgan State when he looked like a surefire NBA player.

Midway through the second half of UA’s 93-68 victory last year, the 6-foot-10 Tubelis stole the ball out of Burke’s hands on the perimeter, then dribbled down the left sideline and, when Burke tried to slap the ball away, picked it back up and kept dribbling as if nothing happened, proceeding downcourt for a dunk.

“I don’t know if he can recreate that again — you know, I’ve seen him try some of the things that haven’t worked,” Lloyd said after that game, chuckling. “But ’Zu is really coming on.”

Tubelis’ acrobatics helped give the Wildcats some much-needed energy, too, in what was their final game before their Christmas break last season, giving them a 61-45 lead with 12:28 to go. UA never led by less than 11 after that point.

Numbers game

14: Total newcomers on Morgan State’s 2023-24 roster, including 11 transfers.

16: Keshad Johnson’s number, the first time a UA player has worn it since 1946 (a rule change in 1957-58 disallowing uniform digits between 6-9 was reversed this season).

16: Straight seasons Arizona has won its regular-season opener, since a 93-90 loss at Virginia to open the 2006-07 season.

— Bruce Pascoe