ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — There won’t be Jay Bilas or Bill Walton around, and probably not a whole lot of fans, either. Maybe a couple dozen.
But the Arizona Wildcats will be making a small bit of college basketball history Thursday, when they will become the first college basketball team to play a game in the United Arab Emirates.
It likely won’t be much of a game. The Wildcats are scheduled to face a group of local players called the “UAE Select” at 2 a.m. Arizona time Thursday at Mubadala Dome, an Al Jaziera facility also used for handball, volleyball and martial arts. Kansas State will become the second college basketball team to play a UAE-based game, facing Mexico at 6 a.m. on Thursday.
“It’s crazy,” UA equipment manager Brian Brigger said. “There aren’t a lot of ‘firsts’ left in college basketball.”
Also a first of sorts: That Arizona and Kansas State took a nonstop flight together from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, the first college basketball teams to make that journey. Flights between the UAE and Israel weren’t allowed until the Abraham Peace Accords were signed in 2020, when the UAE formally began recognizing Israel.
While the ceremonial stuff might be significant Thursday, the basketball likely will not be in the Wildcats’ case. Arizona had initially discussed the possibility of playing both Mexico and Lebanon on the UAE portion of its exhibition trip, since both of those countries, along with USA and Greece, have senior national teams in the country preparing for the FIBA Basketball World Cup.
But final discussions landed with Arizona facing the UAE Select on Thursday and Lebanon on Saturday to wrap up its trip.
While UA coach Tommy Lloyd said in June that he hoped to face “real teams, real games and real venues,” at least the Wildcats’ final game Saturday should be all of those things: They’ll be facing Lebanon at Etihad Arena as an undercard of sorts to the Greece-Germany contest later that evening.
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