My favorite play of the Arizona men’s basketball season to date isn’t an alley-oop, a breakaway dunk or a buzzer-beating 3-pointer.
It’s a blocked shot.
It happened about five minutes into the Michigan State game. Freshman KJ Lewis turned the ball over near the top of the arc. The Spartans’ Tre Holloman raced downcourt for a layup — which Lewis swatted into the front row of Acrisure Arena.
Michael Lev
That one play told you everything — well, almost everything — about the precocious UA guard.
Lewis has a defense-first mindset. He’s a ferocious competitor. He has a high basketball IQ. And he’s a supreme athlete.
“That’s just who KJ is,” teammate Kylan Boswell said. “Gives great effort. One of the best defenders in the country, hands down. Always playing as hard as he can.”
When you have an NBA-caliber physical profile but play with the intensity of a walk-on fighting to earn a scholarship, that’s ideal. That’s what every coach wants.
“This is said in only a complimentary way: He’s an effort-based player,” said UA coach Tommy Lloyd, whose top-ranked team hosts Wisconsin on Saturday. “He plays so hard. That’s kind of his skill.”
That was Lloyd’s initial response when I asked him about The Block. He then elaborated on the play itself.
“It doesn’t surprise me at all,” Lloyd said. “He made a little bit of a crosscourt pass. It got intercepted. He didn’t put his head down. He went down (and) made a great effort play.
“When guys make great effort plays, you could really build on those throughout a game. So it was cool. I’m glad he made it. I never really talked to him about it. That’s just the kind of competitor he is.”
One of my all-time favorite plays in basketball is LeBron James’ chase-down block of Andre Iguodala in Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals (sorry, Iggy). What was different about Lewis’ block is that he didn’t catch and surprise Holloman from behind. Lewis ran stride for stride with him, almost pacing himself, to ensure that the timing of his leap and swat were just right.
Arizona guard KJ Lewis, right, shoots against Michigan State forward Coen Carr during the second half of the Wildcats’ win over the Sparans on Nov. 23 in Palm Desert, California.
Lewis said he remembered from the scouting report that Holloman didn’t have top-shelf athleticism.
“So in my head I’m thinking, as soon as I turned it over, I’m not gonna let him score,” Lewis told me in an interview at McKale Center this week. “We looked at each other, and he kind of sized me up. But I knew he wasn’t going to try to dunk it or anything. So it was just a matter of me timing it, and I’m glad I got it.”
Pretty shrewd for a 19-year-old, eh?
I mentioned to Lewis that he easily could have pouted when he turned the ball over — and that if he had, even the slightest hesitation could have prevented him from thwarting Holloman.
“Basketball is a game full of mistakes,” Lewis said. “And if you make a mistake, I believe that it’s going to come back to you if you give effort. ...
“So I think that was the first thing that came to my mind: Don’t let him score, or try not to let him score. And then move on to the next play.”
Arizona guard KJ Lewis chases a loose ball against Duke guard Jeremy Roach during the first half of the Wildcats’ 78-73 win over the Blue Devils in Durham, N.C., on Nov. 10.
Lewis’ approach to the game comes mainly from his mother and sister. His mom, Monica Ramirez, played at UTEP, where she also served as an assistant coach; she’s now a junior-high assistant principal. His sister, Kyra Lewis, played at Western Texas College before becoming a nurse.
KJ said his mother called him out “all the time” if she didn’t think he was playing as hard as he could.
“Being raised by two strong women ... and being around them in the gym, I’ve just seen the passion they both play with,” Lewis said. “And it just came to me.”
Well, it didn’t just come to him. He had to put in the work.
Others are starting to notice.
A recent NBA mock draft on Bleacher Report had Lewis going at the back end of the first round — even though he’s averaging just 6.7 points in 18.9 minutes per game. BR’s Jonathan Wasserman wrote that Lewis might not project as a “high-volume scorer or playmaker” but will appeal to NBA teams because of his “athleticism, energy and defense.”
Being projected as a Top 30 pick is a pretty big step up for a player whose national ranking ranged from 68 (Rivals) to 85 (247Sports) coming out of high school. Lewis is aware of the mock draft — but he’d rather not acknowledge it. He’d prefer to remain an underdog. He believes he was underrated as a recruit. This way, he said, “I can still have that chip on my shoulder to continue to grow and to prove those people wrong.”
Lewis plays a complementary role for the Wildcats as one of the first three guys off the bench. He hasn’t shown an advanced offensive game because he doesn’t have to. It’s similar in some ways to his senior year at Duncanville (Texas) High School, which ended the season as the No. 1-ranked team in the nation, per USA Today. Lewis played Scottie Pippen to teammate Ron Holland’s Michael Jordan. Holland now plays for the NBA G League Ignite.
Lewis clearly isn’t an under-the-radar player anymore, though. The mock draft is out there. His talent is obvious.
Arizona’s Bennedict Mathurin declared for the NBA Draft after a breakout season in 2021-22 and ended up being a Top 10 pick.
That doesn’t mean he should be a one-and-done at Arizona.
Those decisions are always up to individuals and their families. To each their own.
But when I look at Lewis’ profile and trajectory, I think of another uber-athletic UA wing who was in a similar situation — Bennedict Mathurin.
Mathurin easily could have entered the NBA Draft after his freshman season. He probably would have been a late first-round pick.
But Mathurin chose to return for his sophomore year. His role expanded. His scoring average jumped from 10.8 points to 17.7. He became a lottery pick, going sixth overall to the Indiana Pacers.
Lewis is nowhere near making that decision. But he recognizes the parallels between himself and Mathurin.
“Benn is a prime example of that path,” Lewis said. “First year, a decent year. And then coming into his sophomore year more developed, understood college a lot better, his body got better. And then he got to showcase his skills a little bit more because his role definitely improved. Got to play a lot. And then go shine in big moments.”
Arizona guard KJ Lewis (5) makes a swipe at the ball and Colgate forward Keegan Records (14) while breaking through the pick from Colgate guard Jalen Cox (3) in the second half of the Wildcats’ Dec. 2 win at McKale Center.
Lewis aspires to play in the NBA someday. “A thousand percent,” he said. One of the players he models himself after is Jimmy Butler, who wasn’t “Jimmy Buckets” when he arrived in the league.
Lewis just isn’t sure when that day will be. Similar to how he stalked Holloman for that sweet block, Lewis is in no rush to figure it out.
“Whenever God says it’s time,” he said. “It could be this year, it could be next year, it could be four years. I’m just enjoying the process, trying to get better every day.”
