Oregon Ducks vs Arizona Wildcats Preview

After a beatdown in Seattle on Friday night against Liberty, the Ducks now face a former Pac-12 foe, Arizona. The Wildcats defeated 13-seed Akron 93-65 on Friday night, waiting for Oregon to win their matchup later in the night. The last time these two teams met, it was the Ducks pulling off the upset in the Pac-12 semifinal, which would ultimately lead to the Ducks winning the final Pac-12 tournament. This Ducks vs Wildcats matchup will be in Seattle again, with an expected tip-off time of 6:40pm PST/ 9:40pm EST.

Basic Stats & Rankings

Starting off with the basic stats, Arizona has better point, rebound, assist, steals, and blocks per game averages than the Ducks. The Wildcats turn the ball over a slightly higher rate, but it is extremely marginal that it shouldn’t be worth noting past this. Arizona shoots a higher percentage from the field and the free throw line, but are worse from 3-point range.

In their first season in the Big 12, Arizona finished with a 23-12 record. Four of the losses were from their non-conference slate, and one was an early season tournament loss to West Virginia. The non-conference losses were against Wisconsin on the road (L by 15), Duke at home (L by 14), Oklahoma in the Battle for Atlantis (L by 5), West Virginia in the Battle for Atlantis (L by 7), and a 3-point neutral site loss to UCLA.

The Wildcats rank 14th on KenPom, and 12th in NET rankings. Arizona has played an astonishing 21 Quad 1 teams this season, going 10-11 against them, meaning they are very battle tested. Nine of these Quad 1 games were decided by 10 or more points, and they had a 5-4 record in these games. Their lone Quad 2 loss was to West Virginia early in the season, and boast a 13-1 record against teams outside of the Quad 1 criteria.

Arizona’s Strengths & Weaknesses

The Wildcats are a very strong scoring team, at 20th in the nation in points per game, and their FG% of 47.6% is 43rd in the country. Out of teams that are still left in the tournament as of 3:30pm EST/ 12:30pm PST, this would rank 13th. Arizona gets 61 field goals up per game, which would be 10th of the remaining teams. A major weakness for Tommy Lloyd’s group is that they only make 7 3-pointers a game, while attempting 21. Their 3PM per game mark is bottom 85 in the nation, and there are only 5 other teams left in the tournament that make less per game. The team’s 3-point percentage for the season is 32.9%, however, the Wildcats canned 12 of their 25 (48.0%) 3-point attempts against Akron in the first round.

A major strength for this Arizona squad is getting to the free throw line, making 17 of their 21.9 attempts (77.8%) per game. The free throws made mark would be the 4th best remaining in the tournament, while the attempts per game would be 7th best. Arizona also is a pretty good offensive rebounding team, led by junior Tobe Awaka, grabbing 2.8 offensive rebounds per game. The team as a whole nabs 12.3 offensive rebounds a game, meaning the Ducks will have to be physical on every rebound. The Ducks played the best offensive rebounding team in the country earlier this season, Texas A&M, and while the Aggies got 21 offensive rebounds (5 more than their season average), Oregon pulled out a 10-point win and only had 6 fewer rebounds.

Arizona is 14th in the country and total rebounds per game, 7th among remaining teams. Oregon will have their hands full with this rebounding no doubt, but the size of Bittle, and Kwame definitely plays to Oregon’s favor. Arizona is also a good facilitating team, averaging 16.4apg, good enough for 31st in the country, and 12th of the teams left. The Wildcats get a decent amount of steals with their average inside the top 85 per game, while their blocks per game is 55th in the country. As previously mentioned, Arizona doesn’t turn the ball over that much, and they don’t foul all that often either.

Key Players & Rotation

Arizona is very dependent on their guards, including Caleb Love, and Jaden Bradley who are the starters. They also depend on KJ Lewis heavily off the bench, and these three players are their top 3 scorers. Awaka leads the team in rebounding but will rotate often with Henri Veesaar, who matches up better with Nate Bittle. Trey Townsend and Anthony Dell’Orso are two other starters for the team but both don’t play over 22 minutes a game, and rotate often with freshman Carter Bryant and KJ Lewis. Their starters will likely be Love, Bradley, Dell’Orso, Townsend, and Awaka, with Lewis, Veesaar, and Bryant readily available to come into the game. 6’0 guard Conrad Martinez doesn’t play often but will be forced to if one of the guards gets in foul trouble.

Arizona’s size could be a problem down low if Bittle is able to get the better of Henri Veesaar, who is the only healthy 7-footer that gets minutes in this rotation. Freshman Emmanuel Stephen is another 7-footer on the team, but has only played in 8 games this season, averaging 2.9 minutes per game.