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Cats fend off Bucs

Sunday’s season opener for twelfth-ranked Arizona was a struggle for 40 minutes. However, Arizona did enough to fend off visiting Charleston Southern to win, 82-73. The victory kept Sean Miller perfect as a coach in openers as Miller is now a perfect 9-0 in the first game of the year as coach at both Xavier and Arizona.

Kevin Parrom

A 3-Pointer by Kevin Parrom with just over two minutes to play put the Wildcats up, comfortably, 80-66.

The Wildcats (1-0, 0-0 Pac-12) used a late 7-0 scoring run to take a 43-39 lead heading into the locker room after opening the game down 11-3 to the Buccaneers. Arlon Harper, who led all scorers with 20 points, scored 11 in the first half and was hot from the floor early as CSU jumped out to leads of 6-0, 11-3 and 15-7 before Arizona began to mount its comeback.

The score was even at 47-47 with 15 minutes remaining in the contest before the Wildcats started to take full control of the game. Solomon Hill hit a 3-Pointer to put Arizona ahead 50-47, but moments later picked up his fourth foul on a questionable call by the official. Without Hill on the floor, Arizona turned to senior guard Mark Lyons and freshman power forward Brandon Ashley to carry them down the stretch.

Lyons led Arizona with 17 points, including several key buckets in the closing minutes to keep CSU ((0-2, 0-0 Big South) at bay. Lyons also had six assists and no turnovers in his first game in a Wildcat uniform.

Ashley came up for big for Arizona as well, scoring 12 points to go along with a team-high eight rebounds and two blocked shots.

Arizona never looked comfortable Sunday as CSU employed a variety of zone defenses to try and slow down the Wildcat offense. Still, the Wildcats were patient enough to score 27 baskets on an eye-popping 25 assists. If that’s not impressive enough, Arizona’s 25 assists served to produce a steady three-to-one assist to turnover ratio as the Wildcats only turned the basketball over eight times.

Nick Johnson matched Lyons with a team-high six assists. Johnson, Arizona’s athletic shooting guard, also scored 12 points while pulling down three rebounds.

Arizona looked as if it was going to break the game open on several occasions, only to be brought back down to earth by a big shot or play by the Buccaneers. With just over six minutes to play, a Lyons 3-Pointer put Arizona up, 65-57. However, on CSU’s ensuing possession Saah Nimley hit a trey of his own to pull the Bucs back to within five points at 65-60.

The Bucs eventually did wear down, though, as Arizona pulled away late to lead by as many as 14 points before finally closing CSU out, 82-73.

Arizona, as a team, shot 45 percent from the floor, making 27-of-60 field goals. CSU connected on 22-of-50 shots (44%). The shooting percentages were similar as well from behind the arc as the Wildcats finished 11-for-32 from 3-Point land while the Bucs knocked down 10-of-28 three pointers.

Interestingly, the Bucs took a 15-13 rebounding advantage into the locker room and maintained its edge on the boards for the game at 30-29. In what proved to be a highly competitive game, Arizona’s efficiency in protecting the basketball while creating assists on all but two scores proved too much for CSU to overcome.

Follow me on Twitter @GaryRandazzo, and follow the website @WSRArizona. Post Game Commentary VIP article to post Monday morning.

Gary Randazzo

    • Zeus was out of position way to many times. Reason he didn't play much second half. Ashley is good but what happened to Jarrett? Not much time in the second half.
      Lyons jacks it up to fast....needs to be more patient with his passing. look for the big men.
      nick looked smooth under the basket.
      bad D on the 3

      Mrzipityduda

    • Being at the game, I saw a lot of areas for improvement. The biggest was on the defensive end. The team was really poor in their switching off of screens, rotating to cover the open three, and then being in position for rebounds. We just looked lost at times on the defensive end. It is understandable that a team with so many newcomers will need to get used to one another and how to work as a team on the defensive end. This afternoon sucked a lot of the time.

      On offense, There wasn't enough effort to get the ball into the middle of the zone to take advantage of our size. From my vantage point, I saw of lot of chances to feed it inside and we just didn't get it done. Too much around the perimeter passing. We didn't use our size advantage, and didn't really get as much dribble penetration into the zone to really break them down. As you pointed out Gary, the offense was still good, but Charleston just came off a bad loss to UNC Charlotte two nights ago and I think we made them look a lot better than they should have.

      Zip, I agree with you comments. Of the four freshmen, Ashley really stood out tonight. I bet will be saying a different freshmens name quite a bit this year as the one who stood out each game. That will be part of the growing process we'll see.

      The most interesting thing to me, and what I thought changed the game, was when we had the entire second five in the game in the first half. They had great energy, and got us back into the game after the starting five looked pretty crappy out of the gate. Jordin was huge with 10 points in about 5 minutes. York missed a couple of shots, but had great hustle, and a really nice steal. I was kind of disappointed that coach Miller started taking them out as they really were taking it to the Bucs. It was very much the same at the start of the second half. I really wanted to see the line change again to the second five, but it didn't happen. It's really nice to have that kind of talent depth though.

      A lot of things to work on after this one. Team defense really needs to improve for us to reach our preseason lofty expectations. That can certainly happen with all the new players we have this season. I bet we'll see a lot better effort on Thursday.

      Cattyshack

    • The upside for Arizona is astonishing. It was easy to see there will be growing pains as the team moves to the conference schedule. Good analysis by everyone so far as to what happened.

      One other thing, CSU is certainly not a creampuff. They were a decent club and eventually Arizona's depth wore them down. But there is some talent on that team.

      Steve Buchanan

    • This is once of the reasons why I hate our non conference schedule, we drop one of these non conference games we have no shot at #1 seed.

      liver97

    • liver97 said...

      This is once of the reasons why I hate our non conference schedule, we drop one of these non conference games we have no shot at #1 seed.

      Good point, but I highly doubt Arizona can get any higher than a 3-seed this season due to its non-conference SOS. That may change if enough Pac-12 teams climb their way into the national top 25 by the start of conference play to give us quality wins (or at least quality games) in the closing months of the regular season.

      Gary Randazzo

    • liver97 said...

      This is once of the reasons why I hate our non conference schedule, we drop one of these non conference games we have no shot at #1 seed.

      #1 seeds are overrated!

      Signed,

      1997 Univesity of Arizona Wildcats National Championship Basketball team

      Cattyshack

    • Gary Randazzo said...

      Good point, but I highly doubt Arizona can get any higher than a 3-seed this season due to its non-conference SOS. That may change if enough Pac-12 teams climb their way into the national top 25 by the start of conference play to give us quality wins (or at least quality games) in the closing months of the regular season.

      All the more reason that this schedule sucks, our ceiling is a 3 seed...great

      As for the 1997 Wildcats saying hello, well they don't have much company since 1 seeds by far have the most championships. To win 6 games in a row you need all the help you can get, seeds matter.

      http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/ncaa-tournament/history/finalfourseeds

      liver97

    • I kept hearing all off season that Miller wasn't going to play Solo at the 4 this year due to our depth down low. That lasted about half of a half when he went with the small lineup with Ashley at the 5 and Solo at the 4. I'm worried that Jarrett and Zeus just aren't quick enough yet to play against a smaller, faster team. I would've liked to see us pound it down low more but I guess the zone they played prevented that. There's a lot to improve on at the post positions. I also expected more out of Chol but he still looks raw. Ashley is a gamer though.

      labeardown

    • Zeus is really quick. Not too sure about Jarrett b/c I haven't seen him play as much. Jarrett and Kaleb both looked out of sorts in that first game but I think Miller touched upon the issue when he mentioned how young bigs can have problems with matchup zones. I think he'll have them ready to go before the tough games start to roll in.

      Ben J

    • I understand Liver, just joking around.

      Under the current system, I think this biggest thing is getting one of those "protected" top 4 seeds so you can play closest to home. I know that if the Cats win the Pac-12 they will get to play in Utah round 1 and should get to play at the Staples Center should they advance. That would be the best case scenario and I think the Pac-12 champs will get that benefit.

      Cattyshack

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