At 32.9 percent for the season, Arizona is ranked outside the top 200 in Division I in 3-point shooting. The last time a Wildcats team shot this poorly from deep was 2006, when Lute Olson’s second-to-last squad shot 31.9 percent a year after being top 10 nationally at 40.2 percent.
Yet over the last six games the UA is shooting 42.2 percent from 3, a stretch that includes a 5-of-18 performance against Houston in the Big 12 Tournament title game. Arizona was 12 of 25 from 3 in Friday’s 93-65 win over Akron in the first round of the NCAA tourney, the second-most 3s in an NCAA game in school history and the eighth time this season it has made at least 40 percent of those shots.
Four of those occurrences have come this month. Coincidence, or have the Wildcats figured out the biggest flaw in their offense?
“Percentages don’t matter in March,” said Caleb Love, whose 180 3-pointers at Arizona ranks 10th in school history and who is in the top 50 in NCAA history with 380 triples. “We’ve just got to have confidence in ourselves.”
Love is shooting 32.6 percent from 3, slightly behind last year’s rate, but in the last six games he’s 16 of 36 (44.4 percent). Anthony Dell’Orso was 2 of 4 against Akron, only the second time since late January he’s made more than two in a game, while Carter Bryant was 2 for 4 and Jaden Bradley made 3 of 5, tying his career high.
Bradley hit one on the first possession of the game as the Zips chose not to guard the perimeter most of the night. His second came early in the second half to put Arizona up 17.
“That’s hard living, not guarding somebody, because you’re giving up open shots in a meaningful moment,” UA coach Tommy Lloyd said, referring to both Bradley and KJ Lewis, a 17.9 percent 3-point shooter who was 1 for 4. “I really trust those guys, and I want them to know that I have confidence in them, and I want them to shoot threes when they’re comfortable. They don’t feel like they have to shoot them all the time. But if they could step up, the combination of those two, and make a few threes here and there, it’s really an added element because what teams are deciding to do is not guard them.”
Despite the improved numbers, the 3-point shot isn’t likely to become a bigger part of Arizona’s offense. Less than 35 percent of the Wildcats’ shots come from outside and it produces only 25.5 percent of their scoring, 4th-least among NCAA Tournament teams.
Foe familiarity could come in handy with quick turnaround
With only one day off between the first and second rounds, putting in a gameplan for that second opponent has to be a limited one. Arizona had assistant coaches TJ Benson and Jack Murphy scouting Oregon’s 81-52 win over Liberty, but that game was 18-2 just over five minutes in and 44-20 at the half, so there’s only so much they could glean from that performance to help craft a plan for the Ducks on Sunday.
“There’s some scouting, there’s some scheming, but it comes down to doing what you do well and finding a way to do it within those 40 minutes,” Lloyd said. “I don’t know if you can get too tricky this time of year on quick, short turnarounds. In a quick turnaround, you might have all these great ideas, but you also have to remember, last year we played them three times, and you kind of had a buildup over the court of the year. This year, you play them once. The third time or the second time, hey, this worked, that didn’t work, you’re able to make actual adjustments where the players understand. This one you’re going in fresh.”
What can help, though, is having faced Oregon three times last season. The Wildcats won two of those games, losing to the Ducks in the Pac-12 Tournament, and while both teams have several new players the coaches and schemes are the same.
“It helps a little bit, we know their guards,” Oregon coach Dana Altman said. “So we have some familiarity there with their personnel and the system is a lot. But they have the same advantage. We haven’t changed a lot. So I think both teams have a little bit of an advantage with the one-day prep of getting ready.”
Oregon (25-9) returns several players from a year ago, including Jackson Shelstad, who had 21 points against Arizona in the Pac-12 tourney matchup. But seniors Nathan Bittle and Keeshawn Barthelemy both got injured in the first of three meetings and missed the final two.
The 7-foot Bittle is the Ducks’ leading scorer and rebounder this season and Barthelemy is Oregon’s top 3-point shooter at 41.6 percent.
McKale Northwest?
During Friday’s four first round games, each of the eight participating teams had a dedicated fan section in the lower bowl while the rest of the seats were open to the general public. None of the games went down to the wire, so there was no opportunity to see who the crowd would turn for (or against) during crunch time.
There are only four teams left playing in Seattle, and while three (Arizona, Colorado State and Oregon) are from the western part of the country only one has a reputation for a well-traveled fanbase.
“We appreciate our fans coming out and traveling,” Love said. “They’ve been sticking with us throughout the whole year. Even when we had a tough stretch early on in the year, they kind of stayed with us. On the road, at home, it didn’t matter; they showed up and showed out for us. When we got them on our back, it’s a great feeling.”
Arizona fans made their voices heard last week at the Big 12 Tournament in Kansas City, drowning out Kansas fans during the quarterfinals and having the bigger contingency in the semifinals and title game. Wildcat Nation figures to be the best represented on Sunday, with Maryland a close second.
As for the “impartial ones,” particularly those that might normally root for Washington, odds are they won’t be backing rival Oregon.
“There might be some fans that wear purple and gold that might decide to root for Arizona tomorrow, I’m just guessing,” Lloyd said. “And obviously, I have a history in the state, as well, and I’m sure there was a lot of Gonzaga fans that bought tickets here early in the season that were hoping the Zags would be close to home.”