Five takeaways from Arizona's win over UCLA, including a defensive slugfest, Tommy Lloyd cutting down the bench rotation, and the Wildcats getting back into the Pac-12 race.
Justin Spears In a defensive slugfest, No. 11 Arizona held off No. 5 UCLA 58-52 on Saturday at McKale Center. Here are five takeaways from the Wildcats’ latest triumph over the Bruins:
Ever since Lloyd was hired nearly two years ago, the Wildcats’ up-tempo and Euro-style offense has ranked among the best in college basketball. But for the first time under Lloyd, the Wildcats scored under 60 points in a win. The 58 points on Saturday are the lowest Arizona has scored, period, under its second-year head coach.
“We didn’t want to give good players good shots. We wanted them to make tough shots," Ramey said."When you hold their best players to that, that’s going to be a tough night for them. ..."They’re a great team. They took away a lot of things, but I think we battled.” "They’re a physical team, and I think we matched that today. It’s something we can get better at, but I think we showed today that we can play in the 50s, 60s, 70s or 80s.”“We proved today that we can win low-scoring games," Kriisa said."Everybody keeps talking about our offense, our offense, our offense, but nobody talks about how good our defense is, and I think today we proved that we’re really gritty. … I’m really proud of the guys.
After Arizona center Oumar Ballo’s dunk put the Wildcats ahead 56-44 on Saturday, UCLA deployed a full-court press and forced four turnovers — three steals and a five-second violation — to cut the Wildcats’ lead to 56-52 with 26 seconds left. Lloyd then called a timeout.“ 'Just win the game.’ That was the biggest thing,” Ramey said. “The press came, we had some turnovers, but those are things we can fix. The biggest thing is to win the game.
“We won. Great. I told those other guys, ‘This is how it goes in these games.’ I think we need to tighten that rotation a little bit,” Lloyd said.4. Ramey finds his grooveRamey, who finished Saturday with 11 points, shot 8 for 15 from 3-point range against USC and UCLA this week, the most 3s he's scored in a two-game series this season.“Biggest difference was the ball went in this week. Last week it didn’t,” Ramey said.
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