Arizona has put together its deepest NCAA Tournament run since 2015 after a dominant Sweet 16 win over Arkansas on Thursday. In the hours since the final buzzer sounded at SAP Center, the Wildcats have drawn admiration from both their latest opponent, Arkansas head coach John Calipari, and former Duke head coach Mike “Coach K” Krzyzewski.
The 21-point defeat was the worst loss Calipari has suffered in the NCAA Tournament since becoming a head coach in 1988. His biggest fears going into the contest were confirmed when the Wildcats shot 64% as a team to take a 54-43 halftime lead and carried a double-digit advantage the rest of the way.
“Florida kind of did this same thing to us and for the same reason, because of their size,” Calipari said.
“Of all the match-ups that I didn’t want to see, it was this one. I told my staff, this is a bad match-up; let’s figure out how we keep this thing in check. And then maybe if we’re close, the pressure flips to them. We never made it where we could get it to 8, 9, 7 and flip the switch. They’re good.”
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Arizona’s average height of 6-foot-5 played a big part in the team grabbing 24 defensive rebounds and forcing Arkansas, the 10th-best three-point shooting team in the country, to go 22% from beyond the arc.
On the other end of the floor, the Wildcats put up 60 out of 108 points from inside the paint; a statistic that didn’t go unnoticed by Calipari.
“Combination of physical play, along with size,” Calipari said. “So their duck-ins are more to move your men out of the way so they can shoot layups. And their bigs are big enough, if you don’t do something, they can back you toward the basket and make shots.
“But it’s not just size, it’s girth. And (Tobe) Awaka, we’ve seen him, obviously, from Tennessee, but just one more big 260-pound body to deal with.”
On Friday morning, Krzyzewski picked Arizona’s performance as the best out of the four games played on Thursday while on The Pat McAfee Show.
The legendary former coach praised head coach Tommy Lloyd for his efforts both in-game and constructing the team’s roster. He pointed to the combination of first-year players, international pieces and a veteran presence as the key to the Wildcats’ making NCAA Tournament history with six players scoring 14 or more points.
“The most impressive team was Arizona,” Krzyzewski said. “They have eight dudes that can score. They had six guys score 16 or more.
“Tommy coaches his way and they have that mix of international… and young and then old,” he added. “They’re really deep. They have the most international players, and I really enjoyed that game.”
Arizona will face Purdue in the Elite Eight on Saturday at 5:49 p.m. MST in San Jose. The game will be available on TBS and truTV.
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