No. 3 Arizona and No. 7 UCLA meet in the most anticipated game of the young Pac-12 season. The teams are built differently. Arizona is a big, physical group. It leads Division I in scoring and is ranked sixth in rebound margin. Athletic UCLA plays on the perimeter, although the recent return of Cody Riley from knee surgery gives them a post presence.
No. 3 Arizona at No. 7 UCLA
Tuesday, 11 pm ET
TV: ESPN
Record: Arizona 16-1, 6-0 Pac-12; UCLA 13-2, 5-1 Pac-12
Spread: Arizona -3
Over/Under: 151.5
Moneyline: Arizona -145; UCLA +125
Injuries: Arizona C Azuolas Tubelis (ankle) was injured early in the Stanford game Thursday and sat out against California on Saturday. He is considered questionable.
Series history: UCLA has a 61-44 series edge and has won the last five and seven of the last nine.
A look at Arizona
No questions remain. Arizona is back. The Wildcats have blown their way to the top of the polls and the top of the stat charts under new coach Tommy Lloyd, who has molded the talent he inherited into a dominating unit.
It is a recipe of successful NCAA tournament teams — a short-making NBA lottery pick in Bennedict Mathurin; a host of wide bodies in Tubelis, Christian Koloko and Oumar Ballo; a spot-up shooter in Kier Kriisa; and a distributor in Dalen Terry.
Ballo, a 7-footer who followed Lloyd from Gonzaga, had 35 points, nine rebounds and four blocked shots in a sweep of the Bay Area schools when Tubelis played only seven minutes.
Mens basketball AP top 10:
1) Auburn
2) Gonzaga
3) Arizona
4) Baylor
5) Kansas
6) Purdue
7) UCLA
7) Houston
9) Duke
10) Michigan St— Cole Cubelic (@colecubelic) January 24, 2022
The Wildcats rank seventh in Division I in effective field goal percentage at 56.8, not only because of their many close-in looks but also because of the relative accuracy of Mathurin (38.6 percent) and Krisa (36.1 percent) from distance. Both are averaging more than two threes a game.
Terry is ninth in the NCAA with a 3.1:1 assist-to-turnover ratio.
Arizona beat Illinois on the road and lost to Tennessee on the road in its toughest games so far, and this will be another.
A look at UCLA
UCLA rolled into the NCAA tournament on fumes last season and exited with a renewed swagger while simultaneously helping return the Pac-12 to national relevance by winning five games, starting in the First Four.
The Bruins came within a banked-in, half-court three-pointer of taking No. 1 seed Gonzaga into overtime in the Final Four, and the principals are back — Johnny Juzang, Jaime Jacquez, Jules Bernard and Tyler Campbell.
Jump-shooting Juzang, so good from the wings during the NCAA run, has increased his scoring average to 18.3 points this season after somewhat surprisingly pulling his name from the NBA draft last summer.
Juzang is the reigning Pac-12 player of the week after scoring 51 points in the Bruins’ road sweep of Rocky Mountain schools Colorado and Utah, but he is hardly the only contributor.
UCLA's Johnny Juzang is the Pac-12 player of the week after averaging 25.5 points on 58% shooting (18-31), including 57% behind the arc (4-7), and 92% at the free-throw line (11-12) to help the Bruins sweep Mountain trip for the conference-leading fourth time in the Pac-12 era.
— Ben Bolch (@latbbolch) January 24, 2022
Jacquez, Bernard and Campbell are scoring in double-figures, and what makes the Bruins special is their controlled efficiency behind point guard Campbell.
Campbell is second in the NCAA with a 3.6:1 assist-to-turnover ratio, and the Bruins average only 9.8 turnovers per game, ninth in Division I.
Facts to know
- UCLA will kick off a stretch of five games in 10 days against Arizona.
- Arizona has not won in Pauley Pavilion since a 96-85 win on Jan. 21, 2017, although it eliminated UCLA in the Pac-12 tournament in 2017-18 in Las Vegas
- UCLA will permit fans to attend for the first time in two months.
Numbers to know
- 9.3 — Arizona’s rebounding margin per game, sixth in Division I.
- 3 — Top five teams the Bruins have beaten since March, 2021; No. 4 Villanova at home this season and No. 5 Alabama and No. 4 Michigan in the 2021 NCAA tournament.
- 24.3 — Arizona’s scoring margin per game, tops in Division I.
The pick: UCLA 76, Arizona 73
