Men’s Basketball Scouting Report: UT Arlington at Arizona

Texas-Arlington (2-1) at No. 3 Arizona (4-0)

G Kylan Boswell (6-2 sophomore)

G Caleb Love (6-4 years)

F Pelle Larsson (6-6 seniors)

F Keshad Johnson (6-7 senior)

C Oumar Ballo (7-0 senior)

UT ARLINGTON G Akili Vining (6-2 senior)

G Brandyn Talbot (6-5 juniors)

F DaJuan Gordon (6-5 senior)

F Dwayne Koroma (6-8 years old in second year)

C Shemar Wilson (6-9 senior)

The series: Arizona has never faced UT Arlington, which is in the second season of a second stint in the Western Athletic Conference.

Game agreement: UT Arlington faces Arizona in an unsupported bye game in the Acrisure Classic, in which Arizona also faces Michigan State on Thursday in Thousand Palms, California. The companion game qualifies the Acrisure Classic as an “NCAA-defined.” multi-team event,” allowing the Wildcats to schedule two additional games against the NCAA schedule maximum for a total of 31 games.

UT Arlington Overview: The Mavericks are almost starting over after an 11-21 season in 2022-23 that cost longtime head coach and assistant Greg Young his job mid-season. They returned just three players from last season while bringing in KT Turner, a former veteran assistant who worked under John Calipari and Porter Moser.

They also lost a key player when the NCAA denied Ohio Valley’s 2022-23 first-team pick Phillip Russell a waiver to play right away this season. Russell, a 5-10 guard from St. Louis, has previously played for St. Louis and Southeast Missouri, but will now redshirt this season.

Still, so far the Mavericks are off to a promising start, beating Oral Roberts and Division II Texas Tyler while losing just 82-80 at New Mexico on Thursday.

While UTA has been an average shooting team thus far, the Mavericks are making up for it on the rebounding glass and with interior defense. The Mavericks have outscored their previous three opponents by an average of 15 while posting a 43.0 offensive rebound percentage against their two Division I opponents, who rank 10th nationally. But they will be challenged by an Arizona team that has allowed its opponents to recover just 17.6 percent of their missed shots.

In its two DI games against Oral Roberts and New Mexico, UTA is allowing its opponents to shoot just 28.0% from two-point range. Defensively, they don’t turn over their opponents often, however, with Oral Roberts and New Mexico only losing the ball on 9.7% of their combined possessions.

Big guard DaJuan Gordon (17.0 ppg, 13.0 ppg) and former Tolleson Union forward Shemar Wilson (15.3 ppg, 11.7 ppg) both scored in average double-doubles so far, with Wilson collecting 29 points and 11 rebounds Thursday at New Mexico. Overall, the Mavericks have six players who average at least one 3-pointer per game. Gordon has made just 5 of 21 3s so far, but gets to the line averaging 5.1 fouls per 40 minutes and has made 10 of 11 free throws. Guard Akili Vining made half of his 12 3-point attempts, while Kade Douglas came off the bench to hit 6 of 14 shots from long range.

UT Arlington — DaJuan Gordon

Chicago’s big guard is a prototypical product of the transfer portal and the COVID era: He’s now playing his fifth season of college basketball for his fourth school, after stops at Kansas State, Missouri and at New Mexico State before arriving at UTA for a season of graduate school. . He made the most of the early season, scoring at all levels and getting to the line, although he wasn’t effective from 3-point range.

Arizona — Motiejus Krivas

What do the Wildcats really have here? The UA already has a returning conference center in Oumar Ballo but, thanks in part to minor injuries that have limited him, the Lithuanian 7-footer is now averaging more points and rebounds than Ballo so far in four games. Krivas dominated a group of small post players Friday against Belmont and could get another opportunity against UTA.

Lloyd seeks more energy from McKale fans

While the Wildcats technically managed to sell out their Friday game against Belmont by announcing a crowd of 14,688, about 2,000 seats appeared to remain empty. It’s a lack of energy that UA coach Tommy Lloyd is trying to fill.

“There is a gap between our season ticket holders and the people who scan tickets and come to the game. That’s the void we need to fill,” Lloyd said. “You obviously always want to sell every possible ticket in our schedule and for the most part we do a great job over the course of the season.

“But we also need to make this an incredible experience and the more people who want to participate, the better the experience will be.” So these people who have subscriptions who don’t come… let’s see why. You have tickets. You spent the money. THANKS. Of course we need income, but we also need energy and atmosphere and those kinds of things are also important.

Addressing the subject during his post-match press conference on Friday without prompting, Lloyd said he wasn’t making a “money grab” as much as an “energy grab”, imploring fans to help make the McKale Center a special atmosphere.

UA notably draped free “McKale Magic” rally towels over every seat before its Nov. 6 opening and held a 24-hour flash sale last week during which fans could purchase tickets for $10 to Belmont, Texas-Arlington or Colgate on December 2. games, in addition to Saturday’s UA-Utah football game.

“We need more effort and energy from some of our season ticket holders, whether they have to transfer them to their friends or return them to the school for someone else to go,” Lloyd said. “We need people with season tickets to make sure people are in those seats during games. That would be my request for the fans. I’m a little picky but we coach our team to high standards. I think we should also have high standards for our fans, because this is one of the most special places in the country to play.

Lloyd’s plea was reminiscent of how he urged fans to be more vocal after a quiet reception in the Wildcats’ first-round NCAA tournament victory over Wright State in San Diego during his 2021-22 freshman season.

Lloyd said after that fan game that they “had to bring it” to UA’s second-round game against TCU two days later, and the fan heckling that followed proved critical for the Wildcats. They needed overtime to beat TCU and reach the Sweet 16.

After averaging nearly a double-double for Phoenix College in 2019-20, former Tolleson Union forward Shemar Wilson sought help from a business social networking site to find his next House.

Beneath his name on a LinkedIn profile are the words: “A Phoenix College basketball player who works hard every day. » A more detailed description below goes further:

“As an athlete, I am a hard worker. My work ethic and motivation cannot be matched by that of others,” the LinkedIn bio states. “I tend to be the first one in the gym and the last one to leave.

“From me you will get a guy with great character who can be a leader at times. From me you will get someone who has the goal of winning and is willing to do whatever it takes to win. A guy like me is someone you want to have in your program.

Wilson’s LinkedIn page says his goal was to become conference player of the year in 2020-21, but Phoenix College did not compete that season due to COVID. Still, Wilson’s success as a freshman — and perhaps his self-marketing efforts — earned him a spot at Texas-Arlington.

He averaged 13.5 minutes primarily off the bench for UTA as a sophomore in 2021-22 and joined the Mavericks’ starting lineup full-time last season, averaging 10.9 points and 7. 8 rebounds.

This season, Wilson became the Mavericks’ second-leading scorer…and a prospect to turn pro – in basketball – sometime next season.

If preparing for conference play and the playoffs is the essence of non-conference play, then the Wildcats succeeded this weekend.

After their Friday night game against Belmont and a Sunday afternoon matchup against UTA, this is the kind of tight weekend turnaround Arizona will face again in its final Pac-12 go-around this season.

The Wildcats will open conference play with a Friday night game at Cal on Dec. 29, then face Stanford on New Year’s Eve, while the Wildcats will have at least four weekend rounds of less than 48 hours between conference games (select games). remain to be determined).

Yet, at least the way Lloyd explained it Friday, that wasn’t really part of the equation when setting up this weekend. Belmont had to be played late Friday because the UA volleyball team was playing at home earlier in the evening, while playing the UT Arlington game after Sunday would have reduced preparation time for the match of the UA against Michigan State on Thursday in Thousand Palms, California.

“It was probably the dates that worked,” Lloyd said. “I wouldn’t think about it too much.”

5 — Players or more scoring in double figures in each of the Wildcats’ four games, the only team to have that many in four games this season.

ten – Years have passed since Arizona outscored an opponent by 30 (the Wildcats were plus-31 against Fairleigh Dickenson in 2013-14) before the Wildcats did so against both Southern and Belmont this season .

24 — The ages of Texas-Arlington’s Aaron Cash and Akili Vining, giving the Mavericks two of the 18 oldest players in college basketball. BYU is the only other DI school with more than one in the 20 oldest.