Arizona Basketball Gets Back on Track With Dominant Win Over Stamford
It has not been the season that the Arizona Wildcats or their fans imagined.
Coming in ranked No. 10, they have failed to perform well when facing the better teams on their schedule so far, having lost to Wisconsin, Duke, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and UCLA to make up their five losses, while taking care of business against the likes of Canisius, Old Dominion, Davidson and Southern Utah coming into their matchup against Stamford.
That is not the profile that suggests this Arizona team is going to make a deep run.
They had a chance against UCLA, a game in which they probably should have won since they were ahead virtually ahead the entire contest before they suffered a late collapse.
But, as is the theme of this year for the Wildcats so far, they were able to put that tough loss behind them to beat Stamford, 96-64.
It's hard to really get excited about this result despite the domination.
Arizona has proven they can beat the lesser opponents they face, but the scoring outburst by Caleb Love is something that was good to see.
The senior guard finished with 23 points, 18 of them coming in the first half.
While the 2023 Pac-12 Player of the Year is expected to do that against teams like Stamford, he was also an efficient 7-of-14 from the field while going 3-of-9 from 3-point range, something that hasn't been the case for Love this season.
Three other starters joined him in double figures, with Trey Townsend and Anthony Dell'Orso each putting up 14 points, and Jaden Bradley adding 11.
KJ Lewis continues to be a strong player coming off the bench, putting up 11 points of his own to join this group.
Head coach Tommy Lloyd has implored his team to play better defense, and while they were only able to force 12 turnovers while giving 14 away themselves, Arizona did hold Stamford to 36.7% shooting from the field and 34.3% from deep.
Again, it's hard to get excited about this win despite the near 30-point margin of victory, but for this Wildcats team, playing well is something they need before they get into conference play.
Arizona's next game is at home against Central Michigan on Saturday at 2 p.m. MST and will be broadcasted on ESPN+.
