Arizona Loses Second Consecutive Game, Get Overwhelmed by Duke at Home
Arizona enjoyed a great start to the early portion of their year when they dominated Canisius and Old Dominion by a combined scored of, 195-108.
With more transfers entering the program and returning underclassmen who are going to play a much bigger role this season, these two contests allowed the Wildcats to get some live action against Division 1 competition while also giving their players more time to gel.
But when they went on the road to face Wisconsin in their first test of the year, they weren't able to pass the exam when they gave up over 100 points defensively.
Arizona got a week of preparation time before they welcomed the star-studded Duke Blue Devils to the McKale Center on Friday night, but once again, the Wildcats weren't able to have a good showing when stepping up in class.
Duke won the game, 69-55, surviving the early onslaught to take over and largely dominate.
The Wildcats, using the energy of the juiced up crowd, hit their first three shots of the contest to take a 7-2 lead, but the Blue Devils weathered the storm until they tied things up at 10 just under three minutes into the game.
After that, it was really an uphill battle for Arizona as they struggled to get consistent stops and couldn't capitalize on the offensive end whenever they were able to snag a defensive rebound.
The crowd was virtually taken out of the game when Duke started building their lead, and the Wildcats went into the locker room down, 35-27.
But things didn't get better for Arizona when they came out for the start of the second half.
Duke eventually got their lead up to double digits with 15:33 left in the game when Kon Kneuppel hit a 3-pointer, and despite a few runs the Wildcats tried to muster, it wasn't enough to win this battle between the top 20 teams.
Caleb Love turned in his second straight poor performance, shooting 3-13 from the field and 1-9 from 3-point range to finish with just eight points. He added four assists and four rebounds, but also had three turnovers.
Jaden Bradley led the way for Arizona.
The junior guard had a team-high 18 points on 8-16 from the field, making two out of his six 3-point attempts as well. KJ Lewis was the only other player to join him in double figures, scoring 12 points on 40% shooting.
Overall, they struggled shooting the ball, finishing by going 39.6% from the field and 26.1% from three with a 6-23 showing.
Arizona also had issues on the defensive end.
Cooper Flagg was as advertised, putting up a game-high 24 points on 10-22 shooting and 2-5 from three. He also pulled down six rebounds and had three assists, while also recording two blocked shots.
Fellow freshman Kneuppel was the only other Blue Devil in double digits with 13 points, but the rest of the starting lineup contributed with the trio of Khaman Maluach, Tyrese Proctor and Caleb Foster scoring eight points each.
Arizona will have to go back to the drawing board after this one.
They will now enter the Battle 4 Atlantis on Nov. 27 with a 2-2 record.
Their opening game of the tournament is against Davidson, a perennially good mid-major program who has started the year with a 4-0 record.
