Q&A: Daily Wildcat Sports editor talks Arizona’s performance ahead of Saturday’s matchup

UCLA men’s basketball (18-11, 11-5 Pac-12) will play host to Arizona (19-9, 9-6) at Pauley Pavilion on Saturday fresh off a 75-72 win over Arizona State on Thursday. Both teams are still vying for a bye in the Pac-12 tournament, and the Bruins will secure the head-to-head seeding tiebreaker should they complete the season sweep of the Wildcats this weekend.

To get some additional insight on how Arizona’s season has panned out so far, Daily Bruin Sports editor Sam Connon reached out to Daily Wildcat Sports editor Jack Cooper for his thoughts.

Daily Bruin: A lot of Arizona’s losses this season have been in overtime or by one possession – almost all of them except the UCLA and Oregon State losses. What’s the narrative around the team in these close games, and do you think that pattern can change down the stretch?

Jack Cooper: So with Arizona’s close losses, some of them have been kind of misleading. Like if you look at the Gonzaga loss, Arizona was losing by 16 with two minutes left and then they just came down and made a bunch of 3s at the end to somehow make it close. The St. John’s loss was also, they shot really streakily throughout the game and just got lucky at the end – well, almost lucky, not enough to win. The Baylor loss, kind of the same thing as the Gonzaga loss, just really bad shooting and then at the end, they just made a bunch of 3s. So a lot of the one-possession losses have been misleading, but lately, the two Oregon losses especially stick out. They just couldn’t hit free throws at the end. In Oregon, you had Dylan Smith at the free throw line with under a minute remaining and he misses, which you wouldn’t really expect from one of your veteran seniors on the team. And then if you look at the Oregon loss this past Saturday, with two and a half seconds left in a tie game, you have a freshman – granted it’s Josh Green, he’s played some of the most minutes on the team this year, but he’s still a freshman who is in the biggest situations of his life – he can’t knock down two free throws. Then in overtime, down one with one second left, you have Christian Koloko at the line, and he’s never been in a situation like that. He’s barely played five, maybe 10, minutes a game and he can’t knock down two free throws either. So it’s kind of the mix of being misleading and also just they’re still freshmen. I know (coach) Sean Miller especially likes to say that by this point in the season, they’re not freshmen anymore, they’ve played more than half the season. But they really still are, and they haven’t been in a lot of those situations. So getting used to it is kind of the growing pains of this team.

DB: Arizona’s leading scorer, rebounder and passer are all freshmen – do you think the trio of top-tier freshmen have lived up to the hype this season?

JC: I think you can say something different about each of them really. Zeke Nnaji has definitely exceeded the hype, obviously Josh Green and Nico Mannion were really the two that everyone was excited about. But Zeke Nnaji, he got an invite for USA Basketball before his freshman year. He got an invite for training camp for USA Basketball, he didn’t make it. He made it to the first round of cuts. And then he won a state championship in Minnesota, so he’s a really good player, he just flew under the radar. And now to see what he’s been doing, he’s really been the one to exceed most expectations. And then Nico Mannion, I wouldn’t say he’s exceeded, I guess I could say he’s met them. He was kind of in a slump over the last couple games, but he was real solid against Oregon State and Oregon. And then Josh Green, everyone knew he was a really good player, five-star. He has definitely shot the ball better the last two games. It seems like all three of them have hit their freshmen slump and then got something out of it, which is good news for Arizona fans. But other than Zeke Nnaji, I would say Nico Mannion and Josh Green have met expectations.

DB: Arizona shot 26% from 3 against UCLA earlier this year and 0-of-12 in the second half, how much of a fluke was that and how much do they rely on shooting?

JC: So the loss against UCLA was actually the worst shooting performance by an Arizona team in McKale Center’s history. And McKale was built in the ’70s, so what are we now, 50, 40 some years later, and this is the worst shooting performance ever? And UCLA is one of the hottest teams not only in the conference, but in the entire country right now, so they kind of met at a bad time. But every time this Arizona team wins, you seem to have them figured out, and then they come and they lose to UCLA at home in a game they should not have lost. And then they have a road sweep – which is rare to come by in the Pac-12 this year – and they come home and lose another game. Granted, Oregon’s a top-15 team, but when you’re an Arizona fan, you don’t expect to lose at home ever, it doesn’t matter who’s coming. And so the team is just very inconsistent, they rely a lot more on 3-pointers than it really should. When Nico Mannion’s not really making 3s or making plays happen, the team’s been in a lot of trouble. Max Hazzard and Dylan Smith, have really – Dylan Smith had his best game maybe of his entire career against Oregon. He played 37 minutes, he guarded Payton Pritchard the entire game. I know Payton Pritchard had 38 points but still, that’s not something that’s easy to do and come back and have 18 points of your own. Max Hazzard is a big spark off the bench, he came make 3s. Jemarl Baker Jr. has probably been Arizona’s most consistent 3-point shooter. His shot selection is definitely interesting to say the least, but he has been probably Arizona’s most interesting guard player this year.

DB: Arizona is still in the running for the top seed in the Pac-12 tournament, and its at-large bid for NCAAs is basically a lock at this point, but what would you say is the ceiling for this year’s team?

JC: It really depends. I think when this team is firing on all cylinders, I think they’re a Final Four team, I think they’re one of the best teams in the country. And then obviously when they’re not, they’re not. This team, it would not surprise me if they made it to the Final Four, and it would not surprise me if they lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament. I would probably expect a Round of 32 or maybe Sweet 16 exit, but we’ve been trying to figure out this team all year, and there are two weeks left in the regular season, and there’s still nothing that I know about them. When they’re playing well, I think they’re a top-five, top-10 team in the entire country.

DB: What’s your prediction for Saturday’s game against UCLA?

JC: I think Arizona’s going to lose. Really, I think Arizona’s going to get swept this weekend. USC should have beat Arizona in Tucson … so they probably should have got swept at home by USC and UCLA. I think they will get swept this weekend. Whenever an Arizona team goes to LA, it always seems to be weird. I would probably say UCLA by maybe seven points. I don’t really have a score prediction, but probably UCLA by about seven.