The Runnin’ Utes are preparing to fight fire with fire, so to speak, when they take on the No. 8 Arizona Wildcats and their elite frontcourt of 6-foot-11 Azuolas Tubelis — the frontrunner for Pac-12 Player of the Year honors — and 7-foot Oumar Ballo on Thursday at always raucous McKale Center in Tucson, Arizona.
“We have a great opportunity. Great moments are born out of great opportunity and we have four Quad 1 games and a Quad 2 game left, not to mention the Pac-12 Tournament. It will be exciting. It will be a great challenge, but one I know our guys are ready for.” — Utah coach Craig Smith
Tipoff is at 8 p.m. MST and the showdown pitting the Pac-12’s third-place Utes (17-9, 10-5) and second-place Arizona (22-4, 11-4) will be televised by the Pac-12 Networks.
The importance of this game to the Utes and their NCAA Tournament hopes, as well as the other four remaining regular-season contests, has been noted extensively by the Deseret News the past few weeks.
For all intents and purposes, Utah’s season is on the line the next two weekends.
Because Arizona has a NET ranking of 11, it is an opportunity for Utah, whose NET ranking was 51 before Wednesday night’s games, to pick up a Quad 1 win and greatly enhance its NCAA resume.
The Utes are 1-5 in Quad 1 games to date, the only breakthrough being that 81-66 upset of then-No. 4 Arizona on Dec. 1 at the Huntsman Center.
“We have a great opportunity,” Utah coach Craig Smith said Tuesday, after reminding reporters that every game matters as they prepare as hard for Oregon State as they do Arizona.
“Great moments are born out of great opportunity and we have four Quad 1 games and a Quad 2 game left, not to mention the Pac-12 Tournament. It will be exciting. It will be a great challenge, but one I know our guys are ready for,” Smith added.
Utah will get another Quad 1 chance Saturday at Arizona State, then host No. 4 UCLA and USC next week at the Huntsman Center. The Bruins (21-4) will be a Q1 opportunity, the Trojans a Q2.
Nobody is projecting Utah as a Big Dance entrant right now, but the Utes, coming off a solid 73-62 win over Colorado, are inching closer toward the bubble. ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi put Utah in his “Next Four Out” classification on Tuesday, along with Saturday opponent Arizona State (No. 66 NET ranking), Seton Hall and Charleston.
“You don’t need to play perfectly (to beat Arizona), but you have to play really, really well,” Smith said. “They just don’t have any holes. They shoot the 3. Obviously, they get a lot of easy baskets inside. They take care of the ball.”
And then there’s that dominating inside tandem of Tubelis and Ballo. Tubelis is averaging 20.2 points and 9.3 rebounds, while Ballo, a redshirt junior from Mali who transferred from Gonzaga, is averaging 14.7 points and 8.8 boards. Former Ute Pelle Larsson is chipping in 10.1 points, 4.5 rebounds and almost three assists per game.
To combat Arizona’s prowess in the paint, Smith acknowledged Tuesday that freshman center Keba Keita, who checks in at 6-foot-8 and 230 pounds and plays a rugged, physical game, could see more playing time than usual.
In particular, Keita, who is averaging 3.1 points and 3.0 rebounds in 10.4 minutes per game, could be paired more often with 7-footer Branden Carlson in an attempt to “go big” to offset Arizona’s size and length. Utah’s only other true big is starter Ben Carlson, who is more of a stretch-four player and often steps to the perimeter to take 3-pointers.
Ben Carlson has been on a tear lately from deep, having made 8 of his last 12 3-point attempts, but he’s not much of a rim protector, with just five blocked shots to his credit.
“Yeah, I would anticipate (Utah going to the bigger lineup more often),” Smith said. “I would definitely anticipate that happening. Their frontline is elite in every way, shape and form. … I mean, it would be shocking if we don’t play any combination of our three big guys together.”
Ben Carlson had 11 points and six rebounds in 19 minutes in Utah’s rare win over the Wildcats in Salt Lake City; Branden Carlson had 22 points and six rebounds in 26 minutes and Keita had one of his best games as a Ute: seven points, 11 rebounds, a block and a steal in 19 minutes.
Tubelis and Ballo combined for 42 of Arizona’s 66 points in Round 1 in SLC, as the Utes put their trademark defensive clamps on perimeter players such as Kerr Kriisa (four points) and Larsson (two points).
“Tubelis is tremendous,” Smith said. “He has been over the last year and a half. … And Ballo is incredible and so much improved, and I feel like those two play very, very well off of each other.”
Whether Branden Carlson and Keita can play well off each other consistently remains to be seen. Smith hasn’t used the combination much the past eight games, as Keita has logged 12 minutes or fewer in all eight of those games.
Can the Utes pull off another upset? They will be without second-leading scorer Gabe Madsen, who was 3 of 7 from 3-point range and had 11 in the first game. Madsen is still a couple weeks away, at least, from returning to action after sustaining a high ankle sprain on his right leg in the 68-56 loss at Oregon on Jan. 28.
“Both teams have shortened their rotations, and of course we are without Madsen,” Smith said. “Certainly there will be some carryover from both teams, some things that were successful, and not successful. … They are playing excellent basketball. Obviously they are coming off a loss (at Stanford), but they had won seven in a row and were definitely playing their best basketball of the year.”
Another sobering fact for the Utes: They are winless inside McKale Center since joining the Pac-12 in 2011-12. Utah hasn’t swept Arizona since both programs were members of the WAC and the Utes got a sweep during the 1977-78 season.
