I absolutely hate betting against Baylor because it puts me in a position to root against them. But man, this seems crazy to me. Arizona has two really good bigs that are going to feast. I guess we try to zone them, but they also have good shooters. Assuming their Love doesn't shoot them out of the game I can't see us winning this one. Hope I'm wrong.

Even this deeply flawed team is much much better at home.

We made it competitive @Arizona...after trailing by 23 at the half! With no Celestine and Love.

Stands to reason that we can do better at home.

Seems a little odd at first, but then I can see some promising things:

-- Only TCU is a worse at shooting from 3 in the Big 12. It's a team of very streaker shooters, similar to us. They shoot only 31% from 3 but shot 50% against us in Tucson. They probably won't shoot 50% from 3 against us tomorrow night.

-- Veesaar destroyed us inside going 9-11 for 19 points and grabbed 7 boards. If we play small ball and play fast this time, we completely take the 7-0, 225 lb guy out of their lineup. KJ Lewis hurt us because Edgecombe got into foul trouble (Omier was already out with foul trouble) and from that point forward he simply drove to the basket with his physical style and size and scored easy layups.

-- The other person that destroyed us was Dell'Orso, who we kept leaving wide open from 3. That was by far his best game of the year. Otherwise, he's been pretty docile. We can't let that happen again this time.

-- Omier spend the majority of his time on the bench in the first half because he picked up 2 quick fouls. Had he been on the court, the big dude from AZ wouldn't have destroyed us. With Omier you know he's gonna pick up some careless fouls, we just have to hope he doesn't repeat the process and pick up 2 earlier ones Mon. night.

-- VJ Edgecombe and Omier were turnover machines, VJ with 5 and Omier with 4. VJ's offensive game has continued to improve since that game. His handles are still a little careless at times, but I suspect he won't turn it over at the frequency he did in the first matchup.

-- We basically had 6 guys available that night as Wright was the only one off the bench with any substantive minutes. At least we technically pick up 1 (net) additional player with Celestine and Love being able to play this time. Love could have a big game if he drives to the bucket as Arizona has repeatedly had issues against physical players who drive to the hoop.

-- Notwithstanding the weird TCU loss, we typically are much better at home and particularly if it is loud Monday night.

If we can avoid those weird stagnant periods we seem to go through every game at some point that typically either push us way behind someone or allow someone to catch up with us, I think we can take this one. We match up with Arizona really well if we truly play small ball and take out a couple of their big guys.

Run and gun. Hopefully we push the pace. Zona typically likes to play fast as well - but a fast pace should slow down their bigs.

Az just isn't all that good. They play down to teams, they aren't overwhelming talented, they have sloppy lulls every game, it's at home.

Now I agree it's not a good matchup at all for the defense as Az has semi skilled bigs who can score a little

All good points, I know we obviously play better at home. Norchad did get early fouls in the last game which no doubt impacted the outcome, but we also had Josh to counter their bigs…and yes I know his D is not stellar but he is a good rebounder. I think the run we had late was more about them getting lazy towards the end of the game. I just don't think we match up well with their bigs. We can go small to outpace them, I just haven't seen us be a great transition team that often. Anything can happen to be sure. Arizona likely won't shoot as well at Foster as they did in the last game, but Caleb also had an abysmal game against us, not sure I would count on that again. All said, happy to see us favored as it is based metrics. The eye test tells me it would be more like an AZ 3-4 point favorite.

You have some excellent points too (except the Josh example -- the Arizona game was one of his worst defensive grades of the entire year after having one of his best against Arizona St.). If we try the repetitive shuffle offense at the top of the key or do the slow iso ball with VJ at the mid-court trying to dribble drive and penetrate himself instead of running fast ball against them, we will be in for a long night and could lose by double digits again as we turn it over with sloppy ballhandling against some of the quicker defensive hands in the conference. But after seeing the adjustments to small ball Drew and the team were able to make in the 4 days of practice from the UH game, I'm confident the gameplan tomorrow night will keep the AZ bigs on the bench for most of the night. AZ's Love is a lot like our shooters -- really on or really off night to night. Hopefully tomorrow night will be an off.

Big12Fan2024 said:

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You have some excellent points too (except the Josh example -- the Arizona game was one of his worst defensive grades of the entire year after having one of his best against Arizona St.). If we try the repetitive shuffle offense at the top of the key or do the slow iso ball with VJ at the mid-court trying to dribble drive and penetrate himself instead of running fast ball against them, we will be in for a long night and could lose by double digits again as we turn it over with sloppy ballhandling against some of the quicker defensive hands in the conference. But after seeing the adjustments to small ball Drew and the team were able to make in the 4 days of practice from the UH game, I'm confident the gameplan tomorrow night will keep the AZ bigs on the bench for most of the night. AZ's Love is a lot like our shooters -- really on or really off night to night. Hopefully tomorrow night will be an off.

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I was imagining these guards playing against wvu of the 2015-2021 era give or take. Made me chuckle.

I was surprised by that line as well. They did just lose to Kansas State on the road last Tuesday…but of course KSU was one of the hottest teams going at the time until they ran into BYU in Provo.

It would not be pretty! Every high bouncing dribble (and jeez that's the bulk of what almost everyone does) would be knocked away or stolen.

Well, I guess I should have bet money on it. That was a pretty safe cover.