Arizona is off to the second-best start in school history, winning its first 20 games by an average of 22.2 points. The run began with the Wildcats navigating a nonconference gauntlet, one that included five ranked opponents including defending national champion Florida and UConn, the team that claimed the two titles before that and which sits right behind them at No. 2 in the AP poll.<\/p>\n
But the competition over the past month hasn\u2019t been nearly as tough. Since starting Big 12 play on Jan. 3 the UA has beaten seven conference opponents who are a combined 17-32 in the league. None of them have better than a 4-3 record in the Big 12.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven\u2019t really won anything,\u201d guard Brayden Burries said last Wednesday, after a 77-51 win over Cincinnati. \u201cWe haven\u2019t accomplished what we want to accomplish yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s still only January, but Arizona\u2019s level of competition will take a big jump on Monday night with a visit to No. 13 BYU. It\u2019s the first of seven games left in the regular season against ranked opponents, including six out of seven at one point.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know there\u2019s going to be some real challenges ahead,\u201d Lloyd said. \u201cWe\u2019re protecting nothing because we\u2019ve done nothing. We\u2019re a program that\u2019s more excited about what\u2019s ahead than protecting what we\u2019ve already accomplished. What lies ahead for us is BYU.\u201d<\/p>\n
The teams play twice this season\u2014BYU comes to Tucson on Feb. 18\u2014and split their meetings in 2024-25, with each winning on the other team\u2019s court.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what to watch for when the Wildcats face the Cougars on Big Monday:<\/p>\n
BYU is led by freshman AJ Dybantsa, a 6-foot-9 forward who is projected to be the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft. He\u2019s coming off a freshman school-record 43 points on Saturday against Utah, and for the season is averaging 23.6 points, 6.8 rebounds and 3.5 assists on 55.4 percent shooting.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I\u2019ve always been impressed about with AJ is not only is he a supreme talent \u2026 he leaves space in the room for the other players to be their best version of themselves, too,\u201d Lloyd said. \u201cA lot of times you get a young talent like him, and he\u2019s so talented that he could kind of suck the air out of the room, because it all becomes about him and his talent. AJ is not like that. So AJ not only can be the most talented player on the floor, he can also let their other talented players play really well, and I\u2019ve always been impressed with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lloyd has firsthand knowledge of Dybantsa\u2019s game, coaching him (alongside Koa Peat) with Team USA over the summer when they combined to win a gold medal at the 2025 FIBA U19 World Cup.<\/p>\n
But as good as Dybantsa is, he\u2019s far from a one-man team. He doesn\u2019t need to, because BYU also has senior guard Richie Saunders (18.8 points per game) and sophomore guard Robert Wright (18.0). Saunders was the guy who made the final two free throws at McKale Center in BYU\u2019s 1-point win last season, while Wright had 16 points in a game against the Wildcats with Baylor a year ago.<\/p>\n
That trio is averaging 66 points per game in Big 12 play, responsible for 77 percent of the scoring and 73 percent of the field goal attempts. In the Cougars\u2019 lone Big 12 loss, at Texas Tech, they combiend for 59 of 71 points but Dybantsa had a career-low 13 in 6-of-17 shooting.<\/p>\n
Arizona has been the best in the conference so far in preventing offensive rebounds, with opponents grabbing just over 25 percent of their misses. BYU is the best at getting second chances, grabbing nearly 40 percent of available offensive boards.<\/p>\n
Center Keba Keita is BYU\u2019s dedicated glass guy, averaging 5.1 offensive rebounds per 40 minutes with 3.8 per game in Big 12 play. He\u2019s only 6-foot-9 but, like Tobe Awaka, manages to find a way to get through the traffic for misses. Awaka is the top offensive rebounder in the country, at 23.4 percent, and Keita is top 50 in both offensive and defensive rebounding.<\/p>\n
Burries is averaging 6.6 rebounds in Big 12 play, third-best on the team, and getting those defensive boards has been huge for Arizona to set up its transition offense.<\/p>\n
With all that battling below there could be plenty of whistles on loose balls, and in general. Arizona has the best free throw attempt rate in the league, BYU third, though Arizona is also first in preventing teams from getting to the line.<\/p>\n
That may be difficult, though, as Dybantsa is 18th in the country in fouls drawn per 40 minutes at 7.4. He\u2019s attempted at least seven free throws in 14 of 19 games, though he only took one in the loss at Texas Tech.<\/p>\n
All the ingredients for a first loss<\/p>\n
A tough opponent, featuring arguably the best player in the country, is only part of what makes this Arizona\u2019s most difficult matchup since mid-December. There\u2019s also the environment, which will be unlike anything the Wildcats have seen this season.<\/p>\n
The Marriott Center in Provo holds almost 18,000 fans, the 13th-largest Division I arena and fifth-biggest that\u2019s on a college campus. The Cougars have won 13 in a row at home, the last loss there coming against the Wildcats last season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a great environment, fans showed out for sure,\u201d said Awaka, who had 14 points and nine rebounds in that 85-71 win. \u201cWe\u2019re expecting that to be the instance again this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The UA has won road games this season at UConn, Utah, TCU and UCF, but none had crowds larger than 10,244.<\/p>\n
At 60 percent according to KenPom.com, Arizona\u2019s chance to win this game is second-lowest of the remaining ones, behind only the Feb. 21 visit to Houston (51 percent). That\u2019s another way of saying this very well could be when the Wildcats\u2019 perfect run ends.<\/p>\n
If that happens, so be it, Lloyd said. Going undefeated wasn\u2019t a goal and being afraid to lose isn\u2019t productive, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to continue to understand we\u2019re going to meet a lot of tough moments and tough environments, and we got to stay steady and be poised,\u201d Lloyd said. \u201cI don\u2019t think we can\u2019t be afraid to make teams hit our fastball and be aggressive and still be in attack mode. We don\u2019t need to be conservative.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arizona is off to the second-best start in school history, winning its first 20 games by an average…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3724],"tags":[9763,7],"class_list":{"0":"post-560895","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-arizona-basketball","9":"tag-basketball"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115958675215619447","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}