All About: Arizona Wildcats

WVU has been inserted as a #7 seed and will face off Thursday against #10 Arizona (tip time TBA) at Washington, DC’s MCI Center. Also in this pod of the bracket will be #2 Duke facing #15 Belmont. WVU lucked out in drawing the geographically nearest regional site. So here’s some information about the Wildcats to prepare you for WVU’s NCAA Tournament run:

Record: 19-14
Conference:8-10 (7th)
RPI: 39
Home/Road: 11-6 / 6-7

Big Wins:Cal State Fullerton, at UNLV, Texas A&M, Washington State, at Washington State, at USC
Bad Losses: Arizona State, at Arizona State, Virginia, at Washington.
Arizona also lost to three #1 seeds (Kansas, Memphis, UCLA twice) and three other tournament teams (Oregon twice, Stanford three times, USC).
Record vs. NCAA Tournament Teams:: 6-10
Conference Tournament: Loss to Stanford, 75-64 (Quarterfinals)

Last Tournament Appearance: 2007 (lost to #9 Purdue, first round)
All-Time Tournament Appearances: 26 (41-25 all-time, 1 championship-1997)

 

Statistical Leaders: Jerryd Bayless, 20.0 points per game; Jordan Hill 7.8 rebounds per game; Nic Wise, 4.5 assists per game
Starting Lineup:: Wise, 5′9″/173/So.; Bayless, 6′3″/193/Fr.; Jawann McClellan, 6′4″/211/Sr.; Chase Buddinger, 6′7″/205/So.; Hill, 6′9″/211/So.
Key Reserves:: Jamelle Horne, 6′7″/205/Fr.; Bret Brielmaier, 6′6″/237/Sr.; Daniel Dillon, 6′3″/203/Sr.
Tempo-Free Stats:

Record vs. D-1: 18-14

Luck: -0.080 National Rank=322 (-2.6 wins)Raw Tempo: 64.7 poss/40 min National Rank=265


Adj Tempo: 65.0 poss/40 min National Rank=242

                 Offense     Defense
Raw Efficiency : 109.6 ( 44) 102.1 (177)
Adj Efficiency : 118.7 ( 12) 92.9 ( 48)

Effective FG% : 53.9 ( 33)   48.4 (102)
Turnover Pct. : 18.4 ( 39)   18.6 (292)
Off. Rebound% : 28.6 (295)   33.4 (197)
Free Throw Rate: 29.9 ( 31)  30.9 ( 57)

3-Point FG% : 39.6 ( 18)     33.7 ( 88)
2-Point FG% : 51.3 ( 66)     47.5 (129)
Free Throw Pct.: 74.2 ( 34)  70.2 (225)
Block Pct. : 7.6 ( 63)       8.8 (158)
Steal Pct. : 7.7 ( 15)       8.6 (262)

3PA/FGA : 32.0 (223)         28.0 ( 19)
A/FGM : 62.1 ( 42)           52.7 (106)

Prosaic: The Wildcats are probably one of the least-deep teams in the tournament. Two players (McClellan and Buddinger) each played over 87% of available minutes during the season, while Bayless played just over 75% of available minutes. Arizona is realistically only 7 or 8 deep at any given time.

Buddinger will draw comparisons to Joe Alexander. Both are tall, white and athletic. Buddinger will hoist up more threes and does not have the mid-range jumper, but is probably overall a better defender and rebounder than Joe. Bayless is one of the nation’s premier point guards, and excels at getting into the lane and drawing contact, and sparkles at the line with an 83% average. Bayless hit 42% of his threes and 51% of his twos for an effective FG% on the season of 55.8. Even higher is Jordan Hill’s 61.3% EFG, but Hill is excluisvely an inside player and has not attempted a single three all season. Hill is also one of the best rebounders in the Pac-10 conference and will test WVU’s front line. Arizona runs a high-efficiency offense, so it’s up to WVU to make life difficult for them. If they can pull the Wildcats down into a Big East-style slow, physical, ugly game, it would be WVU’s advantage as many of Arizona’s losses have been in slower-paced games with low efficiency from both teams. Arizona is not particularly stout defensively as they have allowed the opposition a point per possession or more in 20 games. You can count on point guard Wise to harass our ball-handlers however, as he was second in the Pac-10 with 2.0 steals per game. Arizona is 18th in the country at allowing three-pointers, allowing opponents to shoot only 28.0%. This could be a concern but WVU has shown that they can live beyond the outside game this season.

More coverage, of course, on this game as Thursday approaches.

Tags: Arizona, Chase Buddinger, Jerryd Bayless, March Madness, NCAA tournament