Arizona's Koa Peat Makes Impact in Return From Injury
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Arizona forward Koa Peat made his return in an emphatic way as the Wildcats cruised to a 84-61 win over the Kansas Jayhawks at home.
Peat had missed Arizona’s previous three games after suffering a lower body injury against Texas Tech on Feb. 14. The Wildcats were able to survive his absence, winning all three games he missed thanks to contributions from Ivan Kharchenkov, and Anthony Dell’Orso while he sat.
Now that Peat is back, one of the best teams in the country is now even more dangerous, and raises their ceiling significantly for the NCAA Tournament. On the season, Peat is averaging 13.8 points and 5.4 rebounds per game, shooting 54 percent from the floor, and 33 percent from downtown.
His play this season has helped boost his draft stock by quite a bit. Many mock NBA Draft boards have the freshman forward being selected in the first round of the 2026 NBA Draft.
Peat’s performance against Kansas
Peat looked his usual self against Kansas, scoring 12 points on 4-9 shooting from the field, while grabbing 7 rebounds and dishing out 5 assists in 23 minutes of action. After the game, head coach Tommy Lloyd spoke about the impact of having Peat back on the court.
“It’s good. It’s good,” Lloyd said. “Obviously, you don’t take it for granted. You never know what your team is going to look like next week. That’s just part of how it goes. If you have a team that is committed to solving problems, and committing to staying together, you can weather a lot of tough storms, and we did that. It’s good to kind of get all the pieces back together. Now, we’ve got to kind of see if we can kind of reform into something even better down the stretch of the season.”
Aristode returns alongside Peat
The game also marked the first time that reserve guard Dwayne Aristode had played since Feb. 9, also against Kansas. Aristode didn’t record a stat in just 3 minutes of action on Saturday. Nonetheless, being back at full strength is certainly a luxury for the Wildcats at this point in the season.
With just two games left in the regular season, Arizona will look to finish off strong with matchups against Iowa State, and Colorado. Their win over Kansas on Saturday earned them at least a share of the Big 12 regular season crown, which could go a long way for their odds of earning a 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
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Justin Backer brings a wealth of experience to his role as a college football and basketball general sports reporter On SI. Backer is a proud graduate of Florida Atlantic University with a Bachelor of Arts in Multimedia Studies, and has worked for such media companies as The Sporting News and the Palm Beach Post.