Lloyd, Burries Address Arizona’s Achilles’ Heel
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The Arizona Wildcats don’t have many weaknesses, but if they had one, it would be their 3-point shooting so far this season.
The #1-ranked Wildcats have been impressive offensively, averaging 89.9 points per game, and shooting over 50 percent from the floor as a team, which has helped push their record to 19-0, being one of just three undefeated teams in the country behind Nebraska and Miami (Ohio).
However, the Wildcats are just shooting just 35 percent from three-point range as a team. Up to this point, it hasn’t mattered, but it could make a difference down the road.
Those struggles from beyond the arc have been even more pronounced lately, as they’ve made 4 three-pointers or less in each of their last three games, including a combined 6-26 in their last two games.
In their latest win, a 77-51 blowout of Cincinnati, the Wildcats shot just 3-13 from beyond the arc. Players not named Brayden Burries shot just 1-9 from three in the win.
After the game, Burries, and head coach Tommy Lloyd were asked about their recent three-point struggles, and what can be done to remedy it.
- “I feel like we can shoot the three, we could get better,” Burries said. “But, I feel like we’ll be alright, just got to continue to shoot them when we’re open.”
- “I’m going to let it play out,” Lloyd said. “It’s a ‘figure it out as it goes’ deal, and it’s a game by game deal. I mean, I would have to see how a team’s going to defend us just to force us to shoot a bunch of threes.
- “I know this, if our guys are standing in the gym by themselves, they make threes,” Lloyd said. “So, are you just not going to guard the whole team? I don’t know. Put five guys in the paint? I don’t know, because there’s also this thing called transition, and you have to score on us, and you have to rebound on us. So, there’s so many factors that go into it, and I know isolating that single variable is so easy to do, and get fixated on, but there’s a lot of components that go into winning a basketball game.”
Despite their struggles from outside, it hasn’t mattered for the Wildcats up to this point, and they’ll look to continue their dominance into the rest of the season as they have all the makings of a legitimate national title contender.
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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.