Arizona Basketball Talk: Breaking Down the Exhibition Win
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Welcome! To another edition of the Arizona Wildcats Insiders Podcast featuring your host Troy Hutchison, who will be delivering a daily podcast discussing everything happening surrounding Arizona athletics, giving you an inside look at all the programs on campus.
Hutchison has been covering Arizona for the last seven years with his coverage spanning all-across UA’s campus from football and men’s basketball to Title IX sports. Plus, with so many former Wildcats playing at the next level in their prospective sports there will be moments where he will take a deep dive into the Cats excelling outside of Tucson.
Since taking over Arizona, head coach Tommy Lloyd has been one of the most successful up-and-coming coaches in college basketball going 112-33 over the course of the last four seasons making the NCAA Tournament each season and leading the program to three Sweet Sixteen appearances.
This past season, Lloyd and his program entered a new era of Arizona basketball with the Wildcats leaving the Pac-12 and joining the Big 12 Conference. In UA’s first season in a new conference, the team went 24-13 while finishing third in the conference standings.
In the Big 12 Tournament, the Wildcats made it to the conference title game and fell 72-64 to Houston, which would go on to play for the National Title.
Following the end to the season, Arizona lost star guard Caleb Love to graduation and forward Carter Bryant to the NBA Draft where he went No. 14 overall to the San Antonio Spurs.
Plus, Arizona saw two key players in KJ Lewis and Henri Veesaar leave the program and transfer to Power 4 programs.
Despite that, Arizona will be fully loaded again with four key returners in Jaden Badley, Tobe Awaka, Anthony Dell’Orso and Motiejus Krivas. Plus, Lloyd and his staff signed the No. 2 recruiting class according to 24/7 Sports.
We are inching closer to the start of the college basketball season with Arizona tipping off its schedule against defending national champions in the Florida Gators in Las Vegas four days from now.
However, before the Wildcats take on Florida in Vegas, Arizona has wrapped up its final exhibition games facing off against Embry-Riddle where the Wildcats were able to walk away with a dominating 133-42 win.
The Wildcats have gone 2-0 during the exhibition part of their season with an impressive 81-68 game over Saint Marys and now a dominating win over Embry-Riddle.
Now with the two exhibition games in the books, we at Arizona Wildcats On SI have put together our three takeaways as the Wildcats now start to get ready for Florida.
Three Takeaways
Three-point shooting
Coming into the season, one of the biggest question marks for Arizona is who will be a reliable outside 3-point shot for the team?
One of the top 3-point options for Arizona is returning guard Anthony Dell’Orso. However, in the two exhibition games, Dell’Orso went an underwhelming 1 of 7 from deep and didn’t take one shot from beyond the arc in the last game.
Other options that might be a threat for Arizona from deep include guards Brayden Burries, Jaden Bradley, Ivan Kharchenkov and forward Dwayne Aristode.
Rebounding
Throughout the Lloyd era, Arizona has been one of the better rebounding teams nationally, finishing in the top five in total rebounds multiple times. Last year, the Wildcats were No. 16 in rebounds per game, averaging 39.7.
Although the team lost Veesaar and Bryant, who were some of the better rebounders on the roster. Arizona still welcomes back Awaka and a healthy Krivas to man the paint and crash the glass.
Arizona, once again, will be one of the better rebounding teams and have a strong presence game in and game out in the paint.
Brayden Burries
A lot of talk has been surrounding freshman forward Koa Peat and, deservingly so. However, guard Bryaden Burries has been getting overlooked nationally in comparison to Peat, yet both were five-star recruits.
Burries was able to show off his scoring ability in both games and looks like he could be the Wildcats No. 1 scoring option. Although he has a lot of developing to do, it is realistic to think that he could be one of the top NBA Draft picks following his freshman season.
Please be sure to share your thoughts on our takeaways from Arizona’s exhibition season and what it means for the 2025-26 year. To do so, follow us on our X account by clicking on the link.
Troy Hutchison grew up attending Arizona athletic events, which gave him a unique perspective and knowledge of the athletic department's rich history. He attended UA and began covering the Wildcats in 2018. As the Arizona Wildcats Beat Writer on SI, he is set to deliver wall-to-wall coverage to give fans an in-depth perspective.
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