5 takeaways from Arizona’s run to the Pac-12 men’s basketball tournament championship

No. 2 seed Arizona took down top-seeded UCLA 61-59 on Saturday at T-Mobile Arena to win its second straight Pac-12 Tournament championship. The Wildcats are 9-0 in Las Vegas under head coach Tommy Lloyd — 10-0 overall going back to 2020. Lloyd is the only coach in Pac-12 history to have a 6-0 record in the conference tournament. 

Arizona has also extended its conference-best Pac-12 Tournament championship total to seven, and the Wildcats did it by avenging previous losses to UCLA, Arizona State and Stanford; a revenge tour, if you will.  

As the Wildcats shift their attention to the NCAA Tournament, here are five takeaways from their championship weekend in Sin City: 

1. Injury bug hits Wildcats at inopportune time

Arizona center Oumar Ballo will enter the NCAA Tournament with a broken hand. Ballo, who was named to the All-Pac-12 Tournament team after averaging 17 points and eight rebounds in three games, revealed that he broke his left hand during the Wildcats’ semifinals win over Arizona State on Friday. 

“I dunked the ball and felt so much pain in my hand,” Ballo told the Star in Arizona’s locker room on Saturday.

Ballo, the Pac-12 Most Improved Player, has been playing with red tape on his right hand for a thumb injury he suffered in early February. Ballo played against UCLA on Saturday with black tape on his hand. Ballo told the Star on Saturday he plans on playing in the NCAA Tournament.

“I’m good,” he said. “Just a collision, but I’ll be fine for next week.”

In a since-deleted tweet, Ballo posted a screenshot of an X-ray that showed an injury at the base of the ring finger on his left hand, with the caption, “Broke a hand against ASU yesterday and got a ring for it tonight.”

Playing with both hands taped up was a challenge for Ballo, especially against the Bruins. 

“Man, it’s hard. Playing against UCLA, they swipe every time we touch the ball,” Ballo said. “We just had to keep it high and avoid contact.” 

Fellow Arizona starter in guard Kerr Kriisa enters March Madness with a right shoulder injury he suffered in Thursday’s win over Stanford. 

“Everybody’s banged up this time of year,” Lloyd said. “It’s the time of year it is. It’s really, really, really hard to play three games in three days. And I think all us coaches, if we had our druthers, we would get together and find a way to lighten the load on our players in these tournaments. In college basketball at the highest level, it’s hard to have great depth anymore because there’s so much parity. To ask six or seven guys or eight guys, whatever it is, to go play high-level basketball three straight nights is a lot, and so I think you’re going to see more and more of these teams across the country getting guys banged up. 

“So hopefully there’s a way we can kind of all rally around and get together and figure out a way to kind of lessen the impact on the players so teams can be closer to a 100% come tournament time.”

2. One team’s loss is Arizona’s gain

The Wildcats weren’t the only team in the Pac-12 Tournament dealing with injuries. 

UCLA forward and Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year Jaylen Clark is out for the season with a torn achilles, and Bruins center and Pac-12 Freshman of the Year Adem Bona suffered a shoulder injury in Friday’s win over Oregon. Bona, who was questionable for Saturday, was held out and donned a gray UCLA jumpsuit, and kept his left hand tucked into the front pocket of his hoodie during the game.

UCLA forwards Mac Etienne and Kenneth Nwuba each fouled out and combined for three points and 10 rebounds in 33 minutes, which left Bruins forward and Pac-12 Player of the Year Jaime Jaquez Jr., who is 6-7, defending 7-foot Ballo in the final minutes. 

“We compete. It’s five on five,” said UCLA head coach Mick Cronin. “We don’t accept that somebody was out so you’re supposed to lose. We don’t roll like that.”

In the days leading into the Pac-12 Tournament, Lloyd was asked if he would consider extending Arizona’s bench beyond Pelle Larsson and 17-year-old point guard Kylan Boswell. Lloyd’s response: “We’re going to go game-to-game. We’ll see. … I think we have some guys ready to help if needed.” 

Arizona played its usual seven-man rotation in the first two games of the Pac-12 Tournament, but deployed wing Adama Bal, who hit two 3-pointers in the Pac-12 Tournament final against the Bruins last season, and freshman forward Henri Veesaar in the first half; together, they played five minutes and added two rebounds. 

Lloyd said the decision to install Bal and Veesaar was because of “foul issues and three games in three days,” and the tightened rotation adds “a little more certainty in (Boswell and Larsson’s) roles.” 

“I love Adama and Henri and they’re going to be great players at Arizona, but we’re just unfortunately not able to use ’em quite enough now,” Lloyd said. 

“But I love our seven guys. I feel really good about our seven guys, about what we can do on the offensive end, what we can do at the defensive end, the versatility we can play with, the different lineups we can play with. I think it’s a pretty impressive seven dudes.”

4. Wildcats ‘built to play a lot of styles’

In a way, the Pac-12 Tournament was a microcosm of how the Wildcats have won several games this season. On Thursday, Arizona scored 95 points on 64% shooting in a win over Stanford, the third-most points scored by the program in a Pac-12 Tournament game. Then on Saturday, Arizona beat the Bruins in a game akin to the Wildcats’ 58-52 “rock fight” win over UCLA. 

The Wildcats didn’t score their first points until the 16:27 mark in the first half, when Tubelis made two free-throws. Arizona didn’t make its first field goal until there were 14:56 left in the first half. Both teams started the contest shooting a combined 1-for-13 from the field; the Wildcats and Bruins also shot 37% on Saturday. Although Arizona guard Courtney Ramey was 1-for-5 from 3-point range, the one make was the most crucial field goal of the game for the Wildcats: a go-ahead 3 to put the UA ahead 60-58. 

I kept telling myself the next shot was going in,” Ramey said. “(Tubelis) found me and my job was to make a play. So I was grateful for the shot to go in.”

Lloyd said “it’s hard to get in an up-and-down game with UCLA, because they’re perfectly comfortable walking the ball up the floor and dictating the tempo.”

“And then they’re just so good defensively it’s hard to score on ’em quick,” Lloyd said.

Lloyd added Arizona is “built to play a lot of styles,” a trait that bodes well for Arizona heading into the NCAA Tournament. 

“I think it says that we have a group that’s built to play in this tournament we’re about to start in,” Lloyd said. “There’s no guarantees and you can’t make any assumptions, but I like our ability to win game to game.”

5. Learning from the last go-around in March

It’s officially win or go home for Arizona. 

If there’s anything the Wildcats learned from their Sweet 16 loss to Houston in Lloyd’s first season at the helm last year, it’s “rebounding and physicality.” The Wildcats were out-rebounded and out-scored in the paint by the Cougars. Tubelis had only two points and shot 0-for-8 from the field to go along with four turnovers and five rebounds. 

“That game was so physical, man. It was hard, and we learned,” Ballo said. “Me personally, I learned a lot from that. I need to be ready for that kind of game; rebound the ball and match their physicality and just keep the energy up.”

Added Ballo: “We were there last year, so we know how it feels. We know the feeling of winning and losing. We have to do everything we possibly can to stay winning.”