The 2022-2023 Season Thread

[TheCat]

I think he will start without a doubt. More time for Adama. Really want to see where he is at.

[dmjcat]

[U.P. Zona Fan]

So excited!! Watching old games with the kids prepping for this season. Have to tape the games though, they start like 2 hrs after bed time here.

[84Cat]

[TheCat]

Let's GO! Will be interesting to see the new lineup and how it does. Hope Cedric is ready and Adama shows out.

[U.P. Zona Fan]

Is there rap this season?

I'll take
A. Tubelis
Ballo
Pelle
Veesar
Cedric
+1
153

[dovecanyoncat]

Is there rap this season?

Miss me now?

~ Chicat

[U.P. Zona Fan]

I've been missing you for months.

[U.P. Zona Fan]

[84Cat]

[CardiacCats97]

Is our return trip for this matchup against HBCU’s at Southern or does it rotate to another school? Because Baton Rouge/New Orleans would be a fun trip for Cat fans next year.

[TheCat]

Think I saw it was in New Orleans.

[dovecanyoncat]

So we play at 7PM local time, right?

[Fishclamps]

yeah, I will attempt to stream it as long as the youtube channel is showing it

[Merkin]

So we play at 7PM local time, right?

Might be 8pm for you?

or they didn't realize DST ended.

https://www.azdesertswarm.com/basketbal ... -time-2022

Arizona-Southern game time, details:
Date: Friday, Nov. 11, 2022
Time: 7 p.m. PT
Location: McKale Center; Tucson, Ariz.
Odds: Arizona is listed as a 27.5-point favorite, per DraftKings Sportsbook. KenPom gives the Wildcats a 99 percent chance of winning.

[dovecanyoncat]

It's always a conundrum. Some sites say 6 PM. That's gotta reflect PST. Some say 7 PM. That's probably MST. I'm guessing.

[Alieberman]

7pm in Tucson

[84Cat]

I'm not getting youtube to work right now. Hopefully that changes for our game

[Fishclamps]

its up, just a black screen so far

[Lute4God]

You are the best Clamps!

[TheCat]

Just saw Oregon lost to Irvine yesterday. Jeez we need to toughen this conference up.

[FreeSpiritCat]

Just saw Oregon lost to Irvine yesterday. Jeez we need to toughen this conference up.

At least Colorado beat Tennessee. Although it appears the Vols may be overrated. They lost to Colorado for crying out loud.

[g32knights]

Vescovi was 2-11 from three, that's a big hang with em

[Dave]

Tennessee was 16-63 FG. Simpson completely shredded them. He had 23pts.

[g32knights]

Anyone else see the guy that has UA unranked and ASU ranked 17? What are the chances he mixed them up?

[dovecanyoncat]

Slightly greater than the chances that he's a douche.

[84Cat]

[RichardCranium]

I'm not a big fan of doing nothing in order to rise up the rankings, but if teams lose, they can't just leave the ranking spot blank can they?

Meh. At this time of year rankings are 1000% meaningless anyway.

[AzCatFan2]

This time of the year, doesn't matter if you're #1 or #25. Just being ranked helps with exposure as your games are listed under "Top 25 Scores." In reality, for basketball, this is the only real importance of rank.

[RawleArenas]

I was going to wait till after Maui to weigh in on this season, but I wanted to share some observations about what I'm seeing so far.

This year is weird, we have one of the least athletic teams we've had in a while, but I think it bodes well for our tournament ceiling. I think it forces us to focus on aspects of the game that teams often overlook because they have greater margins of error because of their talent level. It's very clear that we can't get away with playing sloppy basketball against good teams, and that our reserve bigs need more time in the oven. Like most people on this board have already noted, we don't have enough shot creators, and if we have an off shooting night against a quality opponent we can get boatraced like the Zags did against Texas. My impressions of the players this year are as follows:

Kriisa: Very effective player, likely all conference. It's worrisome that his offensive versatility has not evolved in his time here. And yet still he finds ways to get the job done. He can become dangerous if he consistently hits above 40% from three. His decision making still needs some fine tuning as evidenced by his assist to turnover ratio against Utah Tech. He won't get away with that against a team like Creighton or Arkansas.

Ballo: He has improved far better than I could have even imagined since coming here. Frankly, I thought he was bust and would be a benchwarmer/rotational big. Now he's an all conference type player and an important part of what we do on the court. I worry because while he's a decent athlete, not great, and some of the things I got accustomed to in watching Koloko, Zeke and Ayton won't be there any more. He's still a very good player who can help us down the stretch.

Larsson: I can see some of the comparisons with Grayson Allen, but think that Larsson is more physical and may have a higher defensive ceiling (we'll see). If he shoots like he did in Utah, then this year can be really special. I hope he makes the jump that everyone expects him to make.

Tubelis: He's playing as expected, but we won't see if he learned the lessons from last year until we play in Maui. He kind of shrunk against the pressure in the tournament, and we need him to be an alpha dog for this team. When he plays to his potential, there is no comparison to him in the entire country. He's a tough out for any team.

Cedric Henderson: Good player, ok athlete. He's a good addition to our roster and can help us as a reserve off the bench. I'm not sure if he will help bridge the gap left by DT and Mathurin, but we'll see as the season progresses.

Last year we talked about Bal vs KJ Simpson. As it stands right now, Simpson gets the nod for the player I would like to have on the team. That's not necessarily a knock on Bal, but I feel that there is a stagnancy to his game, maybe even a regression. His game is so important to our team. We need him replace the impact that DT had on our team, and I just don't see it at this point. Simpson is like a baby Westbrook and would have raised the ceiling for this team based on his talent and athleticism. Jury's still out on Bal but I'm not liking what I'm seeing so far. In my opinion, Kerr and Bal are the keys to this year, and if they improve like we need them to, then we have a chance to get past the second weekend. Ramey's a big question mark, but I will go out on a limb and say that he will be all conference and might sneak into the second round if he performs the way I think he can. We need leadership in big games and Ramey will be called on frequently to steer the ship. I like Boswell and think he's a future pro, but he needs to sharpen up a bit and improve his BB iq, because teams are not going to let up on him because he's 17. Lastly, Veesaar to me is a disappointment. He doesn't handle entry passes in traffic very well and seems a beat off sometimes when I watch him on the court. I know there's a period of adjustment, but I didn't see these problems with Lauri and Zeke who were rated in the same range as Veesaar. We need him to play much better than he's playing. If he needs time to develop his offense, then we need him to be a defensive dynamo. We need him to create opportunities for others on defense (blocks, rebounds, 50/50 balls etc.)

ASU looks more athletic than us, which concerns me. It won't be easy playing them this year. I like what CTL's done but if he can't figure out how to close high level guys on the recruiting trail, we're going to be in a lot of trouble. At Arizona, we're not impressed by recruits considering us, we close players. I worry because we need a certain threshold of athleticism to put the fear in opposing teams. KJ Lewis is a start, but we need more juice than that. Anyway, that's my take. Hope you guys are enjoying the season.

[Merkin]

That was a good read Rawle, thanks for sharing it.

Players were expected do work on lacking traits on the office season. Guess Ballo's was building up strength. He's a big man now and the 2 baby bigs have to take on him on every day in practice.

US game is just a step to fast for Veesaar which he admits.

Kriisa was supposed to be working on getting off shots within the 3 point line. He had 2 2-pt attempts in the first 3 games.

Tubulis was supposed to be working on going to the right, and using his right hand to shoot with. Think they ran a practice where Tubelis had to tie his left arm down. And so far, improvement in going to the right.

[TheCat]

That was a good writeup Rawle. I think you are right about Bal. He was a guy I had high high hopes for. He has not broken through yet. The one thing he is doing better is finding teammates and just not shooting immediately. Veesaar I think will get there sooner that later. He needs some time to bulk up. What surprised me was his size. I saw him standing next to Zu during the game and he was much taller. Ramey is a mystery but I think we will have a better understanding of his value after Maui. Ced had a breakout game against lesser competition. Let's see if that continues.
Your observation of ASU is correct. They have speedy guards that are really disruptive. I have not seen any real offensive structure to their game yet and I think they will be at a disadvantage with our bigs. They are dangerous.

[AzCatFan2]

ASu had a game last night where every shot they put up seem to fall, and everything Michigan put up was a brick. It happens. ASu shot over 50% from 3, and that's not going to happen night after night. ASu has some athletes, but little structure, and not a lot of size. What we do well is play amazing team ball, with ball movement that is fun to watch. We're averaging 26 APG.

As for Bal, he's still young, and still learning. I've said it before, reminds me a lot of Michael Dickerson, who didn't play much his freshman year. Averaged about 10 ppg his sophomore year, but by the end of 1996, the upside was obvious. Dickerson became a lock down defender and our leading scorer in 1997. Bal has similar potential, and will likely show flashes this year. But he's just not quite there yet. He needs to work on a shot fake and a mid-range game, and learn to let the game come to him a little more. Still pressing a bit. The more PT Bal gets, the more I think he'll figure it out.

Having Ramey will help with the athleticism for the team. He's quick, and will likely be called upon to guard the opposing team's best backcourt player. Being a seasoned vet will also hopefully calm the team down a bit, as too many turnovers is the one criticism I have so far. But early returns? I think Don MacLean said it best last night. Team isn't as athletic as last year's, but more experienced in the system, and the results look identical.

[CardiacCats97]

I don’t see any resemblance whatsoever between Bal’s game and Michael Dickerson.

Right now I see a lot of Marcus Williams but with less confidence and ability to put the ball in the hoop. That ain’t good.

[AzCatFan2]

Dickerson played 11 min a game and averaged 4.8 ppg his freshman year. That included a breakout game against ASu, where Dickerson scored 20+. Dickerson averaged 11.9 ppg coming off the bench his sophomore year, and it took him some time to really become a dependable player. He showed flashes, for sure, but that team had seniors like Joe Maclean and Corey Williams ahead of Dickerson.

Bal is young. If he's still playing like this in February, then we can start worrying. But he's shown flashes. Williams is actually a similar player, but a little taller, but not quite as athletic in my opinion. Williams averaged 13 ppg his freshman year, and 16.6 his soph year before going pro.

[SunnyAZ]

https://twitter.com/OptaSTATS/status/15 ... i9fgf6oS0A

[Alieberman]

We are legit.

BTFD!!!!

[arizonawildcats]

This team is tough as nails. I believe.

[Beachcat97]

The only team with two better wins at the moment is UVA (Baylor, Illinois). We should be ranked in the top 5 on Monday. We won't be, but we should.

[AZCatGirl]

[FreeSpiritCat]

If you can read 247 this is great. It is a debate of how good UA is from UNC fans.

https://247sports.com/college/north-car ... 10/?page=1

A few years back, Mark Few decided to adopt the UNC transition game from Roy, especially the commitment to the lane integrity of our secondary break. It's no surprise that Lloyd brought that with him to Tucson, nor a surprise that he snatched up Steve Robinson. AZ has now become one of my favorite teams after UNC.

It shows, once again, that there's no resson you can't run with two Bigs. I'm smiling knowingly as the announcers are talking about AZ's 4-man running the floor, and he's a piker compared to the way Big Z ran it here.

I have to say that Lute Olson needs way more credit for this style of basketball. He was the only coach who knew how to beat it.

It it a great thread from many fans who understand great basketball.

[CardiacCats97]

[dovecanyoncat]

Ballo was in the zone the whole game. Just to pick knits, when Ced hit him on that short roll and he shot over the 2 waay smaller defenders, he had Courtney coming to the rim from the low wing beneath Sheierman. Would have been a sick as fuck dime and dunk. But the MVP had a killer mismatch and he was money.

[dovecanyoncat]

Also, thanks for the focus on Veesaar. His hands will improve with an extra 20 lbs. of muscle. When he goes up, a fart can move him off axis and offset his hands. I'd bet Kalkbrenner isn't the 260 lbs. he's listed at and that's why Henri had some good minutes in the paint.

[Merkin]

#3 in the CBS poll. https://www.cbssports.com/college-baske ... UrMYc41z4M

[dovecanyoncat]

I think we'll end up somewhere between 7-10 tomorrow. Beyond that, despite the fact that the rest of the Pac-12 MBB teams are either landfill material or struggling early, we all need to remember that they'll handily rediscover their mojo during Conference play and give us a case of the shpilkes when least we want it.

[RaisingArizona]

I think we'll end up somewhere between 7-10 tomorrow. Beyond that, despite the fact that the rest of the Pac-12 MBB teams are either landfill material or struggling early, we all need to remember that they'll handily rediscover their mojo during Conference play and give us a case of the shpilkes when least we want it.

They'll be 5th. Maybe 6th if Purdue jumps them.

[dmjcat]

[dmjcat]

[dmjcat]