Recent Play Details

Arizona probably wasn’t thrilled when this matchup got released on Selection Sunday. After a pretty exhausting run at the end of the regular season and Pac-12 Tournament, the Wildcats could have used a little bit of a breather in the opening round here. The Wildcats captured the Pac-12 crown in Las Vegas last week, but it certainly wasn’t easy. Arizona went from scoring 95 points in the Pac-12 opener against Stanford to 78 in the second round against Arizona State to 61 in the final against UCLA. Pretty steep drop, right? When your two best players are 6-11 and 7-0, you don’t want them playing 30+ minutes against a 15-seed in a tournament setting. Arizona thrives in the open court, sitting top-15 in the country in both adjusted tempo and average possession length. Head coach Tommy Lloyd is going to put a pretty strong emphasis on squashing this one early. He knows Princeton is a dangerous opponent, and the longer the Tigers can stick around, the longer he has to keep his starters engaged. Princeton played a pretty weak schedule this year outside the Ivy, so the best comparison to Arizona is probably Hofstra. The Pride play fast and are efficient on offense, both at the three-point line and in the interior. They combined to score 160 points in that game, including 80 in the first half. If Hofstra can do that, so can Arizona. Look for the Wildcats to put a strong emphasis on the first half before taking the air out of the ball and slowing things down in the second half.