Arizona @ Washington Preview
It’s a well known fact that this Washington team is not a good defensive team and they’re playing against one of the best offensive teams in the country. For Washington to realistically have any shot at winning this game they will need to be very crisp offensively and limit their turnovers while making this a half court battle. What that means is that they’ll need players like Appelby, Nelson and Oliver to shoot with confidence from the perimeter so that they can open up the interior for Hawes and Brockman.
The other key factor for Washington is clearly half court defense. Arizona is a very hard team to defend because they have so many different offensive options. UW is not a full court pressure team and Arizona is not a team you want to full court pressure so it will be vital for them to find a way to stop Arizona from scoring in their half court sets. If they can’t stop Arizona from scoring they’ll simply need outscore them and let’s fact it…UW is not going to beat Arizona in a shoot out tonight.
Last but not least they will need to control the glass and get as many second chance opportunties as possible while limiting Arizona to one and dones. UW has the size and strength to beat up Arizona on the paint.
What Arizona needs to do in order to win
The biggest thing that Arizona needs to do is rebound the basketball. Washington has an edge on the interior, they’re bigger and they’re stronger than Arizona. As long as Arizona can hold their own on the boards they should be alright in this game.
Also, expect Arizona to play a lot of zone in this game because they don’t have the size or strength on the interior to defend Hawes and Brockman. Zone defenses are known for weak rebounding defenes because it’s harder to box out an area as opposed to your own man. Don’t be surprised to see Arizona run a half court or full court trap either because it’s easy to go from a trap into a zone defense and it could be useful because Washington has very shaky ball handlers that will turn the ball over if pressured effectively.
Offensively, everything starts and stops with Shakur and with him running the offense Arizona shouldn’t have much trouble scoring against a very vulnerable Husky defense. It’s likely that Jon Brockman will be matched up with Chase Budinger and that is a big edge towards Arizona because Brockman is not quick enough or athletic enough to run around on the perimeter and defend Budinger. It’s not likely that UW will play much zone because Arizona is one of the best passing and shooting teams in the country which will force Brockman to defend a perimeter player.
Prediction
Romar will have this team ready to play after two straight losses and being at home will certainly be an advatage for Washington. However, for them to win this game they’ll need to take very good care of the basketball, dominate on the boards and find a way to slow Arizona down offensively. It’s not likely that UW will be able to do all of those things and that is why I am picking Arizona to win this game
Arizona- 83
Washington- 77
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