The wait is finally over and No. 10 Arizona is back in action on the hardwood and coach Tommy Lloyd embarks on his fourth season as the program's head coach. The Wildcats opened the 2024-25 season off on a winning note against Canisius running away with the 93-64 victory.
This season will have a lot of first for the program as Arizona enters its first year in the Big 12 conference and will play in venues the team has never played in before. Although there is a lot of change, some things have remained the same for the Wildcats as guard Caleb Love helped lead the team with his team-high 17 points.
Coming off a Pac-12 Player of the Year away and returning for a second season in Tucson, expectations are high for Love. He was able to not only score 17 points, he also collected four rebounds and six assists to go along with his 7 of 15 shooting from the field.
The starting lineup for Arizona featured Love, Jaden Bradley, KJ Lewis, Trey Townsend and Tobe Awaka. As a group, they scored 52 of the Wildcats' 93 points. Plus, as a team, the Wildcats racked up 20 assists to just 9 turnovers.
With the team starting off the game on a 13-0 run, it was clear that things weren't going to be close, and they weren't. This allowed Lloyd to switch things up and mix and match things around to see exactly what he has in this roster.
In all, 10 Arizona players saw 9-plus minutes of time on the court. The starting unit played 105 minutes averaging 21 minutes per player.
Although he didn't start, center Motiejus Krivas was back on the court and laying after missing the team's Red-Blue game and both exhibition games as he tried to get ready for the season after sustaining an ankle injury during the offseason.
Krivas played in just 10 minutes on the night, but recorded nine points and four rebounds while going 2 of 4 from the field and 5 of 8 from the foul line.
On the defensive side of the court, Arizona held Canisius to 43% shooting from the field and 10 of 26 from the 3-point line. The Wildcats smothered the glass winning 43-26 over the Golden Griffins.
As a team, Arizona forced 19 turnover and collected 12 steals, which led to 26 points on the other side of the court.
Overall, it was a solid performance for an opening game and Arizona was able to take the life out of its opponent early on in the field half. Now, the Wildcats will get ready to play Old Dominion on Saturday at 2 p.m. (MST) with the game being televised on ESPN+.
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