No. 17 Arizona outmatched by No. 12 Duke in troubling offensive night

TUCSON — No. 17 Arizona was given a valuable lesson in a 69-55 loss to No. 12 Duke on Friday in Tucson, one it would be wise to learn from ahead of a large jump in conference competition.

The Wildcats’ (2-2) offense has a heartbeat in high-low post play, a thriving system in Tommy Lloyd’s past three seasons that produced one of college basketball’s highest scoring units. That offense, however, has mostly struggled once the NCAA Tournament rolls around against elite competition, and its inability to adapt when that doesn’t work has plagued Arizona.

Friday’s defeat wasn’t all that. But center Motiejus Krivas and power forward Trey Townsend combined for seven shot attempts and two free throw attempts. Duke clogged up Arizona’s interior space often, inviting a team lacking shooting to shoot. The Wildcats were 6-of-23 (26.1%) from 3, including a 1-of-9 mark from Pac-12 Player of the Year Caleb Love, who they rely on enormously when the bread and butter gets locked away in the pantry.

Lloyd postgame said he was very open-minded to tweaking some things schematically with the results Arizona has seen if its what he sees the film telling him.

“Now we need to take a step back and figure out why. … We gotta figure out what are certainties are and the things we have to have,” he said. “And over the course of the next couple of days, if there’s adjustments that need to be made, we need to figure out what those are.”

He mentioned how when the ball did get inside, Duke’s size and length presented issues. While Big 12 opposition will not have the NBA-caliber talent the Blue Devils have in droves, there is a whole lot more of it there than in the Pac-12 and the Big 12 is known specifically for physicality.

“I think we’re built for it,” Lloyd said. “That’s how we want games to be. I didn’t think it was anything crazy. I just think our guys have to be a little more wherewithal and to find ways to take advantage of that, our physicality.”

“I was hoping that would be a little bit of an advantage for us but it wasn’t,” Lloyd added.

Arizona was 7-of-11 from the foul line. It averaged 23.4 a night last season, the 18th-best mark in the country. The Wildcats’ roster is built around Love and the use of four bigs, so they still have to stick to their identity. It’s just about how they can be more versatile beyond that.

Arizona guard Jaden Bradley had 18 points on 8-of-16 shooting, the only true source of offense all night. It is not a coincidence that he was the guy touching the paint most often.

The 55 points is tied for the lowest in the Lloyd era, with the other game the 59-55 upset loss to Princeton in the 2023 NCAA Tournament, per Stathead. This is the first time a Lloyd team has lost back-to-back games and had never lost in November prior to this season.

The bright side of the Wildcats’ performance is they took advantage of another team in Duke trying to figure out the proper way to go about things offensively. The Blue Devils had 14 assists and 14 turnovers. That didn’t matter much, though, because Arizona committed 15 turnovers of its own with just 16 assists.

The Wildcats couldn’t handle Duke’s aggressive switching and trapping, unable to make proper decisions and punish the over-compensating toward the ball. That was where their lack of experience in that style of offense was really glaring, and a strong game plan from Duke to go at Arizona’s lack of dynamic playmaking, which is a common theme in low-scoring losses like this under Lloyd.

Duke is led by freshman phenom Cooper Flagg, who through four games paced it in points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks. The 6-foot-9 wing is widely expected to be the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, largely due to a well-rounded skill set combined with a highly touted motor.

He was 3-of-11 from the field in the first half, unable to find his touch from the midrange areas he thrives in before doing what all great players do and attempting to score inside to alleviate that. Flagg relocated a flow from there, scoring 16 of his 24 points in the second half and finishing 10-of-22 from the field. It was incredibly impressive how much he was doing glue guy things while also being the focal point.

Duke made four straight shots in the late first half to create the biggest lead of the first half, seven. Three of those four buckets were at the rim, the briefest of glimpses at a rhythm in the half-court for the game.

The Wildcats could not establish Krivas, who took one shot in the opening 20 minutes, and they as a team only attempted two free throws over that time with eight assists and eight turnovers. Love missed his first three shots (all 3s) before a layup in transition was his only bucket.

Krivas and Bradley scored to open the second half with four quick points and cut Duke’s lead to four. The next four points were not so quick. After that, Arizona scored four points over a 7:39 period and a 12-4 Duke run. Again, the Blue Devils did not play well in this game, and there were a few openings like that one.

Arizona was still grasping with slippery hands at some type of surge to make a lively home crowd explode. The closest the night got to that moment was Love’s one and only 3-pointer with 10:52 remaining to get within eight. But Flagg responded to that basket and three more after that with points to keep the Blue Devils ahead nine at 5:59 to go.

Duke freshman guard Kon Knueppel, another first-round pick next summer, made two 3s in a minute and change to extend its lead to 13. That was it.

Watching Love in Tucson was an interesting experience.

Fans know the drill by now. He’s a streaky shooter and questionable decision-maker, so the lows are near the Earth’s core, but he’s undeniably the star man and most nights is just that. Wildcat supporters were urging Love to play composed and groaning when he couldn’t get shots to fall, with grumblings spreading throughout the arena after he missed or turned the ball over. The knowledgeable basketball fans in McKale know how large that gap is between when he’s in a funk and when he’s cooking.

Love ended up with eight points (3-for-13), four rebounds, four assists and three turnovers. He was 2-of-13 in the loss to Wisconsin.

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