You are both blessed and cursed when you play in the Big 12. You’re blessed because even if you’re a mediocre team you’ll still get the benefit of the doubt because you play such stiff competition. You’re cursed because 4-8 times a year you have to play one of the best teams in the country. Arizona is currently undefeated and for very good reason. They look incredible. When we played Iowa State I said that I think they could very well win the National Championship, and while I still feel like they could, Arizona is CLEARLY a better team than Iowa State. Stranger things have happened though, right? We knocked off Kansas, we’ve won games this year that we shouldn’t have, so why not us? Why can’t we be the ones who take down the behemoth? I BELIEVE! DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES?!
Well, you shouldn’t. “From the tip” is used a lot to describe a wire to wire win, and I think sometimes it is a bit hyperbolic, but it is a very accurate description for this 40 minute ass beating. Arizona is just so skilled offensively, they are suffocating defensively, and they just have so much size.
Motiejus Krivas is this kid out of Lithuania who is a legit 7’2″, 260, and he made us pay. There was just no one that we could have put on him to slow him down: Obioha is too lead footed, Lorient wasn’t physical enough, and while Chance Moore was physical and moved well, he just wasn’t tall enough to really impact Krivas’ game. He finished the game with 11 points, 12 rebounds, 3 blocks, and shot 60% from the floor.
Not to be outdone, Arizona has a future lottery pick on their team in Koa Peat and he also showed out. He finished the game with 17 points, 7 rebounds, and was a really efficient 7/9 from the floor.
I would love to sit here and pretend like we put up a good fight and we really gave Arizona a run for their money, but that isn’t even close to the truth. We were down 20 points at the half and ended the game with a 88-53 loss. There were a couple of guys that tried, in theory, to stop the bleeding but we would have needed a Herculean effort from Honor Huff or Treysen Eaglestaff to lose by single digits. They say in college basketball that there are 5 games where no matter what the other team does they can’t stop you, 5 games where no matter what you do you can’t stop the other team, and then 25 games where it’s competitive. Guess which kind of game we had today?
I think this is one of those games where you don’t even watch the film. I don’t think there is really anything productive from watching this game back because we were outmatched at every single turn. A positive from this game though? We only have to play Arizona one more time this year (not including any Big 12 tournament games.)
Shake this one off, try to be better tomorrow, and prep for our next game against Kansas State on Tuesday. As for the Roundball Big 3 of the Game, it is going to the only three guys who showed up today:
Honor Huff – 10 points
Treysen Eaglestaff – 10 points, 1 steal
Chance Moore – 12 points, 4 rebounds
Tough game today. I was really hoping that we could have pulled out some Mountaineer Magic, but I think deep down I knew this was going to be the result. Either way, watching basketball is never a bad way to spend a weekend. I do hope we have a HUGE bounce back game against Kansas State, but at least there’s NO CHANCE we play as poorly against them as we did today.
I love you, Dad. I miss you. I’ll see you soon.
Round The Game 
Leave a comment