Sunday, August 13, 2017

Arizona in Spain: Wildcats blow out Combinado Valenciano in first exhibition

This wasn’t a fair fight

The Arizona Wildcats blew out Combinado Valenciano 113-44 on Sunday in the first game of their three-game exhibition tour in Spain.

No official stats are available, but unofficially Brandon Randolph had a game-high 21 points and Dusan Ristic had four points and 14 rebounds.

Dylan Smith had 14 points, Allonzo Trier finished with 16, Rawle Alkins and DeAndre Ayton each had 10 points.

The game was never close, as Arizona took a 25-8 lead at the end of the first quarter and continued to pour it on, leading 53-26 at the half and 86-32 at the end of the third quarter.

Here are some notes:

— There were no surprises in Arizona’s starting lineup, as it was Parker Jackson-Cartwright, Allonzo Trier, Rawle Alkins, DeAndre Ayton, and Dusan Ristic.

— Alex Barcello, Chase Jeter, Dylan Smith, Keanu Pinder, and Randolph were the first subs in.

— Sean Miller used 12 players in the first quarter alone.

— Barcello was the primary backup at point guard, and Emmanuel Akot was the third option. The offense notably looked smoother with Barcello in there than Akot. Barcello had eight points.

— Ayton missed a 3 early in the game, but followed it up with a tip-slam on the very next possession. Ayton had a couple spin moves on the low block, but didn’t look terribly comfortable in the offense. He did have some difficulty catching passes and missed a wide-open dunk after a no-look pass by Ristic.

— Aside from a few breakdowns in transition, Arizona’s defense was absolutely suffocating, but Combinado Valenciano was athletically overmatched by a wide margin, so that’s not surprising.

— Smith hit a number of jumpers, showing a smooth shooting stroke. Smith and Randolph have similar body types.

— The same can be said for Randolph, who started on fire, tallying 13 first-half points. He also tossed an alley-oop to Jeter and Barcello. Randolph then had a monstrous dunk through the Valencia defense. He was the player of the game.

— Akot had a quiet game offensively, but did hit a 3 when a defender went under a screen. He finished with seven points.

— The Wildcats played at an extremely quick pace, which could be a sign of things to come this season, but they also forced a ton of turnovers and long misses which made those transition opportunities easy to come by. Not to mention that the difference in athleticism between the two teams was laughable.

— Arizona has a plethora of athletic perimeter defenders, and the 6-foot-7 Akot defending point guards will surely be a headache for opposing teams.

— Jackson-Cartwright did not score.

— Maybe it was because Arizona was trying to simplify things, but it did seem like more pick-and-rolls were being used.

— Jeter had three points, Ira Lee had six, Pinder had eight.

— Arizona’s walk-ons checked in with two minutes left in the fourth quarter.

— Talbott Denny did not play.

— Arizona wore its white uniforms with grey gradient.

— There were like 17 people in the stands.

Up next

The Wildcats take on the Mataro All-Stars on Wednesday at 10:10 a.m. MST in Barcelona. That game will be live streamed on FloHoops.com.

Highlights

Follow Ryan Kelapire on Twitter at @RKelapire



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