3 up, 3 down in Arizona’s win vs. Cal State Bakersfield

Some takeaways, good and bad, from the Wildcats’ win over the Roadrunners

The third-ranked Arizona Wildcats are simply doing away with opponents to start the season.

On Thursday night, the Wildcats defeated Cal State Bakersfield, 91-59. This was UA’s third consecutive win of 25 points or more to open up the season. The depth, the athleticism, the size: Arizona is overwhelming all comers right now.

The stars are performing out of their minds but things aren't perfect. Here's tonight's three up and three down.

3 UP

Trier's property situation on Planet Buckets

While we can't share the exact tweet due to language issues, when Allonzo Trier committed to Arizona, a fan tweeted that he owns a house on Planet Buckets. Well, three games into his Junior season, it would appear that Trier has upgraded to owning an entire small development on this Planet Buckets.

Trier's scoring ability has always looked great but to start this season, he's on another level. He's averaging 30 and not because he had one game of ridiculous scoring. It's because of his consistent excellence, throwing up 32, 30 and 28 in consecutive efforts — all while shooting 70 percent from the field.

Last season, Trier was unable to play in a game until January. This season he's in a mid-season rhythm before Thanksgiving. The Pac-12 needs to be on alert about this man.

Deandre's dominance

In what was described as a "quiet" game, Deandre Ayton piled up 18 points, 10 rebounds, three assists and two steals. Yeah, sure, quiet.

Ayton looked like a human, not physically speaking of course. He still physically looked like Captain America. But as a basketball player, Ayton was not-that-phenomenal in the first half, finishing with just two points.

The second half, Ayton was back to being that guy that NBA teams are tanking for. Ayton was a beast in the post, showing off a quick baseline move for a dunk and a smooth fadeaway. He also knocked down his first three-pointer as a Wildcat.

In three games, Ayton has three consecutive triple-doubles, just the fourth Arizona freshman to accomplish that feat and the first since 1980.

The Wildcats are headed to the Bahamas, Ayton's home, for the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament. It's a good bet that Ayton will try, and succeed, to steal the show.

Barcello's vision

Arizona's depth is clearly a strong point but Alex Barcello's ability to come off the bench as a Freshman and lead the offense is a story to watch.

Through three games, Barcello is second on the team in assists with a total of 11 and has yet to turn the ball over.

Generally speaking, it's point guards that struggle the most when adjusting to the college game as a freshman. It's refreshing to see Barcello not have that struggle. The talent around him certainly helps but it's huge that Arizona has found a reliable ball-handler when Parker Jackson-Cartwright and Allonzo Trier aren't on the floor.

3 DOWN

Second chances

Arizona's status as an elite rebounding team would be listed as "To Be Determined" right now. Thursday night wasn't a great indicator.

The Wildcats allowed the Roadrunners to collect 14 offensive rebounds during tonight's game. This was already the second time Arizona has allowed double-digit offensive rebounds this season.

Bakersfield gave themselves a lot of chances to get offensive rebounds as they shot under 40 percent from the floor including a 1-for-16 mark from beyond the arc. Still though, mid-major teams collecting opportunities for second chances isn't a great look and something Arizona needs to shore up before they play tougher competition in the next couple weeks.

Brandon Randolph

It was a tough outing for the dreshman as he scored one point on 0-6 from the floor.

This is nitpicky but one of the issues teams run into with great depth is very talented players not being able to find a rhythm because they're not on the floor long enough. Randolph, playing just his second college game ever, was most likely a victim of that on Thursday.

The issue there is it's not like this depth is going anywhere soon. If anything, Arizona will just get better over time, especially by the time Rawle Alkins returns. Randolph has tremendous talent and should find his flow soon. But this will be interesting to watch as the situation develops.

The schedule

It's great that Arizona, a team with so much hype around them, has beaten up every opponent they've come across thus far. But the level of competition hasn't quite been up to par.

It's not like it's Arizona or Sean Miller's fault that the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the nation played each other already this season. But it's not great that while they played one another in an early season, neutral floor classic, Arizona is racking up easy home wins over teams that might have to win their conference tournament to earn a 16-seed in March.

A true testament to how good this Arizona team is will have to be seen next Wednesday against NC State in the Bahamas.

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