3 up, 3 down from Arizona’s loss to St. John’s

Darren Yamashita-USA TODAY Sports

After yet another second-half comeback attempt ultimately fell agonizingly short, the Arizona Wildcats (10-3) were defeated by St. John’s (11-2) 70-67 Saturday night in San Francisco.

Playing in the newly constructed Chase Center — the home of the Golden State Warriors — the Cats lost their last non-conference match-up of the season when Nico Mannion’s floater in the final seconds rimmed out to seal the UA’s third loss in their last four contests.

Arizona is now just 1-3 against major-conference opponents this season, the lone win coming against Illinois.

While our full recap can be found here, and some major takeaways here, here’s a further breakdown of some of the positives and negatives from the night.

3 up

Freshmen...Mostly Zeke

The Wildcats didn’t exactly light it up on offense against St. John’s— they shot 40% from the field as a team and just 19% from three—but UA’s freshmen trio of Mannion, Zeke Nnaji, and Josh Green were certainly the biggest bright spot on that side of the floor.

Those three combined to score 54 of Arizona’s 67 points.

Once again, Nnaji led the way, finishing with a double-double of 24 points on 8-10 shooting and 12 rebounds, while Mannion ended the game with 19 points and Green with 11.

It is worth pointing out that Mannion and Green did shoot a combined 8-22 (36%) from the field and finished with seven turnovers, but on a night where the rest of the team (outside of those two and Nnaji) shot a combined 3-16 (18.75%), the play of the freshmen was one of the only real positives for Arizona offensively.

Free-throw shooting

Down the stretch in the second half, the Wildcats continuously earned trips to the free throw line, which well and truly got them back in the contest.

Arizona converted 17-19 FTs in the second half, including a long stretch in which they scored 11 straight points at the stripe.

They were 26-32 (81%) on the game and while afterwards head coach Sean Miller wasn’t happy with his team’s shot selection (again), he will have been pleased when he saw the numbers from his team’s free throw shooting in this one.

Defensive versatility

Arizona actually played some zone against St. John’s (yes, you read that correctly) and despite taking the L, they actually held their opponents to just 35% shooting from the field and 15 % from three.

Eight blocks further highlighted a solid defensive effort from Arizona on Saturday night.

This loss was more about lack of rebounding and turnovers than anything else.

3 down

Turnovers

Arizona turned the ball over 10 times in the first half on Saturday night (which lead to 14 points off turnovers for St. John’s), and it’s no surprise that the Wildcats were down by a big margin like 14 at halftime because of it.

They corrected things in the second half, but still, it was a disappointing team effort to take care of the ball — being outrebounded 40-35 added to that disappointment.

St. John’s deserves credit for playing a tough style, but the fact of the matter is that Arizona could have won that game and until the Wildcats proves they can actually shoot the ball against better teams (particularly from three), they just can’t afford to turn the ball over like they did on Saturday.

Smith and Lee

Two of the Wildcats’ most experienced players — Dylan Smith and Ira Lee — didn’t feature at all in the second half against the Johnnies and while Arizona may have gotten back into the game regardless, there’s no way that playing basically a six-man rotation for the entire second half (Christian Koloko got six minutes of PT) didn’t help the UA’s cause against the Red Storm.

In 13 minutes of action, Smith went 0-1 with 1 rebound, 2 personal fouls and 4 turnovers, while Lee didn’t take a shot in his six minutes and pulled down 3 boards.

To be at there best, the Cats will need more from those two going forward — and more from their bench in general, which scored just eight points on Saturday night.

In comparison, St. John’s got 27 points from their bench guys.

Last Play

I don’t want to be too critical of Mannion, who I still have a bunch of faith in heading into Pac-12 play, but when someone on your team is playing the way Zeke was playing on Saturday night, that guy absolutely has to get a touch on the final possession of a one point game.

Yes, Nico got off a shot that was similar to the game winner he put in against Pepperdine, but he really should have passed the ball to Nnaji as the forward crashed towards the paint following the pair’s pick-and-roll action.

To their credit, St. John’s did handle the situation well defensively, but either way Arizona fans will be wishing Nnaji had gotten the ball in his hands (at least a touch of it anyways) on that final play.

Here’s a look at Arizona’s final shot vs. St. John’s. Nico Mannion went with the floater but couldn’t get it to fall. pic.twitter.com/o9SAHaLiHM

— Ryan Kelapire (@RKelapire) December 22, 2019

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