No. 5 Arizona Stays on Track With Impressive Win Over NAU

Through the first two games of the season, all the talk nationally about Arizona has been on freshman Koa Peat, who has scored 48 points while grabbing 10 rebounds and received conference and national awards for his first week.

However, against the Lumberjacks the Wildcats got a balanced scoring attack, which resulted in Peat finishing the game with 10 points and seven rebounds while going 3 of 10 from the field.

Meanwhile, Arizona saw five players score in double figures with freshman forward Dwayne Aristode scoring a game-high 18 points while knocking down six 3-point shots. Aristode snagged three assists and two rebounds along the way.

Point guard Jaden Bradley had another solid performance by recording 13 points while going 3 of 5 from the field. Bradley managed to collect three assists, three rebounds and two steals while on the court.

Arizona was able to flex its muscles on the glass by outrebounding NAU 45-32, which led to 12 second-chance points.

The frontcourt of Motiejus Krivas and Tobe Awaka combined for 22 points and 16 rebounds while going 9 of 12 from the field.

One thing that Arizona can take away from this game and try to work on his protecting the basketball. The Wildcats turned the ball over 14 times, which isn’t an extremely high number but the turnovers came in bunches throughout parts of the game.

One thing that was a little shocking when looking at the stat sheet was that freshman forward Ivan Kharchenkov didn’t record a point while going 0 of 5 from the field and 0-for-3 from the 3-point line.

However, Kharchenkov was able to keep active in the game by collecting four rebounds and four assists helping get the offense flowing even when he wasn’t having his best game.

Now, Arizona will head to Los Angeles to take on UCLA (3-0) in a neutral-site game looking to remain unbeaten on the season and get revenge for its loss to the Bruins a season ago.