Top Three Newcomers for Arizona Basketball

In the Big 12 Tournament, the Wildcats made it to the conference title game and fell 72-64 to Houston, which would go on to play for the National Title.

Following the end to the season, Arizona lost star guard Caleb Love to graduation and forward Carter Bryant to the NBA Draft where he went No. 14 overall to the San Antonio Spurs.

Plus, Arizona saw two key players in KJ Lewis and Henri Veesaar leave the program and transfer to Power 4 programs.

Despite that, Arizona will be fully loaded again with four key returners in Jaden Badley, Tobe Awaka, Anthony Dell’Orso and Motiejus Krivas. Plus, Lloyd and his staff signed the No. 2 recruiting class according to 24/7 Sports.

We are inching closer to the start of the college basketball season with Arizona tipping off its schedule against defending national champions in the Florida Gators in Las Vegas four days from now.

However, before the Wildcats take on Florida in Vegas, Arizona has wrapped up its final exhibition games facing off against Embry-Riddle where the Wildcats were able to walk away with a dominating 133-42 win.

The Wildcats have gone 2-0 during the exhibition part of their season with an impressive 81-68 game over Saint Marys and now a dominating win over Embry-Riddle.

Now with the two exhibition games in the books, we at Arizona Wildcats On SI have put together our top three newcomers from Arizona’s exhibition games.

Top Three Newcomers

Brayden Burries

• A lot of talk has been surrounding freshman forward Koa Peat and deservedly so. However guard Bryaden Burries has been getting overlooked nationally in comparison to Peat, yet both were five-star recruits.

• Burries was able to show off his scoring ability in both games and looks like he could be the Wildcats No. 1 scoring option. Although he has a lot of developing to do, it is realistic to think that he could be one of the top NBA Draft picks following his freshman season.

• Koa Peat

• One of the top recruits nationally was forward Koa Peat, who picked the Wildcats over offers from Duke, Baylor, ASU and Texas. Before coming to campus, Peat played for the U19 National Team along with head coach Tommy Lloyd where the two took home the gold medal.

• In the two exhibition games, Peat was able to show off his rebounding and defensive skills while scoring 16 points and going 8 of 11 from the field.

• Now, 16 points isn’t amazing but the high shooting percentage is and it's clear that Peat will be a highly important part of Arizona moving forward this season.

Ivan Kharchenkov

• One of the most underrated recruits that Arizona was able to land was forward Ivan Kharchenkov, who has played international basketball for a number of years. Kharchenkov has a 6-foot-7, 220-pound frame that makes him a hard forward/guard to defend.

• During the Wildcats’ exhibition games, Kharchenkov dropped 26 points in the two games while going 10 of 14 from the field. When looking at the roster, he could be a key piece and might even work his way into the starting rotation at some point in time.