Cats Welcome Eastern New Mexico For Exhibition

Wednesday, November 1

Tucson, AZ

7:00 PM

University of Arizona

Eastern New Mexico (Exhibition)

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Emmanuel Akot dribbles the ball inside McKale Center

10/31/2017 | Men's Basketball

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Arizona will play the Greyhounds in the first of their two home exhibitions.

By: Arizona Athletics

TUCSON, Ariz. – Arizona Basketball ceremoniously kicked off the season with the McDonald's Red-Blue Game two week ago. Now Arizona takes its next step towards the 2017-18 season with its first exhibition versus Eastern New Mexico on Wednesday, Nov. 1 at 7 p.m. (MST) inside McKale Center. It will be the first of two home exhibitions for the Wildcats who will welcome Chico State to Tucson on Sunday.

Arizona vs. Eastern New Mexico (Exhibition)
Wednesday, Nov. 1 at 7:00 p.m. (MST)
TV: Pac-12 Network (Ted Robinson & Bill Walton)
Radio: Arizona IMG Radio Network (Brian Jeffries & Ryan Hansen)
Twitter: @APlayersProgram
#BearDown

The Arizona Wildcats enter the 2017-18 season following a 32-5 season one year ago. It was the seventh season of 30 or more wins in program history and the fourth under head coach Sean Miller. UA is the defending Pac-12 regular season and tournament champions after splitting the season title with Oregon with an impressive 16-2 record in league play and defeated a pair of top-5 ranked teams in back-to-back nights en route to the tournament crown. Arizona participated in its 32^nd NCAA Tournament in program history while advancing the program's NCAA record under Miller to 13-6 (.684) and its 18^th Sweet 16 appearance.
Arizona returns a trio of starters and a healthy dose of lettermen in 2017-18. Rawle Alkins, Dusan Ristic and Allonzo Trier are three returning players with a combined 73 games started between them. Arizona's five returning scholarship players, as a whole, bring a wealth of experience back as well. The five returners have appeared in a total of 322 games with 130 starts included in those games played.
Allonzo Trier is tied with Stanford's Reid Travis as the conference's leading returning scorer at 17.2 points per game. Trier is also one of just three returning players in the Pac-12 from the 15 selections from both the first and second all-conference teams.
UA had four players named to preseason award watch lists by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in October. Allonzo Trier (Jerry West Award), Rawle Alkins (Julius Erving Award), Deandre Ayton (Karl Malone Award) and Dusan Ristic (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award) represented the program on the top positional watch lists for shooting guard, small forward, power forward and center. Trier and Ayton also received preseason all-american nods from ESPN on the first and third teams respectively.
The season began unofficially with the annual Red-Blue Game on Oct. 20 as Blue downed Red 55-37 in front of a capacity crowd of 14,644 inside McKale Center. Freshman Deandre Ayton led all players in scoring and rebounds with 21 points and nine boards in just 19 minutes of action. Ayton partnered with junior Allonzo Trier on the Blue team to combine to score 36 points while shooting 15 of 18 (.833) inside the arc. The night's festivities began with freshman Brandon Randolph winning the slam dunk competition.
Arizona's non-conference and Pac-12 schedules are littered with nationally-ranked opponents. The Wildcats were one of four Pac-12 teams ranked or receiving votes in the USA Today Preseason Coaches Poll. UA was voted fifth with USC (11^th), UCLA (18^th) and Oregon (RV) rounding out the quartet. Non-conference foes Alabama (25^th) and Texas A&M (RV) bolster the out-of-conference slate with possible Battle 4 Atlantis opponents Villanova (sixth), Purdue (21^st) and SMU (RV).
The 2017 NBA Draft saw both Lauri Markkanen and Kadeem Allen hear their names called. Markkanen, the freshman forward, was selected with the seventh overall pick by the Minnesota Timberwolves before being traded to the Chicago Bulls. The Finland native became the fourth top ten NBA draft pick during the Sean Miller era (2009 to present). He also advanced another impressive NBA Draft stat. 12 of the last 15 former Wildcats selected in the first round have gone in the lottery. Kadeem Allen was the 53rd overall selection of the Boston Celtics. He, teamed with Markkanen, give the Arizona program a total of 71 NBA Draft picks.
Allonzo Trier upped his scoring as a sophomore with an average 17.2 points per game. He scored in double figures in all but two of his appearances while tallying 20.6 points per game in his final 10 appearances. In addition to his scoring uptick, Trier flipped the script on his assist-to-turnover ratio. The Seattle native posted 31 assists to 52 turnovers (.01 assist-to-turnover ratio) as a freshman before posting 48 assists and 31 turnovers (1.55 assist-to-turnover ratio) in 2016-17.
Parker Jackson-Cartwright led the Pac-12 conference in assist-to-turnover ratio in all games in 2016-17 with a mark of 3.09, which ranked 13th among all NCAA players. His season ratio was fueled by his 23 assists and four turnovers (5.75 assist-to-turnover) in his six games prior to the NCAA Tournament. Jackson-Cartwright matched his career high in assists with 11 in UA's win over Northern Colorado, which paired with his 15 points, gave the junior the first double-double of his career.