TUCSON, Ariz. – Before 2017 officially comes to an end on the calendar, the Arizona Wildcats will begin conference play. UA will host intrastate rivals Arizona State on Saturday night in the Pac-12 opener for both teams. McKale Center will welcome the Sun Devils with a Red Out in the seats. 
   
No. 17/18 Arizona vs. No. 3/4 Arizona State
Saturday, Dec. 30 at 7:00 p.m. (MST)
TV: Pac-12 Network (J.B. Long, Matt Muehlebach, Cindy Brunson)
Radio: Arizona IMG Radio Network (Brian Jeffries & Ryan Hansen)
Twitter: @APlayersProgram
#BearDown
 
Arizona opens Pac-12 play with No. 3/4 Arizona State inside McKale Center with the last four meetings between the two programs having gone to the Wildcats. UA has won 17 of the last 20 head-to-head meetings in Tucson going back two decades with a home record of 7-1 versus the Sun Devils under head coach Sean Miller.

The Wildcats closed out non-conference play with a 73-58 victory over UConn on Dec. 21 to push the program's win streak to seven games. Senior Dusan Ristic tallied his second double-double of the season with 18 points and 10 rebounds against the Huskies. Guard Rawle Alkins supported Ristic with 20 points in the win, giving the sophomore his second game of 20 points or more in his last three appearances. The 58 points allowed by the UA defense marked the second consecutive opponent held below the 60-point mark. After allowing 73.8 points per game in the first 11 games of the season, Arizona's defense held NDSU and UConn to an average of 55.5 points per game.

Saturday's game between intrastate rivals marks the first time the Wildcats and Sun Devils have met while both being ranked in the Top 25 since March 11, 1995 when No. 18 Arizona State downed No. 12 Arizona in double overtime in Tucson.

Junior Allonzo Trier is 16 points shy of becoming the 51^st Wildcat to score 1,000 points in a career. Trier's 984 points have come at an average of 17.0 points per game for his career. The Seattle native will become the eighth UA player to reach the 1,000-point mark during the Sean Miller era of 2009 to present.

UA enters the ASU game as winners of 77 of its last 79 games inside McKale Center going back to the 2012-13 season. Arizona is 130-13 (.909) at home under head coach Sean Miller with a mark of 63-9 (.875) in Pac-12 home games.

The Wildcats and Sun Devils will meet for a 233^rd time in their all-time series going back to 1913. Arizona State was the first college team UA ever faced on Dec. 13, 1913 after playing primarily YMCA's and Tucson High School alumni teams starting in 1904.

Since joining the Pac-12 Conference prior to the 1978-79 season, Arizona is 29-10 in conference openers. That record improves to 16-1 when the first conference game of the season is played inside McKale Center. Arizona has also won its last seven consecutive Pac-12 openers.

Deandre Ayton, at 7-foot-1-inch, led Arizona in assists in the win over UConn. Ayton tallied five assists coming out of numerous double teams in the post. Four of his five assists were converted for three-pointers with the fifth leading to a dunk.

Parker Jackson-Cartwright has played some of the best basketball of his career against the Sun Devils. In five career appearances versus ASU, PJC is shooting 57.1 percent from beyond the arc while tallying 16 assists to just one turnover.

Since Sean Miller's arrival in Tucson in 2009, the Wildcats have a record of 5-2 versus opponents ranked in the top five of the AP poll. Only two of those seven games were played in Tucson, including a 65-64 victory over No. 5 Florida on Dec. 15, 2012 and a 72-77 loss to No. 3 UCLA on Feb. 25, 2017.