11:05 pm
January 25

#3 Arizona @ #7 UCLA

Who will WIN this matchup?

#3 Arizona Wildcats (16-1)

@ #7 UCLA Bruins (13-2)

 

Current odds:

Arizona Wildcats: (-145)

UCLA Bruins: (+125)

 

• The spread for the game is Arizona by 2.5 points.

• The Bruins (13-2, 5-1 Pac-12) haven’t played in front of fans (other than family) at home since a Dec. 1 game against Colorado, so there will be an energy befitting the game’s status. Arizona (16-1, 6-0) roars into this marquee matchup having won five consecutive games, including a sweep of the Bay Area schools, capped with a 96-71 win over California on Sunday.

• Starting power forward Azuolas Tubelis, the team’s second-leading scorer, missed the game after suffering a sprained left ankle Thursday night at Stanford. Tubelis (15.1 points per game) is considered day to-day. Without him on Sunday, Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd sometimes used 7-footers Christian Koloko and Oumar Ballo in the same lineup. He also has played five perimeter players together.

• The Bruins have won five consecutive matchups in the best college basketball rivalry in the West, but this is the first Arizona-UCLA game for Lloyd, in his first year with the Wildcats after a two-decade run as a Gonzaga assistant coach. Lloyd has remade the Wildcats into the image of recent Gonzaga teams — unselfish, fast-paced, high-scoring.

• Bennedict Mathurin (17.5 points per game) leads the way for a team that averages 88.7 points, shoots 50.1 percent and averages a national-best 21.3 assists per game. Arizona has won its six conference games by an average of 22.2 points, but Tuesday’s game will be its first meeting against another team in the top tier of the conference (UCLA, USC, Oregon).

4/10
Confidence
StreakSmarter Pick
#7 UCLA Bruins
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