Arizona was ready to turn the page on their tough two-game stretch against Wisconsin and Duke that resulted in the Wildcats almost falling out of the top 25.
While the results on the court weren’t great, those were still early tests for this Arizona team that is still needing to gel, so despite the losses, there wasn’t a whole lot of panic around the program based on the success they’ve had under head coach Tommy Lloyd.
The Wildcats looked like they had figured some things out on the practice floor prior to their Bahamas trip for the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament when they bludgeoned Davidson.
Arizona looked much more like themselves by attacking the glass to pull down 12 offensive rebounds, getting out in transition for 14 fastbreak points, and shooting at sizzling rate from the floor (56.5%), and from deep (50.0%).
But, with a championship appearance on the line, they fell in their next contest to Oklahoma.
The hard-fought five-point loss was disappointing, especially since they struggled to shoot the ball in back-to-back games, but again, this early season defeat could have been taken with a grain of salt.
That sentiment likely ended on Friday.
Arizona lost again, this time to West Virginia in an overtime heartbreaker that saw the Wildcats run out of steam in the extra period to lose, 83-76.
Early on, it looked like Arizona was going to showcase their form that earned them a preseason top 10 ranking.
They jumped out of the gates fast, taking an early seven-point lead five minutes into the game and extending it to eight with 12:42 left in the first half that stopped a little mini-run by West Virginia.
But the Mountaineers, who upset third-ranked Gonzaga just two days prior to this matchup, were able to tighten things up and take their second lead of the game with 8:46 left in the half.
That started a seesaw affair for the rest of the period where Arizona would try to pull away before West Virginia answered and eventually went into the locker room up 39-37.
The second half was a bit lower scoring.
In a role reversal, the Mountaineers were the ones trying to pull away from their opponent, but the Wildcats continued to answer even when they went down by multiple scores and double digits with under 10 minutes left in the contest.
A flurry to close things out where Trey Townsend made a layup and Caleb Love hit a 3-pointer to tie things up with 14 seconds left pushed Arizona into overtime.
Unfortunately, the extra period was where things got away from them.
With this loss, they are now under .500 with a 3-4 record.
Inconsistent shooting continues to plague Arizona, as they struggled from behind the arc again by going 7-21 from 3-point range for a 33.3% shooting clip.
Love and Townsend had big games with them scoring 24 and 19 points respectively, although the senior guard went 9-20 from the floor and 4-12 from three. KJ Lewis and Jaden Bradley joined them in double figures with 10 points each.
It wasn’t enough, though, as they struggled to stop Tucker DeVries who had a game-high 26 points, and Toby Okani who had 20.
Arizona will now travel back home from the Bahamas with even more questions than they had coming into this event.
They’ll return to the floor in game action on Dec. 7 as they take on Southern Utah at the McKale Center at 12 p.m. MST.
