When things aren’t going well, sometimes you just need to get away from it all and start fresh. For Arizona, that meant flying to the Bahamas and rediscovering its swagger inside a resort ballroom.
Anthony Dell’Orso had 21 points off the bench, including a career-high five 3-pointers, Caleb Love had his first 20-point game since early March and the 24th-ranked Wildcats shot 56.5 percent in a 104-71 win over Davidson on Wednesday night in the first round of the Battle4Atlantis.
Dell’Orso and Trey Townsend (17) both had their best scoring outputs since transferring to Arizona, with the former going 8 of 11 from the field and 5 of 7 from 3 after coming in having made six field goals and one 3 in his first four UA games. Townsend was 6 of 11 with a pair of 3s.
Tobe Awaka added 13 points and 10 rebounds in just 14 minutes due to foul trouble, while Motiejus Krivas had 10 points and KJ Lewis added a career-best 10 boards.
Arizona was 11 of 22 from 3, its best accuracy from outside since the 2023-24 home finale against Oregon, but it was the Wildcats’ play inside that stood out. They got 50 points in the paint after struggling mightily near the basket in the 69-55 home loss to Duke last Friday.
The UA will face Oklahoma, which held off Providence 79-77, in Thursday’s semifinals at 3 p.m. MT. The Sooners (5-0) got 26 points from former Dayton guard Kobe Elvis, who scored 13 against the Arizona in the second round of the NCAA Tournament in March.
The Wildcats led 49-37 at halftime, almost matching its scoring from the entire game in last week’s home loss to Duke. Arizona surpassed that total less than three minutes into the second half, leading 56-40 on a Love layup after he rebounded his own missed 3 and drove to the basket.
What kept Arizona from pulling away, though, was the inability to run Davidson off the 3-point line. Back-to-back 3s got Davidson within 10, but twice after that the UA would have sequences where it would dunk, steal and score again immediately, with a Henri Veesaar flush followed by Love draining a long 3 after a Jaden Bradley steal to make it 68-51.
An 11-0 Davidson run, with three more triples, cut the UA lead to six but Arizona responded with 12 straight including a stepback 3 from Dell’Orso and Townsend’s first 3 of the season to lead 80-62 with 10:09 left.
Townsend’s second trey put the UA up 20 with 7:09 remaining and Dell’Orso’s fifth 3 made it a 30-point game with under three to go. The 104 points were Arizona’s most since demolishing ASU 105-60 in February.
Arizona was very sloppy early, turning it over five times in the first five minutes to trail 14-7. Once it calmed down, though, the offense started to click, with a 16-2 run including 11 in a row putting the Wildcats up 25-18 with 9:42 to go in the first half.
Davidson went more than five minutes without scoring, and during that time Love started to heat up. He had 13 points with 1:08 left after scoring only 14 in the previous two games, his 3-point play putting the UA up 46-32.
Love, who had gone 11 games without reaching 20 points for the first time since starting his college career with 13 games below that mark, was 7 of 13 from the field, 3 of 7 from 3 and added five rebounds and four assists.
Arizona will be facing Oklahoma for the first time since 2010. The Wildcats are 2-5 against the Sooners, including losses in the 1999 and 2002 NCAA tournaments.
