The Arizona Wildcats finished third in the Big 12, an impressive feat considering it was their first season in the conference.
The Wildcats had not played in road venues like Hilton Coliseum and Allen Fieldhouse in years — and it showed. After starting conference play 11-1, Arizona stumbled to the finish line, losing five of its final eight games — including three on the road.
Defense has been the biggest issue for Arizona down the stretch. In four of its last five games the Wildcats allowed the opposition to have career nights on offense, culminating with giving up a career-high tying 33 points to Hunter Dickinson in Saturday’s 83-76 loss to Kansas.
Head coach Tommy Lloyd has a few days to fix his team’s defensive issues before they play their first Big 12 Tournament game on Thursday.
“We’ve got a couple days to kind of recover and get our minds right and build. … Build for this postseason,” Lloyd said after the loss to Kansas. “Obviously I’ve got really high standards for myself and for the program and I wish we were higher than third, but it’s where we ended up and I don’t think there’s anything to be ashamed of being third in the Big 12. So now we’ve got to prepare for the conference tournament and let’s see what we can do.”
Arizona drops in latest NCAA NET Rankings
The loss to Kansas dropped Arizona three spots to No. 13 in the updated NCAA NET Rankings. The NET Rankings continue to be the only rankings that really matter, since the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee uses them as the primary sorting tool for selection and seeding for the 2025 NCAA Tournament.
The NET, which stands for the NCAA Evaluation Tool, has been used by the selection committee since 2018. It replaced the simplistic RPI formula and takes into account “game results, strength of schedule, game location, net offensive and defensive efficiency, and the quality of wins and losses.”
Arizona still has one of the most efficient offenses in the country, but their defense has dropped to No. 29 according to KenPom’s ratings. That is impacting their NET ranking, since the NET uses similar defensive efficiency metrics.
A No. 13 ranking in the NET is still solid, but the Wildcats will need to win at least two games in the Big 12 Tournament to secure a No. 4 seed or better in the NCAA Tournament. They’re currently projected as a No. 5 seed by ESPN and a No. 6 seed by CBS Sports.
Arizona will likely face Kansas in the Big 12 quarterfinals on Thursday, and if they win the Wildcats will probably play Texas Tech in the semifinals. Wins in both of those games would put Arizona right back into the top 10 heading into Selection Sunday.
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