Here's a link to the official boxscore and play by play.
--
No matter the opponent, fans who do show up at McKale Center these days can almost always count on a Derrick Williams highlight.
On Tuesday, it was this: A 360-degree spinning dunk that Jamelle Horne called "crazy." (UA's website has video of the dunk here)
Before Tuesday, it was any number of one-handed jams, some with minimal or no look at all at the basket.
But Sean Miller isn't about to turn the light red. Not as long as the flashy shots keep going in.
"I'm just playing the percentages," Miller said. "He's shooting about 85 percent so whatever he shoots, I'm going to live with right now."
People are also reading…
Williams is shooting 74.3 percent from the field through four games while averaging 19.3 points over an average of just 24.3 minutes.
"He's really aware of a good shot or bad shot," Miller said. "He has an uncanny ability to shoot left-handed and right-handed and jump quick. Sometimes I try to give teammates to get him the ball more. We got away from that a little tonight because they were trapping and spreading us out. But that's all part of the early season."
Miller is also aware of the adrenaline boost that Williams' acrobatics can bring.
"We want to play a fun brand of basketball," he said. "We want to push the pace, play hard-nosed man to man, play a lot of different players. Not that we're a great team by any stretch. We want to keep getting better. I love our team's attitude. Starts with Derrick, our best player, and Jamelle, our one senior, those guys having a great attitude and really caring about winning, which they do."
--
Miller continued to praise Williams in the postgame media room:
"He's very instinctive. He's a quick jumper, he's got great hands, he's a fun guy to coach, and he's obviously off to a very good start. He's a great teammate. I can't say enough good things about Derrick. And I know that the best is yet to come. He has a ways to go in certain areas, but because of who he is he'll keep getting better and there's no question we have one of the best players in the country on our team.
On the rise of Williams this season:
"I was more surprised last year at this time. He played a couple of games here and then went to Maui. For a guy to shoot 22 free throws against Wisconsin in the third game of his college career really says a lot about him. From that point on he's been very productive and continuing to learn to play on defense. Now he's playing some at the four and he's learning to play with guy like Kyryl. To me that's like a whole different game for Derrick. He's guarding perimeter players more and he's away from the basket sometime, but he's doing a good job there as well."
--
You could say Kyle Fogg is a beneficiary of Williams' offense: A full 10 of his 22 assists result from passes to Williams.
At least that's what Fogg will tell you.
"He's obviously a really good player and I try to make it a point of emphasis to give him the ball," Fogg said. "He's shooting over 70 percent so it's just give him the ball and let him go to work."
But it's not quite that simple. Noting that the publicly soft-spoken Fogg has "a little bit of Eddie Haskell in him," Sean Miller said there's more to the story.
"He has a real good relationship with Derrick on the court," Miller said. "Some of Derrick's best plays come because Kyle just has a feel for Derrick. When they're together on screening actions, it's amazing. Kyle just has that sense of where Derrick is. And Derrick obviously does a great job of finishing."
--
A crowd of 11,762 did show up Tuesday, once again UA's smallest since 1986.
If this bothers the players, they aren't saying.
"Not really," Jesse Perry said. "We just go out there as a team and try to get in a zone as a team. We emphasize being all in as a family. We don't try to focus too much on the on the crowd. They play a big part of Arizona but we just try to stay together."
--
Miller said the Wildcats won't know for sure until they get to Las Vegas how their first four games prepared them, but he had reason to feel good.
"We played the games that the (Las Vegas Invitational) tournament provides -- Northern Colorado and Bethune-Cookman, and ... we played against a real dangerous New Mexico State team," Miller said. "We've seen a little bit of everything. We've had a lot of different players get a chance to play in games so from that respect I think it's been good."
--
If the Wildcats looked like they let down a bit on Tuesday, Miller wasn't blaming that. To him, it was the other Wildcats' style of play, trying to keep in the game by slowing down the pace.
"We're so far from being that front-running team," Miller said. "We haven't done anything. There's nobody in our locker room that's coming off a Final Four or is ready to become a lottery pick in two months. We'e just trying to get better. Bethune-Cookman can beat us, Northern Colorado can beat us, Santa Clara can beat us. ... We have to keep getting better. We're not that type where we can say, `Oh we've got Santa Clara and Kansas in Vegas so let's not play hard tonight.' We're trying to play hard every play."
Miller said the Wildcats played as hard Tuesday as in any other game.
"Yep," he said. "But it was a really different game. It's tough to play hard when their center is dribbling at halfcourt for 15 seconds. So it was just a matter of staying with it, and I think our team did a good job of staying with it."
--
Miller said he plans to stick with a 10-man rotation, although "nine and 10 may not play as much down the road as they are now."
"That's what we're working through now. Kyryl is doing a great job. You look at his stats: Kyryl had six rebounds in 13 minutes - that's great. It's up to us to get him on the floor a little more with Derrick and that's something we're looking to do. It'll be interesting to see this weekend how that works. We'll have more answers after we play these two games."
--
Terrence Jones and Kentucky lived up to the hype against Washington.
--
Santa Clara, UA's next opponent, barely escaped Northern Colorado.
--
Garland Judkins & his Corpus Christi teammates were smashed at Kansas.

