Arizona men's basketball: Scouting report for Friday's game against West Virginia

No. 24 Arizona (3-3) vs West Virginia (4-2)

• Battle 4 Atlantis third-place game • Imperial Ballroom • Paradise Island, Bahamas • 1 p.m. Friday • ESPN2 • 1290-AM

PROBABLE STARTERS

ARIZONA

G Jaden Bradley (6-3 junior)

G Caleb Love (6-4 senior)

F KJ Lewis (6-4 sophomore)

F Trey Townsend (6-6 senior)

C Tobe Awaka (6-8 junior)

WEST VIRGINIA

G Javon Small (6-3 senior)

G Sencire Harris (6-4 sophomore)

F Toby Okani (6-8 senior)

F Tucker DeVries (6-7 senior)

C Amani Hansberry (6-8 sophomore)

How they match up

The series: Arizona leads 3-2 but the now-Big 12 members haven't met since the 2008 NCAA Tournament, when West Virginia beat UA 75-65. That season, Kevin O’Neill had taken over on an interim basis for Lute Olson, who retired permanently the next fall.

West Virginia overview: In the wake of former coach Bob Huggins’ messy 2023 departure, and a 9-23 season that followed under an interim coaching staff last season, expectations were low for the Mountaineers this season.

But new coach Darian DeVries arrived from Drake and overhauled the Mountaineers' roster with 12 new players, and the results so far suggest the rebuild could go quickly. West Virginia was 3-1 entering this week, then upset third-ranked Gonzaga in the Battle 4 Atlantis first round on Wednesday and nearly made the championship game before losing 79-70 in overtime to Louisville on Thursday.

By persuading his son, Tucker, to follow him from Drake, Darian DeVries immediately received a high-IQ, do-everything forward who was a two-time MVC Player of the Year. Tucker DeVries recorded a steal and hit two free throws to send the Gonzaga game into overtime, though his foul-out against Louisville was a key factor in the Mountaineers’ loss.

The Mountaineers’ engine is point guard Javon Small, a transfer from Oklahoma State who can score at all levels, get to the line and set up teammates well. Two transfers from Illinois have also played big roles so far, guard Sencire Harris and post player Amani Hansberry. Harris sat out last season but is an especially active defender while Hansberry is an undersized but versatile center who passes well and can stretch defenses out to the 3-point line.

Key players

West Virginia – Javon Small

Already a proven Big 12 standout, having received honorable mention all-league honors last season with Oklahoma State, Small has been everything for the Mountaineers’ backcourt so far this season. He averages 34.7 minutes a game while hitting 42.9% from 3 and 82.1% from the line. He also picks up a steal on 4.7% of opponents’ possessions when he’s on the floor.

Arizona — Anthony Dell’Orso

After a quiet start to the season, Dell’Orso has emerged as the scoring threat off the bench the Wildcats expected since finding him in the portal out of Campbell, where he was the Camels’ leading scorer and shot 38.7% from 3-point range. In two Battle 4 Atlantis games so far, Dell’Orso has made 12 of 18 shots and averaged 15.0 points.

SIDELINES

Emotional rollercoaster

After unranked West Virginia pulled off its shocking win over No. 3 Gonzaga on Wednesday, Mountaineers players stuffed into a meeting room across the hallway from the Imperial Ballroom and made so much noise that guards and other passersby four or five doors down turned toward them.

Once they left, they tried to come down to Earth. Their next game was in just 21 hours.

“Of course you want to celebrate a really big win,” West Virginia guard Javon Small said. “But we knew we had three games in three days. So once we beat Gonzaga, we had to go. I felt like once we got our win, we were in the locker room maybe for a few minutes, but it was on to the next game.”

That approach wasn't enough. While West Virginia coach Darren DeVries said he didn’t think his players ran out of gas, something was still missing when the Mountaineers flat-lined in a 79-70 loss to Louisville, with two starters fouling out, including Tucker DeVries.

Meanwhile, Small might have let the clock wind down too far at the end of regulation, when the Mountaineers had a chance to win the game. Small had the ball at the top of the key with about 20 seconds left, and 18 on the shot clock, but dribbled until about seven seconds were left, then failed to find an open look for himself or his teammates.

The Mountaineers were called for a shot-clock violation.

"I've just got to know the shot clock," Small said. "They were blitzing the ball screen all the time and I tried to make a play but turned it over."

New team, bigger game

After twice earning honorable mention honors at Wisconsin, Louisville guard Chucky Hepburn set out to become one of the best point guards in college basketball.

He’s off to a pretty good start this week.

In Louisville’s wins over Indiana and West Virginia, Hepburn averaged 24 points and six assists while burning his way to the basket or the free throw line. Over the two games, he hit 11 of 13 two-pointers and 4 of 9 3s while his performance Thursday in Louisvillle’s 79-70 win over West Virginia was one for the books: He had 32 points while shooting 8 of 12 from the field and hitting 14 of 17 free throws.

He also had 10 assists with four turnovers.

"Chucky's performance was spectacular," Louisville coach Pat Kelsey said. "I've coached Chris Paul and several other NBA point guards, and that was one of the single most dominant performances on both ends of the floor by a point guard that I've ever seen standing on the sidelines as a coach."

Hepburn’s speed and aggressiveness appear to be a pretty good fit at Louisville so far. At Wisconsin, the Badgers ran the No. 304 adjusted tempo last season even with him, while Louisville is running at the 57th fastest tempo so far this season.

“I transferred because I wanted to play a little more faster, and coach Kelsey gave me the keys when I first committed,” Hepburn said. “I’m not knocking Wisconsin system at all. I was a winner there, won a Big 10 championship and found ways to win there, so I’m not knocking it at all.”

Tough reunion

While former UA center Oumar Ballo didn’t get a chance to face the Wildcats in the Battle 4 Atlantis, he did get a chance to face another former team in Gonzaga.

That matchup came with mixed feelings. Ballo scored a season-high 25 points on 11-for-13 field-goal shooting against Gonzaga on Thursday but Indiana was only competitive for the first 15 minutes of its 89-73 loss to the Bulldogs in a consolation round game earlier Thursday.

“There’s a reason why they’ve been good for so long,” Ballo said. “I wish we had a different result.”

Still, Indiana coach Mike Woodson said he had nothing to complain about with Ballo.

“He’s doing everything we asked of him,” Woodson said.

Numbers game

1 – Tobe Awaka’s national rank in offensive rebounding percentage (26.3).

6 – West Virginia’s national rank in defensive block percentage (18.5)

356 – West Virginia’s national rank in minutes continuity (0.0%), a Kenpom measure of what percentage of a team’s minutes are played by the same player from last season to this season.