Storybook 2nd half lifts Arizona over Utah; Pelle Larsson, Oumar Ballo hit milestone mark

Not because Utah hit 7 of 18 3-pointers in the first half. Nor because the Utes scored nine points off 10 UA turnovers before halftime, when the Wildcats led by just three points in front of a sold-out crowd at McKale.

Nope. It was because his 11th guy, freshman guard Conrad Martinez, didn’t get in the game on what was his 19th birthday. Lloyd said the event wasn’t communicated to him but mostly blamed himself.

“He’s really coming along and he deserved that opportunity,” Lloyd said of his plucky Spaniard. “I’m disappointed in myself that I wasn’t able to get him that reward.”

It was a missed storyline, for sure. But the 10th-ranked Wildcats had stories to tell about all five starters Saturday, while moving to 12-3 overall and 3-1 in the Pac-12 and taking care of a top conference competitor in the Utes (11-4, 2-2).

In the big picture, the most notable was that seniors Pelle Larsson and Oumar Ballo both hit the 1,000-point mark for their college careers in the second half, when the Wildcats went on runs of 12-0 and 9-0 to take control of the game.

After Utah’s Cole Bajema ended UA’s 12-0 run early in the second half with a 3-pointer, guard Caleb Love fed an alley-oop pass to Larsson for a dunk that gave UA a 61-48 lead and put Larsson at 1,001 points for his career.

Coincidentally, Larsson scored 204 of those points as a freshman at Utah in 2020-21.

“I guess it’s kind of full circle, if you want to write that,” Larsson said. “There’s one guy left on that team (center Branden Carlson) from when I played there, but they’re a great group of guys and it’s fun anytime I play them.”

Love then helped Ballo join the 1,000-point club later in the second half, when Arizona went on to take leads of up to 22 points. Love fed Ballo for a dunk that gave UA an 83-64 lead with 4:01 left, giving Ballo exactly 940 points in two-plus seasons at Arizona after he scored 60 as a little-used freshman at Gonzaga in 2020-21.

“I honestly didn’t know,” Ballo said. “Coming into the game, I had no idea I was that close. When I was four points away, Pelle got his and they told me, ‘Hey, you’re only four points away.’ I was like ‘Wow, I didn’t even know that.’”

Lloyd hardly did either.

Noting with a self-deprecating chuckle that he’s “not a big birthday guy” nor a “big milestone guy,” Lloyd nevertheless credited Larsson for agreeing to play for him when he arrived at Arizona after the 2020-21 season, and he credited Ballo for the gigantic jump he’s made since following Lloyd on the 2021 journey from Gonzaga.

“I don’t think anybody three years ago would have said Oumar Ballo was going to score 1,000 points,” Lloyd said. “It ain’t easy to score 1,000 points for your career, and he’s gonna do it in (essentially) three years, so I’m really proud of him.”

Those two assists from Love, meanwhile, helped tell his own story.

Transferring from North Carolina after last season, when he led the Tar Heels in scoring but drew heat because of his inefficient volume shooting, Love scored 23 points on 9-for-15 shooting, surpassing the 20-point mark for the fourth time in UA’s past five games, while grabbing six rebounds and dishing six assists.

“He’s an electric player,” Utah coach Craig Smith said. “There’s not much he can’t do on the basketball floor. ... I mean, that dude is a playmaking guard.”

One of Love’s highlights came when UA went on its 12-0 run early in the first half to take off from a 47-45 lead. During that run, Love chased a loose ball into the backcourt with Utah’s Gabe Madsen, managed to grab it, then stormed inside past Madsen for a dunk that made it 54-45.

The dunk represented the first two of 15 points Love scored in less than six minutes during the middle of the second half, with Arizona leading 71-54 with 9:20 left when his scoring spree ended.

“Caleb, as we know, he can get hot,” Lloyd said. “He got on a heater for a minute and I just told him, ‘Hey, take a breath. You got us a little separation. Now let us bring it home.’ Twenty-three is good enough. I told him, `I’ll take 15 and great defense,’ and he’s really grown in that area. He’s a game changer.”

While it was hardly a surprise to see senior forward Keshad Johnson also throwing down a few on Saturday, the story that the San Diego State transfer wrote included scoring 20 points for the second time this season and hitting both 3s he took.

Johnson scored all 10 of his first-half points in the first nine minutes and 21 seconds, an unusually microwavable outburst from a guy whose energy is normally spread all across the court, often in ways that don’t go in the box score.

The scoring “was so cool for Key,” Lloyd said. “Key was a guy who came here and we were told, ‘Great kid, plays hard, winner, ultimate team guy — which he is all those things — but maybe a little bit limited offensively. For him to score 20 points, quietly, is pretty special.”

For point guard Kylan Boswell, meanwhile, Saturday’s game was the second chapter in something of a two-game story.

The sophomore point guard totaled 10 assists to just two turnovers in UA’s wins against Colorado and Utah, dishing a no-look pass inside to Johnson while also hitting Ballo inside flawlessly twice Saturday, two days after tossing an eye-opening spiral down three-quarters of the court to assist Larsson on a layup against the Buffaloes.

That story was one that Lloyd and the Wildcats might not forget anytime soon.

“It’s crazy,” Lloyd said. “Thank God he completed it. We’ve never worked on a left-handed, double-bounce pass from 70 feet. And we never will.”