Arizona’s free-flowing West Coast style meets Wichita State’s rock-solid Midwest defense

The NCAA flew teams from Arizona and Kansas to Rhode Island for basketball, so a geography lesson is in order.

The stereotype of wild-and-free West Coast teams with no affection for defense doesn’t apply to the sixth-seeded Arizona Wildcats. They will batter teams with their strength and rebounding and they own a solid reputation for defense. But there are differences in style of play between Arizona and Wichita State, dramatic ones when broadened to look at the Pac-12 and Missouri Valley conferences.

The teams play in the NCAA Tournament first round on Thursday and the 11th-seeded Shockers (25-8) are a patient, low-mistake team that relies on unyielding defense. Sixth-seeded Arizona (25-8) plays faster, shoots better and scores more. The Shockers are 19-1 when they score more than 70 points. Arizona scored 80 or more points 19 times.

“The Pac-12 is more of a free-flowing style at both ends,” said Arizona assistant coach Mark Phelps, who spent five seasons as coach at Drake. “I don’t know if it has anything to do with the geographical location, but that’s the way the Pac-12 is. There are some really gifted offensive players in the Pac-12 and there are times in every game where the offense may have a little bit of an edge over the defense.”

While one important difference is talent, the numbers say the differences are much more than that.

In Ken Pomeroy’s statistics for offensive efficiency, six Pac-12 schools rank in the top 50 by scoring 1.07 points per possession or better. Wichita State is the top MVC team (81st) at 1.08 points. Two Pac-12 schools rank in the top 50 for tempo and nine are in the top 200. In the Valley, no team is in the top 50 and six rank below 200. The Pac-12 has five teams in the top 50 of defensive efficiency, compared to three for the Valley.

Of those five, three have former MVC coaches leading them — No. 14 California (Cuonzo Martin, Missouri State), No. 27 Colorado (Tad Boyle, an assistant at WSU) and No. 48 Oregon (Dana Altman, Creighton).

Arizona ranks 16th nationally in Pomeroy’s offensive efficiency stat, scoring 1.16 points per possession with a combination of offensive rebounding that produces dunks for center Kaleb Tarczewski and forward Ryan Anderson and accurate outside shooting from its three-guard lineup. Within conference play, the Wildcats ranks first in offensive efficiency (1.15), first in three-point shooting (42.1 percent) and third in two-point shooting (52.3).

“To me, the game in our conference is kind of the way the game is moving everywhere,” Arizona coach Sean Miller said. “That is to make it more of a game of skill, to call the first foul. I don’t know how good of a team we are, but offensively we scored easier this year than we ever have.”

The Wildcats combine physical strength and shooting skill to challenge the Shockers. Arizona will force the ball to Tarczewski and Anderson early in the game to establish their superiority and draw fouls. Guard Gabe York is shooting 42.5 percent from three-point range and freshman guard Allonzo Trier averages 15 points.

“The West Coast, you always hear about people playing with great speed and offensive games,” WSU coach Gregg Marshall said. “It’s more aesthetically pleasing. But when you watch Arizona, even though they score (81.2) points a game, they’re a physical, tough team. They could easily go into the Big Ten and compete for championships because of their size and their strength.”

The Shockers are used to playing teams with size and reputation advantages, although those deficits are falling in recent seasons. The NCAA gave WSU another reason to feel slighted when it was sent to Dayton for Tuesday’s First Four. WSU played a superb second half to dispatch Vanderbilt — a team reputed to start to NBA Draft picks — by 20 points. Now the Shockers can further validate their entry into the field and start to follow the path of previous First Four survivors such as VCU (Final Four in 2011) and Tennessee (Sweet 16 in 2014).

“We’re using anything we can as motivation and just trying to keep advancing,” WSU guard Fred VanVleet said. “Typically the talk is that those teams that are in those play-in games shouldn’t be in the tournament, so we just take all of that as ammunition.”

This story was originally published March 16, 2016 at 8:15 PM with the headline "Arizona’s free-flowing West Coast style meets Wichita State’s rock-solid Midwest defense."