Arizona posts ready for battle with Shockers

Arizona’s front line was willing to sacrifice a little bit of sleep Tuesday night, for good reason.

They had a basketball game to watch and players to study. And, not to belabor a point ... but nobody slept.

“We were up,” said Arizona forward Ryan Anderson, an All-Pac-12 pick. “And we watched the whole thing.”

So when Wichita State faces a team filled with elite post players — and a pair of 7-footers, just like First Four opponent Vanderbilt — they can scrap any plans they may have had of taking the Wildcats by surprise.

“I think their big men are really, really good,” Anderson said. “The thing about Wichita State is everybody knows how hard they play, and their big men are a great example of that. Not just this year, but over the last couple of years they’ve had really skilled bigs. What was impressive to me last night was they had a big guy who could step out and hit jumpers.”

WSU (25-8) may have to use the big guy Anderson was talking about, 6-foot-9 Anton Grady, with another big guy in 6-8 forward Shaq Morris at the same time if they want to combat Arizona’s size advantage in Thursday night’s South Regional showdown. WSU coach Gregg Marshall played the two together in stretches against Vanderbilt, which hasn’t been a look opponents have seen much against the Shockers this season.

“I enjoy being on the floor with Anton,” Morris said. “It’s not something we’ve done a lot of, but I wish we would do it more.”

Anderson, a 6-9 senior, leads Arizona with 15.5 points and 10.2 rebounds and is joined in the starting lineup by 7-foot center Kaleb Tarczewski (9.4 points, 9.3 rebounds), a second-team All-Pac-12 pick.

Arizona (25-8) brings a combined 14.5 points and 6.9 rebounds off the bench in 7-foot sophomore Dusan Ristic, a Sunrise Christian Academy product, and 6-9 senior forward Mark Tollefson.

“I think we definitely have a size advantage, but I don’t know if that’s a weakness or a strength against Wichita State,” Tarczewski said. “We like to look at it like it’s a strength, but (WSU) has played small all season. They don’t let bigger teams affect them. You saw that last night. If you don’t get the ball right in front of the rim and try to take a dribble in the post they’re really good at closing down on you and making you turn the ball over.

“When I say we need to use our size to our advantage, I mean we need to try and catch the ball right at the rim.”

WSU was effective against Vanderbilt’s 7-1 Luke Kornet and 7-foot Damian Jones, holding the two to a combined 13 points and 11 rebounds. More incredible was that they did it with a little-used post player in 6-10 sophomore Rauno Nurger, who logged 17 minutes, his most playing time in two months.

“They have three or four really good guys that play about the same amount of time,” Ristic said. “They’re athletic, physical guys and you have to find a way to match their effort.”

Arizona also took away a motivational ploy that WSU uses on occasion — disrespect.

“When you have as much success as both teams have had over the last few years, you can only pull so many different motivational tricks out of your hat,” Anderson said. “Both teams are motivated. We want to win it all, they want to win it all. End of the day, it’s who makes the most plays down the stretch.”

This story was originally published March 16, 2016 at 8:55 PM with the headline "Arizona posts ready for battle with Shockers."