Both teams have put a strong display in their previous games and are hungry for more.
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Let’s be clear, this is a very good team Arizona will face, and the Wildcats will certainly be tested this Saturday.
B1g beaters: The Hokies already have two wins over Big Ten opponents this season, defeating Nebraska and MI in back-to-back games in November. The Arizona Wildcats (31-4) prevailed due to superior talent and poured 100 points in an easy win. Every game has to be treated like it could be the last, and with the Wildcats being one of the early favorites, the target is squarely on Arizona.
On the season, VCU basketball is averaging 75.0 points, 36.3 rebounds and 15.5 assists per game.
“The game plan was to be aggressive, but we had too many needless fouls”, Wade said.
But Saint Mary’s has played better than a 7-seed. Miller’s Wildcats have not broken through to the Final Four during his tenure, however. “I say that because not until you go against Saint Mary’s do you truly understand how well they move the ball, how well they execute, and how together they are on both offense and defense”.
Tanner Krebs, a 6-6 freshman forward from Australia, scored all 12 points of his points in the first half, including 6 of 6 from the foul line, almost matching his career high of 13 to stake the Gaels to a 15-point halftime lead. VCU opted to cover Landale one on one with the 6-7 Alie-Cox and 6-9 Hamdy and cover the Gaels’ 3-point shooters. URI is led by a future pro in E.C. Matthews (14.9 PPG) and talented forward Hassan Martin (14.1 PPG, 7.0 RPG), and is playing its best basketball of the season.
Thorn in the side: Three of Saint Mary’s four losses were to Gonzaga, the No. 1 seed in the West.
The Rams had a hard time dealing with Saint Mary’s 6-11, 255-pound center, Jock Landale. Fortunately, their focus on closing down on the shooters from the deep was present and they’ve forced the Rams to miss 11 of their 13 deep shots.
But whereas the Fighting Hawks came into their first-round matchup with the Wildcats as undersized underdogs, the Gaels are expected to give Arizona all it can handle with its size, which helped lead to a plus-9.3 rebounding margin during the season while holding opponents to just 57.1 points per game. “They have a few more ways to score; they’re pretty balanced, they have a lot of guys who can make a basket on that team”. They got to the free-throw line 39 times and made 29 – three more than the Rams attempted.
After an undefeated start to the NCAA Tournament, there is plenty for Pac-12 fans to look forward to this weekend. They can’t afford to do that against the Gaels. Defensively, VCU is yielding 66.3 points per game against the opposing teams.
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The key to this game is on who will adjust to the other’s game better. The Gaels can’t do that against Arizona because the Wildcats can score in bunches and will push for triple digits on any given night. The two teams could not schedule their usual scrimmage against one another this past fall, but familiarity with Arizona hasn’t diminished one bit.
