Defense meets offense when the No. 6 Tennessee Volunteers (9-1) are on the road to face the No. 9 Arizona Wildcats (9-1, 1-1 Pac-12) on Saturday. Tennessee edged past the Maryland Terrapins 56-53 at Barclays Center on Sunday, their eighth win in a row. Zakai Zeigler was the scoring leader with 12 points.
Tobe Awaka added 7 points and eight rebounds.Arizona won their third in a row in impressive fashion on Tuesday at McKale Memorial Center, beating the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders 99-61. Azuolas Tubelis had 20 points and 13 rebounds, carrying the team.
This marks the only meeting of the season between the teams. Tennessee took the only matchup between the teams last season 77-73 at Thompson-Boling Arena in December 2021.
John Fulkerson led the Volunteers with 24 points and 10 rebounds. Bennedict Mathurin had 28 points and eight rebounds in the losing effort. Julian Phillips (11.6 ppg), Tyreke Key (11.2), and Olivier Nkamhoua (10.5) are leading the Volunteers in scoring this season.
Phillips also has grabbed 6.1 rebounds per game. Meanwhile, Zeigler is dishing 3.6 assists per game.Tubelis and Oumar Ballo have supplied much of the Wildcats’ offense, averaging 20.2 and 18.1 points per game, respectively. Ballo also has collected 9.4 rebounds per game. Kerr Kriisa has tallied 6.9 assists per game.
The Wildcats rank No. 1 in the country in offensive efficiency, while the Volunteers are the top team for defensive efficiency. Tennessee is 9-1 in the last 10 games with an average margin of +22.6 (74.0-51.4). Arizona has also a 9-1 record over the last 10, scoring 92.0 points per game on average while holding opponents to 75.7 (+16.3 margin).
VOLUNTEERS HOT/COLD
(Last Five | Season Average | Differential)
Points + Rebounds + Assists:
Uros Plavsic: 14.2 | 9.4 | +4.8
Rebounds per game:
Olivier Nkamhoua: 6.8 | 5.4 | +1.4
Assists per game:
Santiago Vescovi: 1.6 | 2.7 | -1.1
WILDCATS HOT/COLD
(Last Five | Season Average | Differential)
Points per game:
Kerr Kriisa: 7.4 | 11.6 | -4.2
SportsTips’ College Basketball Pick:
Arizona (-165)
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*Odds correct at time of publication, courtesy of BetMGM.
