What we learned from the Arizona Wildcats men’s basketball championship Roman Main Event in Las Vegas

The Arizona Wildcats are no longer a secret.

After easily defeating then-No. 4 Michigan 80-62 on Sunday night, in the process of clinching the Roman Main Event title in Las Vegas, UA (5-0) put itself on the national radar after starting the season off the map. And it’s done in a historic way.

It was also Arizona’s largest margin of victory over a top-5 team since beating Michigan State 80-61 in the 2001 Final Four. So yeah, it’s a big win.

Big enough for jump UA to 17th in latest AP poll, ranked first since February 2020.

Our full recap of Sunday’s game can be found here. Below is what we learned from Arizona’s game in Vegas, both a convincing win over the Wolverines and Friday’s contested overtime win over Wichita State:

Christian Koloko is the Pac-12 Player of the Year nominee

“I’ve been telling you this whole time, he’s very nice.”

Trainer Tommy Lloyd said that on November 12, after Koloko hit a career high at the time, 18 points and 11 rebounds after UT-Rio Grande Valley. Nine days later, played the preseason All-American at Michigan’s Hunter Dickinson, Koloko scored 22 and provided the latest example of why polls and pre-season lists are meaningless.

“For me it was just another night,” said Koloko, who was awarded the MVP of the Roman Main Event tournament, while his mother, who had flown in from Cameroon, was there to watch him play for the first time.

Nobody chose Koloko to be in the Pac-12 pre-season team—including the current company—and that’s understandable. His first two seasons provide a glimpse of his bright side, but he hasn’t combined them all on a consistent basis.

Now, he has. He has a good chance of becoming the Pac-12 Player of the Week after averaging 17 points, 7.7 rebounds and 3.3 blocks in three games, but that’s just the beginning of what he’s capable of this season.

“I think he’s a problem for anyone,” Lloyd said. “For the moment the biggest thing is to make sure he believes it. I think he believes now.”

Defense is why Arizona is 5-0 and makes it a conference title contender

UA scored in his first 11 possessions in the second half against Michigan but also had a few periods where he went several minutes without a basket. It was even worse on Friday against Wichita, when the Wildcats missed 19 of their last 24 shots in the second half.

The explosive attack—Arizona averages 88.8 points per game—is not unstoppable, especially when he shoots his own foot as with 22 turnovers against Wichita. But defense, it was there from the start.

Michigan has never made more than three shots in a row and its longest score is 4-0. Wichita had some better runs but also shot under 34 percent.

Arizona only allowed 31.8 percent to shoot through five games, with Michigan’s 43.4 percent judging the best of any opponent. Koloko, Azuolas Tubelis and Oumar Ballo protect the rim, with enemies only taking 36 percent of their 2 seconds, the second worst rate in the country.

UA sitting 10^th in adjusted defense efficiency, per KenPom.com.

3-point shooting is a concern

Lloyd has said he’s willing to accept some poor 3-pointers as long as it doesn’t become too common and it’s not because his team is well established. After doing 4 of 21 against Michigan and 9 of 48 for the Roman Main Event, Lloyd may want to control that part of the offense.

The Wildcats are now 41 out of 129 from outside, a 31.8 percent clip. The only person who shoots better than 35 percent is Kim Aiken Jr. and Love for Men, which played a combined 15 minutes in Vegas.

Kerr Krisa was 14 for 42 after going 3 out of 18 over the weekend. His best shots are usually off-screen, which is part of the offensive stream, but too often Arizona takes these shots simply because they’re there.

When you’re shooting 60.2 percent on 2-pointers, while also being in the top 35 nationally in free-throw attempts—how often you hit the line—it doesn’t have to take so many 3 seconds. That being said, at some point this season the Wildcats will run into a team that forces it to shoot from the perimeter, so this area has to get a lot better.

Krisa’s can keep shooting from the inside if it keeps doing everything else

Kriisa has just 7 points on a 3-of-12 shot, but if that’s all you’re paying attention to, you’re not putting in close enough effort for how much he impacts Arizona at either end of the field.

The guard sophomore provided 7 assists, surpassing his highest 6 assists two days earlier, and did not turn the ball in 29 minutes of play. In 133 minutes this season he has only provided it four times against 23 assists.

“I thought he had a great floor game today and really controlled that game,” Lloyd said.

And we haven’t mentioned his defense yet, which doesn’t get enough credit. Against Michigan, he made four steals, twice as many as any other college game, and also drew twice over a span of 47 seconds in the first half on Sunday.

Throw in the fact that he’s the emotional lead of UA—he averages about 4.5 punches, floor slaps, and screams of joy per game—and you’ve got someone both a crowd favorite and a true floor general.

Tommy Lloyd can no longer play coy

Lloyd has spent a fair amount of time during press conferences belittling hopes for his first team, citing the relative youth of the roster as well as hopes for what the Wildcats can achieve. It was over now, and Lloyd was quick to change gears after the Michigan game.

“I’m not going to make a statement that we’re going to do this or that, but I know in my heart what success looks like and I know what a good team looks like and I know we can be good,” he said. “If the secret comes out, it will come out.”

Lloyd’s is not the first choice of most Arizona fans, as well as some notable alumni—remember when Gilbert Arenas state that “assistant coach has no credentials?”—but it’s highly unlikely that many of those people are still on the fence.

And because of that, the bar for Arizona in 2021-22 suddenly disappeared method to the top.