Purdue Basketball Know Your Enemy: Arizona Wildcats

The Arizona Wildcats and the Purdue Boilermakers will face off in the Elite Eight tomorrow night with a trip to the Final Four on the line. Let’s not sugarcoat it, Arizona is good. Very good. It’s going to take Purdue’s A game to win this thing. Maybe even an A+ game. It will take a game like Purdue had against Michigan, another team that no one thought Purdue could beat. And yet…

So, with that in mind I reached out to Brian Pedersen from Arizona Desert Swarm part of SB Nation who I’ve worked with in the past on Q&As. We did a Q&A previously when these two teams met in Indianapolis two seasons ago when Arizona was #1 and Purdue was #3. Brian agreed rapidly and we got this all done in about 12 hours. Go over there and say hi, introduce yourself, talk some (polite) trash, and learn more about the Wildcats from their own fans.

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With all the preamble out of the way let’s get into the Q&A!

Arizona has consistently been one of the best if not the best team all season long. How do you explain that consistency night in and night out?

I think it comes down to a combination of the balance it has on offense, the devotion to getting the ball inside and just not having a bad game.

Eight different players have led the team in scoring this season, with seven getting to 20 in a game. Against Arkansas it became the first team in NCAA tourney history to have six score at least 14. And so much of that comes with the offensive approach, which is heavy on the paint and getting to the line.

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It’s a lot harder to have an off night offensively when most of the shots are coming at the rim or the foul line.

Arizona’s two losses on the season came against Kansas and Texas Tech by a combined 7 points and the loss to Texas Tech went into overtime. What was different about those two games if anything?

Kansas was the first and only time this season that the opponent dictated how the game went. The Jayhawks forced the 2-point shots a little further from the rim, and with…

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Publish date : 2026-03-27 23:38:00

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