Basketball Plays of the Day for March 12: Free NCAAB Picks (Archive)
The Arizona Wildcats will look to finish terrific conference season with a win against UCLA in tonight’s Pac-12 Championship. Can the Wildcats do enough to beat the Bruins? Let’s see the NCAAB odds for this matchup.
UCLA Bruins vs. Arizona Wildcats
Saturday, March 12, 2022 – 09:00 PM EST at T-Mobile Arena
The Arizona Wildcats will look to finish off a dream regular-season with a Pac-12 Championship against the UCLA Bruins. Arizona has just three losses on the year, but one was a loss to UCLA, on the road. However, Arizona returned the favor winning by double digits against UCLA at home.
Right now, both of these teams are championship-caliber teams. But in the grand scheme of things, Arizona gives UCLA more problems. The UCLA Bruins aren't going to take a high number of three-point shots. Instead, UCLA wants to score inside the arc, where the Bruins only shoot 49.5% from the field.
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The Bruins have been solid on the offensive glass, earning 31.9% offensive rebounds and only turning the ball over 13.5% of the time. But getting to the foul line will be hard knowing that Arizona really limits teams from getting to the foul line this season.
Arizona is also the best defensive team in the nation inside the arc, allowing teams to shoot just 41.6% from the field. Again, UCLA wants to score inside and won't shoot a heavy amount of threes, so with UCLA shooting less than 50% from inside and Arizona holding teams to nearly 40% from inside, this is a good defensive matchup for Arizona.
On the other hand, the Wildcats have been absolutely unstoppable down low, shooting 57.6% from inside and also shooting 35.1% from downtown. The Wildcats earn 34.5% offensive rebounds and get to the foul line way more frequently than UCLA does.
The Wildcats might turn the ball over a little bit more, but at just 18% on the season, the turnover rate is average in college basketball. The Wildcats will be fine in that category. Meanwhile, UCLA is holding teams to 31.9% from three and 47.1% from inside the arc.
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Unlike UCLA, Arizona assists on 65.2% of field goals made. UCLA only assists on 50.6%. Ball movement is real when it comes to Arizona and that surely keeps defenses off-balance. Arizona is a little bit less experienced than UCLA but the talent level with Arizona is still at a higher level.
Prediction
Obviously, Kerr Kriisa will be unavailable for tonight's game with an ankle injury but Arizona already played a game without him last night and scored 1.12 points per possession while limiting Colorado to under 1 point per possession.
Therefore, for my NCAAB picks, I'll ride the Arizona Wildcats. If these two teams played each other 100 times, Arizona would win more times than not. In that one loss to UCLA, Arizona was just terrible from the field, scoring 34% from inside and 25% from outside. Arizona averages over 55% from inside per game. It was just a terrible offensive performance that won't happen again.
NCAAB Pick: Arizona (-115) with BetOnline (visit our BetOnline Review)
*The line and/or odds on picks in this article might have moved since the content was commissioned. For updated line movements, visit BMR’s free betting odds product.