Arizona vs Iowa St: The Big Monday Hate Watch

Blake Buchanan isn’t a huge physical presence but is coming off of an 11 rebound game against Texas Tech. Now we get to fade. Texas Tech is a bit devoid of size right now after the injury to JT Toppin, as they’ve been forced to put some small lineups on the floor. So it makes perfect sense for Buchanan to have a huge game on the boards, especially when Iowa State was throwing Jefferson at Christian Anderson to double team quite often. 

Of those 11 rebounds however, 8 of them were on the offensive glass. Which falls right in line of what Buchanan typically needs to hit this line. He has only had more than 6 rebounds twice in Big 12 play. One of them was the last game and the other one was against Oklahoma State. Another smaller, nonphysical team where it would make sense for a big rebounding game. He had 9 total in that game and 6 were offensive.

Between Krivas, Peat, Kharchenkov, Awaka, and more, Arizona has size that should make those boards tough, especially on the offensive end. They rank 161st in CBB in offensive rebounds allowed at 8.7 per game, which isn’t as impressive as you probably would’ve thought given their size and physicality. But some of those spike numbers have come with Koa Peat out for the 3.5 games he missed (3.5 because he played 10 minutes against Texas Tech before exiting with injury). Arizona’s opponents exceeded the 8.7 number in each of those 4 games, tallying 9, 13, 9, and 12 offensive boards.

It’s a particularly tough matchup at the 4 to grab boards on either side of the court against Arizona because he’ll have to match up with either Peat or Awaka. Extremely active rebounders are more athletic than Buchanan and comfortable hanging out around the block to get position. I wouldn’t be shocked either if the athleticism mismatch leads to some early foul trouble for him too. It seems to me that if Arizona can keep Buchanan off the offensive glass it’ll be tough for him to get this projection.

On the defensive side, Iowa State loves to try and do everything in their power to force turnovers and create havoc defensively. That strategy may have to be conserved a bit against Arizona, since the bigs can punish them unlike Texas Tech’s. This is not a game where you can double the ball handler and make anyone else beat you, they’ll have to play straight up. Arizona doesn’t shoot many threes as is but should be funneled into some slower paced 1v1 matchups on the inside, which would likely turn into tougher rebound opportunities. Let’s hate watch Blake.