On Saturday afternoon, Grant McCasland and the No. 16 Texas Tech Red Raiders will head west to meet up with the top-ranked (and previously unbeaten) Arizona Wildcats. The No. 1 Wildcats are fresh off a loss to the No. 9 Kansas Jayhawks and will be looking to bounce back after their 23-game win streak was snapped.
Which will mean this game will be all sorts of interesting because Texas Tech has the opportunity to continue to spoil Arizona’s special season and both of these teams are currently sitting in the upper echelon of the Big 12 standings at the moment.
With both of these teams in the top five of the Big 12 standings and both of these teams featuring loaded rosters with tons of talent, it’ll be fascinating to see how they match up on Saturday.
Let’s go ahead and preview things from a numbers perspective.
No. 16 Texas Tech vs. No. 1 Arizona by the numbers: Comparing the Red Raiders and Wildcats ahead of Saturday’s matchup
Both Arizona and Texas Tech are incredibly productive when it comes to scoring. The Wildcats are averaging 88.8 points per game while Texas Tech is averaging 82.2 points per game. On average, Arizona is scoring 20.6 points per game more than their opponents while Tech is averaging 9.9 points per game more than its foes.
Shooting wise, the Wildcats are incredibly effective from just about all over the court as they’re making 51.2 percent of their shots overall and 35.7 percent of their three point attempts. Texas Tech, meanwhile, is making 46.7 percent of its shots and 39.1 percent of its three point attempts.
Interestingly enough, the Red Raiders are considerably more active from behind the three point line than the Wildcats are. Texas Tech takes 29.4 three point attempts per game and makes 11.5 of them while Arizona attempts 16.5 three pointers per game and makes 5.9 of them.
Arizona wins the rebounding battle here as the Wildcats get 44 rebounds per game and have a rebound margin of +13. Texas Tech enters this game grabbing 37.7 rebounds per game and has a rebound margin of +3.6.
This game is going to be interesting. As long as Texas Tech can consistently make threes, then they should have a shot. We’ll see how that translates on the road in this matchup.