What to watch for when Arizona men’s basketball hosts Denver

Through the first three weeks of the 2025-26 season, Arizona has by far the best resume of any team in the country. The Wildcats have three wins over ranked teams, including two that were in the Top 5 at the time.

The most recent of those was Wednesday at then-No. 3 UConn, the UA’s second true road win over a Top 5 team under Tommy Lloyd. Only Alabama and Kentucky have more such games in the past five seasons.

But while the overall nonconference schedule is among the toughest in the country, they can’t all be bangers. Arizona’s next two games, beginning with Monday’s home tilt against Denver, are against schools ranked outside the top 250 on KenPom.com.

Arizona is 27-1 in nonconference home games under Lloyd, the only loss to Duke last season, and have won 40 consecutive nonconference home games to unranked teams.

Here’s what to watch for when the Wildcats host the Pioneers:

A chance to test and tweak

In the aftermath of the win at UConn, Lloyd was quick to point out that Arizona was far from a complete team despite its 5-0 mark and signature wins.

“Let’s be honest, the Florida game could have went another direction,” Lloyd said. “The UCLA game could have went another direction. So let’s not act like we’ve got all the world’s problems solved, but we’re having a lot of incredible experiences.”

Arizona still has marquee games in December against Auburn, Alabama and San Diego State, but the first of those is Dec. 6. That gave the Wildcats more than two weeks’ worth of practices, with a couple buy games littered in there, to fix any flaws that have surfaced so far.

“We have a new team, a young team, with some great veteran leadership,” Lloyd said. “I was really looking forward to getting through this game, no matter what the result was, and having an incredible two weeks where we can get better. We need to take a step as a program. This win here isn’t going to mean we’re going to be a great team in January or February, but the next two weeks of practice and our preparation will have more say in how we’re going to be down the line.

“We’re really, really going to double down on getting better the next couple of weeks.”

In that vein, look for Arizona to test out some different lineups, while also looking for opportunities to insert senior guard Evan Nelson (and possibly freshman forward Sidi Gueye) into the rotation to see if either can be involved in tougher games.

For instance, in the first five games Arizona has played bigs Tobe Awaka and Motiejus Krivas together 6.1 percent of the time but have yet to have them both out there along with Koa Peat.

An upstart opponent

The UA is 3-1 all-time against Denver, which plays in the Summit League, but the schools haven’t met since 1985. That was when the Pioneers were at the NAIA level before moving to Division I in 1996.

Denver (2-3) has not made the NCAA Tournament at the D-I level, only finishing at or above .500 12 times since moving up. But it’s coming off one of the program’s biggest wins in recent memory, beating in-state rival Colorado State on Friday.

Sophomore guard Carson Johnson had 18 at Colorado State and leads the Pioneers at 18.6 points per game. Senior wing Jeremiah Burke is averaging 17 and shooting 48.1 percent from 3.

Also on the roster is junior forward Gabe Oldham, who played for the Pima College team that went 35-1 and finished third in the NJCAA Division II nationals last season. Oldham is also the tallest player in the starting lineup at 6-foot-8.

Denver is rankled 351st out of 366 schools in defensive efficiency.

3-point practice?

Arizona has taken only 25.6 percent of its shots from 3-point range, the fifth-lowest rate in Division I. That includes attempting only five triples in the opener against Florida, while at UConn the Wildcats were just 2 of 10 from deep.

The 37.3 percent accuracy is solid, but against the top opponents either the UA hasn’t found the need to shoot from outside or haven’t had the right opportunities. Against Utah Tech and NAU it went a combined 18 of 41, with Dwayne Aristode tying the school freshman record with six 3s against NAU.

Denver allows 38.9 percent from 3, with every opponent hitting at least seven.