13 NCAA Basketball Tournament: Arizona Wildcats 81 – 64 Belmount Bruins

Mar 21, 2013; Salt Lake City, UT, USA; Arizona Wildcats center Kaleb Tarczewski (35) scores a basket on Belmont Bruins forward Trevor Noack (30) in the first half during the second round of the 2013 NCAA tournament at EnergySolutions Arena. Mandatory Credit: Steve Dykes-USA TODAY Sports

Today the Arizona Wildcats #6 seed took on the Belmont Bruins #11 seed in Salt Lake City, UT.  The game started out slow and was mostly controlled by Arizona.  With 15 minutes to go in the first half Arizona lead Belmont 9-4.  The next 5 minutes of play was pretty slow offensively, by the 10 minute mark to go in the first half the score was only 14-7  Arizona.  The last ten minutes was pretty similar to the first ten minutes and was more of a defensive game.

At halftime Arizona lead Belmont by 12 with the score being 32-20.  Looking at the stats at half time Arizona should have been blowing out Belmont.  Arizona led field goal percentage 38%-26%, free throws 8-10 for 80% to 4-6 for 66%, offensive rebounds 6-0, defensive rebounds 19-5 for a total of 26-7.  They also, led in assist 7-2 and blocks 3-0.  With such advantage on paper Arizona was only up by 12 though mostly due to Arizona had 9 turnovers to Belmont’s 3.  Leading scorer for Belmont was Ian Clark (guard) with 11.  Arizona’s leading scorer was Mark Lyons with 9 points and 3 assists.  Arizona’s led was also thanks to Kaleb Tarczewski (center) who had a good half with 6 points and 4 rebounds and Brandon Ashley (forward) who came off the bench and had 4 points and six rebounds.

Mar 21, 2013; Salt Lake City, UT, USA; Arizona Wildcats forward Solomon Hill (44) drives to the basket in the first half of the game against the Belmont Bruins during the second round of the 2013 NCAA tournament at EnergySolutions Arena. Mandatory Credit: Steve Dykes-USA TODAY Sports

The second half would be a lot like the first half and with 15 minutes to go in the game Arizona was up by 17 with the score being 43-26.    With ten minutes to go Arizona still held a 17 point lead with the score being 55-38.  With four minutes to go Belmont had cut the led down to 13 after a few threes started to drop.