TUCSON, Ariz. – After the 2015 edition of the McDonald's Red-Blue game and a home exhibition versus Chico State, the 2015-16 Arizona Basketball season is set to officially begin. The Wildcats will host the Pacific Tigers at 7:30 p.m. (MST) on Friday, Nov. 13 inside the McKale Center on the Pac-12 Network.
Friday night's season opener is the beginning to a frenzied start to the season for UA. Arizona will play its first four games of the season within a span of a week and a half with all games being played on Olson Court in Tucson.
Arizona vs. Pacific
Friday, Nov. 13 at 7:30 p.m. (MST)
TV: Pac-12 Network (Kevin Calabro & Matt Muehlebach)
Radio: Arizona IMG Radio Network (Brian Jeffries & Ryan Hansen)
Stats: www.arizonalivestats.com
Twitter: @APlayersProgram
#BearDown
- UA will honor the passing of former Wildcat Michael Wright with a moment of silence just before the national anthem. The team will also don special warm-up tops with Wright's jersey number of two.
- Arizona enters the 2015-16 season, tied with Kentucky, as the winningest program in college basketball over the last two seasons with 67 wins. The 34 wins in 2014-15 and 33 wins in 2013-14 mark the first back-to-back seasons of 30 wins or more in program history.
- UA will look to improve its record in season openers to a perfect 7-0 under head coach Sean Miller. The Wildcats hold an average margin of victory of 19.5 points in those six openers in the Miller era, all coming inside the McKale Center. Arizona is 23-3 all-time in regular season openers played in the McKale Center.
- The Wildcats own the longest active home winning streak in the nation at 38 consecutive games, which includes 24 straight victories against non-conference foes in the McKale Center.
- The Arizona Wildcats will officially begin the 112th season in program history on Friday evening versus Pacific. The Wildcats were picked first in the preseason Pac-12 poll, which marked the fourth consecutive season UA has been atop the conference's predicted order of finish.
- Gabe York enters the 2015-16 season with 131 made three-point field goals on 336 career attempts for a career three-point percentage of .390. Those numbers put him on pace to finish his career in the top ten in UA history in all three categories.
- After spending the last three seasons at San Francisco before transferring to Arizona, Mark Tollefsen faced Pacific four times in his career. Tollefsen averaged 19 points and 4 rebounds last season against the Tigers.
- The NCAA released the latest round of Academic Progress Rate (APR) scores earlier this year, and the University of Arizona posted a perfect score of 1,000. That score puts UA in the top ten percent of all NCAA Division I basketball programs.