Kerr Kriisa’s socks go halfway up his calf. Not high enough to conceal the red, orange, blue, yellow, purple bruising that climbs up his leg from the right ankle sprain he suffered in the quarterfinals of the Pac-12 Tournament. (If you haven’t seen it, it was bad.)
“You wake up in the morning, you don’t know how your leg looks like, so it’s kind of interesting,” Kriisa said. “You just look at your leg and are like, ‘Oh, this is new color here again, a little bit purple, a little bit more yellow.’ You just got to make things interesting for yourself.”
He made things far more interesting for top-seeded Arizona, coming the off bench unexpectedly to play 27 minutes and lift the Wildcats, emotionally as much as physically, to an 85-80 overtime win against TCU on Sunday night in the second round of the NCAA Tournament at Viejas Arena. Arizona advances to the Sweet 16 in the South Regional, getting Houston on Thursday in San Antonio.
The Wildcats (33-3) needed the help. TCU refused to go away, even after trailing by nine inside seven minutes to go, taking the Pac-12 champions to overtime before a pair of offensive rebound put-backs by Bennedict Mathurin gave him 30 points and gave them the slightest bit of separation.
The exclamation point was a flying tip dunk by 7-foot-1 Cameroonian center Christian Koloko with 11.1 seconds left for the last of his 28 points, celebrated by flexing.
“My coaches,” Koloko said, “were getting on me for not getting enough rebounds.”
Kriisa had only three points on 1 of 10 shooting and one assist, but you had to look to the far right side of the box score to understand his spiritual value: plus-24. That’s how much the Wildcats outscored TCU with him on the floor — 13 more than anyone else in a game decided by five points in overtime.
“I think that tells you what he means to our team,” said Tommy Lloyd, Arizona’s rookie head coach hired off Mark Few’s staff at Gonzaga. “Our trainer, Justin Kokoskie, did an amazing job getting him available to play. That was a real sprained ankle. That was no tweak.”
The initial diagnosis was a three- or four-week sprain, maybe more. The 6-3, headband-wearing sophom*ore guard from Tartu, Estonia, was back on the floor in 10 days.
He first appeared at the 15:36 media timeout in the first half, with the Horned Frogs ahead 12-6. Thirty-eight seconds left, he stepped in front of Mike Miles Jr. to draw a charge.
When he subbed out, the Wildcats led 22-20.
And so it went all game. Kriisa out, TCU surge. Kriisa in, Arizona surge.
TCU led by four early in the second half. Kriisa subbed in, and Wildcats led by five when he left. TCU cut it to three. Kriisa went to the scorer’s table; less than three minutes later, they led by nine — bending at the waist, wildly pumping his fists and screaming after every big basket or steal.
The Horned Frogs (21-13) were a worthy adversary, though, hanging with Arizona’s high-octane offense deep into the second half thanks to a career night from Charles O’Bannon Jr. The USC transfer (and son of a UCLA alum) had 23 points, four more than his previous best. Also key were 10 offensive rebounds by Eddie Lampkin Jr., the 6-11 freshman center who shed 70 pounds in the offseason (and that was to get to 268).
As dramatic as Koloko’s dunk was, the end of regulation was more exciting than the end of overtime. TCU figured it would have the last shot, but Miles (20 points) got trapped, tried to dribble out of it at midcourt and either slipped or was fouled, depending on whether you were wearing white or purple.
The guys in striped shirts, which included Mountain West regular Eric Curry, swallowed their whistles. Dalen Terry scooped up the loose ball and raced to the other end for the game winner … 3 … 2 … 1.
Too late, a video review confirmed, and we were headed to overtime.
Was it a foul?
TCU coach Jamie Dixon: “I think everyone’s seen it, is talking about it. We’re going to handle it the right way. ... We’ll defer to: We’ve got the best officials in teh country working these games. And that’s the situation we’re in.”
Miles was less diplomatic: “We deserved to win that game and we didn’t win. ... It was a foul. They didn’t call it. That’s what it is.”
