A handful of fans wore Arizona’s tie-dye red-and-blue shirts that the Wildcats wore for warmups, but the crowd was overwhelmingly in favor of the locals, a collection of national team players of varying ages.
The spectators included former Wildcat standout Azuolas Tubelis, who is scheduled to face them on Saturday if Lithuania’s senior team still plays the game scheduled in Jarusevicius’ hometown of Alytus.
Wearing specially designed uniforms for their Lithuanian trip in both games, the Wildcats trailed 54-37 at halftime of their first game and were down by up to 20 early in the third quarter. They committed four fouls in the first 1:33 of the game, and trailed 30-19 at the end of the first quarter.
“Hopefully our guys will get a little more comfortable with how the games are officiated,” Lloyd said Wednesday. “We haven’t done a scrimmage with referees or anything, and that’s my fault. I mean, you can’t start a game fouling on the first four possessions because your starters are generally your stronger players.”
Kharchenkov, starting at power forward without Godfrey available, picked up two early fouls while the Wildcats fell behind 14-7 early and by up to 18 points in the first half. He led the Wildcats in first-half scoring with 11 points on 4-for-7 shooting, but played only 13 minutes because of his early fouls
Lithuania shot 50% from the field over the first two quarters, scored 11 second-chance points off 13 offensive rebounds and outrebounded the Wildcats 29-16. Lithuania also made 6 of 13 3-pointers in the first half while Arizona missed all seven it took.
Holt struggled offensively against the Lithuanian B team, shooting just 1 for 9 from the field in the first half, but warmed up after halftime and finished with 13 points on 5-for-16 shooting. Point guard Derek Dixon had 10 points, four assists and no turnovers in his UA exhibition debut.