Caleb Holt Scores 24 as No. 12 Arizona Pulls Away From Auburn 80-69

Caleb Holt came home to Alabama with a ticket list, a hot hand and, by the final horn, a road win that No. 12 Arizona badly needed. The freshman guard scored 24 points with nine rebounds and five steals, Ivan Kharchenkov poured in 11 of his 19 points in the final 7:31 and the Wildcats closed on a 21-8 run to beat Auburn 80-69 on Friday night at Neville Arena.

Motiejus Krivas added 16 points, 12 rebounds and three blocks, all of the blocks coming in the last six minutes, and JJ Mandaquit went 6 for 6 at the line in the final 2:34 in his first start of the season. Arizona improved to 3-1. Auburn fell to 2-1, and the loss snapped a run of 69 straight nonconference home wins the program had carried into the night, according to Auburn Athletics.

Arizona led by 14 early in the second half, Auburn rallied to lead 61-59 with 7:12 to play, and then the Wildcats owned the finish. The official live stats (opens in a new tab) and the CBS Sports box score (opens in a new tab) have the full line.

Holt Brought His Own Crowd

Holt grew up in Huntsville, about three hours up the road, and the Arizona Daily Star reported he collected 50 tickets from teammates for family and friends. He buried the first two 3s he took, the first one answering Caleb Williams' early triple that came off a Kevin Overton steal and put Auburn up 3-0.

The opening 10 minutes belonged to Thomas Dowd, though. The Troy transfer scored eight straight Auburn points in a span of about a minute: a 3 off a George Kimble III feed, a layup to tie it 14-14 and another 3 off a Bukky Oboye steal that made it 17-14. When Narcisse Ngoy swatted Ivan Kharchenkov at the rim and Tahaad Pettiford finished the other way, Auburn led 20-16 with 9:56 left in the half and the sellout crowd was fully awake.

Ngoy, the 7-foot French center Atlanta drafted in the second round, was a problem all night. He blocked Kharchenkov four times in the first half alone and finished with six blocks, part of a 13-block Auburn night.

Then Motiejus Krivas went to work. With the game tied at 22, the 7-2 center got blocked by Oboye, grabbed his own miss, scored through contact and made the free throw. He followed with a paint jumper off a Kharchenkov feed and two free throws, seven points in a span of 1:11, and Evan Otten's second-chance jumper and a Kharchenkov layup in transition stretched it to 33-24 with 1:42 left. Dowd and Pettiford answered with 3s, the second after a Kolby King steal, before Holt hit his third 3 of the half off a Derek Dixon assist. Arizona went to the locker room up 36-32, with Holt at 12 points and Dowd at 11 on 3-of-4 shooting from deep.

Ten Straight, Then the Jungle Woke Up

Arizona opened the second half trying to end the conversation early. Holt converted a three-point play 15 seconds in, Krivas picked Pettiford's pocket and found Kharchenkov for a layup, Krivas scored a putback and the free throw that came with it, and Holt made two free throws at 17:14. That was a 10-0 run, a 46-32 lead and a 14-point cushion in a building that has not seen many of those for visitors.

Auburn's answer came from the bench and from Arizona's carelessness. Oboye ran the floor for a dunk off a Pettiford pass, Overton stole the ball from Holt and laid it in, and the Wildcats started coughing it up. Overton hit a 3. Adam Olsen, the South Alabama transfer, buried a second-chance 3 after an Oboye offensive rebound. Owen Freeman finished a fast break after an Olsen steal, and Kimble's 3 off a Kolby King feed made it 51-48 with 12:41 to play. After Holt's 3 at 13:37, Arizona went nearly five minutes without a field goal.

Olsen's second 3 cut it to 53-51, Freeman's jumper in the lane tied it at 53, and Freeman's free throw at 9:08 gave Auburn its first lead since the first half, 54-53. That was a 22-7 Auburn run from the 17:14 mark, and not one of those points came from Pettiford, the SEC's leading scorer entering the night.

Kharchenkov and Krivas Took the Wheel

Holt answered the Auburn lead almost immediately, poking the ball away from Dowd right after Dowd had stolen it from Krivas and throwing down a breakaway dunk for a 55-54 lead. Freeman tied it at the line, Dixon scored in the paint, Dowd drilled his fourth 3 for a 58-57 Auburn lead, and Kharchenkov answered with a layup. When Maksim Brnovic fouled Olsen on a 3 and Olsen made all three free throws, Auburn led 61-59 with 7:12 left.

That was the last lead the Tigers would hold. Krivas scored on a Kharchenkov feed to tie it, Kharchenkov scored again in the lane, and then Krivas swatted Pettiford at the rim and pushed it ahead to Dixon for a layup and a 65-61 lead. Auburn called timeout. It did not help. Krivas blocked Overton on the next trip, and Kharchenkov, who had not attempted a 3 all night, stepped into one from the top for a 68-61 lead. That was a 9-0 run in under two minutes.

Olsen hit his third 3 to make it 68-64, and Auburn did not make another field goal until Oboye's dunk with 42 seconds left. Kharchenkov's layup at 4:14 and his jumper at 1:32 bracketed a Holt steal and four straight free throws from Mandaquit, who never attempted a shot from the floor. Krivas added two free throws and a third block, and Mandaquit's last two free throws set the final.

The Numbers That Swung It

Arizona won the glass 49-37 and the paint 40-24, and that was the story underneath the runs. The Wildcats shot 44.4 percent from the field (28 of 63) against an Auburn defense that blocked 13 shots, and they went 18 of 22 at the line while Auburn went 12 of 20. Arizona only took 14 3s and made six. Auburn took 31 and made 11, and the Tigers shot 34.8 percent overall.

Auburn's backcourt never found a rhythm. Pettiford, who entered the night leading the SEC at 22.0 points per game per Auburn Athletics, scored nine on 4-of-14 shooting. Overton went 2 of 13 and Williams 2 of 9, so the three starting guards combined for 8 of 36. Dowd was terrific with 15 points, nine rebounds, two blocks and 4-of-5 shooting from deep, and Olsen added 12 off the bench, but Ngoy's six blocks came with only one point.

The Tigers' bench outscored Arizona's 34-4, and Auburn turned 14 Arizona turnovers into 19 points. Neither could cover for the misses, and Arizona's starters scored 76 of the 80 points.

What It Means

For Arizona, this was the kind of road win that steadies a season. The Wildcats opened with an 84-75 loss to UCLA in Las Vegas, then handled Cal Poly and Northern Arizona at home. This was the first real test away from McKale Center, and Tommy Lloyd's group passed it with size and late defense. The rotation question is still open: Lloyd started Mandaquit for the first time in place of Bryce James, who did not play, and Arizona got only four points from its bench. RJ Godfrey also sat again while his eligibility case remains in court, according to the Arizona Daily Star.

Friday was the back half of a home-and-home that Arizona dominated last December, a 97-68 win in Tucson when the Wildcats were No. 2 and the Tigers were No. 20. Pettiford scored a career-high 30 that night in a losing effort. The teams had met only twice before that, both Auburn wins at neutral sites, in the 1986 NCAA Tournament and the 2018 Maui Invitational.

For Auburn, the profile is clear. Steven Pearl's second team defends, protects the rim and gets real minutes from a deep bench of transfers in Dowd (Troy), Olsen (South Alabama), Kimble (Vanderbilt), Freeman (Creighton) and Oboye (Santa Clara). What it lacked Friday was a second scorer when Pettiford struggled. Auburn heads to Las Vegas for the Players Era event and faces West Virginia on Nov. 17. Arizona returns home to face No. 4 UConn on Nov. 18.

Sources: Auburn Athletics, WMT official live stats, CBS Sports, Arizona Daily Star. More men's college basketball coverage on Undrafted.

Arizona came to the Plains with a freshman playing in front of his people and two big men who refused to be bullied by 13 blocked shots. The Wildcats left with the one thing November cannot fake: a win in a building that rarely gives them away.

Photo: Zach Bland/Auburn Athletics (file photo).