Pac 10 Fans Home
Pac 10 Football
Pac 10 Basketball
Pac 10 Baseball
College Fansites
Pac 10 Apparel
Pac 10 Tickets

Arizona vs Washington Basketball Recap

Two days after their toughest loss of the season, the Arizona Wildcats bounced back with their biggest win.

Playing with efficiency on offense, tenacity on defense and intensity on the boards, the Wildcats led wire-to-wire Sunday in defeating 24 th-ranked Washington 87-70 at McKale Center in Tucson.

“Tonight was a great win,” said Arizona junior forward Jamelle Horne, who made four field goals from three-point range over the first 10:07 on the way to a career-high 22 points. “I happened to play well. My teammates found me, got me going. And we went from there on, man, played a great game.”

With the victory, which came less than 48 hours after Friday night’s last-second loss to Washington State, the Wildcats improved to 8-8 overall and 2-2 in the Pac-10.

Arizona head coach Sean Miller, who described Sunday’s win over the defending conference champion Huskies (10-5, 1-3) as “overall our best team effort of the year,” was encouraged by the resilience exhibited by the Wildcats following their gut-wrenching 78-76 setback against WSU on Friday.

“When you have an emotional game, win or lose, and then you have one day between the next game, you have to move on,” Miller said. “What we’ve tried to do is teach, talk about what we can do to be better and why we lose, why we win, good with the bad. I do think that our team was very attentive, trying to really keep our defense tight, not (allowing that to) be the reason we lost tonight. And then obviously we played with a lot of confidence on offense.”

Miller has been sharply critical of his team’s defensive effort throughout the season, including Friday, when he said that, “Our defense is terrible,” and estimated that Arizona defenders “got beat off the dribble tonight maybe 30 times.” But on Sunday, the Wildcats clamped down on the defensive end, holding the Huskies to 10 points below their conference-leading average of 80.3.

“I thought we defended them well,” Miller said. “And if you watch us, we had two things going today. One, rebounding. (When) we rebound the ball, we’ve shown that we are a much more difficult team to beat. To rebound against Washington the way we did, I’m very proud of our team’s effort. I think the second thing is, if we keep our defense tighter and more help-oriented, then we’re a lot better defensive team.”

The Wildcats owned the boards on both ends of the court, holding a 14-7 edge in offensive rebounds and a 40-23 advantage in overall rebounding.

“Tonight, we boarded like men,” said Horne, who finished with six rebounds to complement the team-leading nine caroms that were grabbed by freshman forward/center Derrick Williams and the seven that were contributed by freshman wing Kevin Parrom.

Arizona limited Washington to 33 percent shooting in the first half, when the Wildcats scored the first eight points on the way to building a 37-27 lead at the intermission. The Wildcats did not allow a point until Matthew Bryan-Amaning hit a turnaround 4-footer for the Huskies at the 15:05 mark of the opening half.

Arizona held Washington’s two leading scorers -- senior forward Quincy Pondexter (who came in with an average of 20.4 points per game) and sophomore guard Isaiah Thomas (who entered with an average of 18.3) – without a point in the first half.

“It was really just all on the defensive end,” Arizona sophomore guard Kyle Fogg said. “I thought our offense did pretty well on Friday (in the game against Washington State), but today we really focused a lot on help defense. Playing against great players like Pondexter and Isaiah Thomas, we really had to be at our best in help defense today, and I thought we did that.”

While Thomas scored 18 second-half points to lead the Huskies, Pondexter finished with just seven.

“Isaiah and Quincy are the engines to their team,” Arizona’s Horne said. “ Quincy’s their senior leader, and Isaiah gets them going from outside. I don’t know how much Isaiah ended up with, but I know he had to earn those buckets. And Quincy, they’re going to make good shots. They’re great players.”

> Browse the selection of Pac 10 apparel & merchandise online as well as Pac 10 tickets through Pac 10 Fans and partner sites.

With Pondexter converting a three-point play and Thomas hitting a layup and a three-pointer, the Huskies opened the second half with an 8-0 surge to reduce their deficit to 37-35. The Wildcats responded by scoring the next six points on two free throws by Williams, a tip-in by Horne and a turnaround jumper by Parrom.

“Although they came out after halftime on an 8-0 run, one of the keys to our win was we responded in a positive way to that run,” Miller said. “We got back on track.”

A running left-hander in the lane by Horne extended the Wildcats’ lead to 49-41, and a three-point play by freshman guard MoMo Jones made it 52-41.

Horne’s fifth three-pointer of the game pushed the Arizona advantage to 61-44, and senior point guard Nic Wise followed with a layup to make it 63-44 with 10:13 remaining.

Washington never drew closer than 14 points the rest of the way.

Six players scored in double figures for the Wildcats, who shot 50 percent from the field (27 of 54).

“That really talks about a team playing together, sharing the ball, a lot of different individual players playing well,” Miller said.

In addition to Horne’s 22 points, the Wildcats got 14 points each from Fogg and Wise, 13 from Jones, 12 from Williams and 10 from Parrom. The scoring totals for Horne, Jones and Parrom all represented career highs.

Jones left the game with 6:04 remaining after getting a tooth knocked out, but he returned to the court for the final 18 seconds.

With the victory, the Wildcats climbed into a five-way tie for fourth in the Pac-10 at 2-2. The Arizona State Sun Devils (12-5 overall), who defeated Washington State 71-46 on Sunday to complete a weekend sweep of the Washington schools, are among the teams at 2-2 in the conference, along with Washington State, USC and UCLA.

California, Stanford and Oregon share the Pac-10 lead at 2-1. The Ducks squandered a chance to move into sole possession of first place on Sunday, when they lost at home to rival Oregon State 64-57.

Arizona and Arizona State will play at the Oregon schools this week. The Wildcats will begin the trip with a Thursday game at Oregon State, while the Sun Devils will play that night at Oregon. On Saturday, Arizona will visit Eugene to play the Ducks, while Arizona State will take the court in Corvallis against the Beavers.

By Tom Kessler
DFN Sports Staff Writer