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Arizona Wildcats vs Oregon Ducks Basketball Recap

Arizona 90, Oregon 82

It feels a little bit like 2005 again. The old-time religion which became so familiar to the folks in the Desert Southwest took a half-decade-long hiatus, but winning ways have returned to one of college basketball’s nouveau riche programs.

The Arizona Wildcats defeated the Oregon Ducks in Pac-10 competition from the McKale Center in Tucson, Arizona, on Saturday afternoon. The win delivered the Wildcats the outright Pac-10 regular season championship, their 12th in school history. The Wildcats also completed a perfect season at home season for the first time in over a decade. Oregon finished the regular season at 7-11.

Head coach Sean Miller’s Wildcats led from the opening basket to final whistle, completing a season sweep of the Ducks and earning the one-seed in the upcoming Pac-10 Tournament. The Wildcats were as hot as the summer weather in Tucson; they shot the ball with flames coming from their hands on Saturday, hitting at a clip of 56 percent. Arizona made 11 three-pointers and beat an Oregon club that wasn’t playing bad basketball in its own right, but just didn’t have the weapons needed to keep pace in a Wild West shootout. Five Wildcats scored in double figures, led by Kyle Fogg’s 20 points.

The victory was a cathartic one for Arizona fans. The Wildcats were one of America’s worst programs, a dead-end, bottom-rung outpost in the middle of nowhere, until Lute Olson rode in from Iowa in 1983 and immediately transformed the landscape. The U of A went from being a last-place team with sparsely-attended games to a conference powerhouse with one of the most intimidating home venues in the country. The Wildcats made the NCAA Tournament in Olson’s second season at the helm (1985) and didn’t miss the tournament for the next quarter of a century. The school reached four Final Fours and captured the 1997 national championship. Arizona fans, once in the poorhouse, were taken to the penthouse, and a culture of entitlement seeped into the program.

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Then came the test that shook Arizona to its foundations. Olson’s health problems and subsequent retirement crippled the program’s recruiting to the point that it missed the NCAAs in 2010 after 25 straight appearances in the Big Dance. Coach Sean Miller took the hits in 2010 as he sought to restore the Wildcats’ greatness. Few people in the Pac-10 doubted Miller’s abilities as a coach, but few experts on the West Coast felt that Arizona would resurrect itself so quickly. In only his second season, Miller has returned the Wildcats to the top of the Pac-10; Arizona fans who were spoiled during the Olson years will appreciate this title to a much greater degree than past conquests.

Oregon got a tremendous performance from Joevan Catron, who scored a game-high 28 points and hit on four three-pointers. The Ducks shot over 50 percent from the field, hit on nine three-pointers, and turned the ball over just six times. Head coach Dana Altman would have told you before the game that such a scenario would give his team a chance to score an upset victory. On Saturday in Tucson, it simply wasn’t enough against the once-down, then-ascendant, then-humbled program which has regained its place as a conference champion.

Arizona’s fight song is called “Bear Down!” Actually, things are looking up, not down, for a revived basketball family near the Old Pueblo of Tucson.

By Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Staff Writer