In the second and final meeting between the 7th ranked Arizona Wildcats hosted the young Oregon Ducks down in Tucson, Arizona at the McKale Center as Sean Miller and company defeated the Ducks by a score of 90-56. 

There was a frantic pace to start tonight’s matchup with Elgin Cook making six of the Ducks’ first eight points of the game. Arizona, however, matched Oregon shot for shot getting everyone involved early as Brandon Ashley, TJ McConnell and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson scoring for the Cats. One thing that has been a staple of Sean Miller’s Arizona squads throughout his tenure has been the tenacious defense and that showed early and often throughout the first twenty minutes. 

The home team was shooting lights out from the field as they finished the half making an astounding 18 of 30 shots from the field, good for 60%. One key component for this was TJ McConnell’s fantastic ball movement as he sliced and diced Oregon’s 2-3 zone like it was nothing. He was able to draw multiple defenders on him and used his pinpoint passing to find Zona’s big men down low for easy buckets around the rim.

Joseph Young had been lighting up the Pac-12 this season scoring in the double digits, including 32 against Washington State back on the fifteenth of this month. McConnell and Hollis-Jefferson are two of the best defenders in the country as the due play swarming defense time in and time out. Young was getting pretty frustrated with his inability to make plays for his team as he was held to just 12 points on four of nine shooting; one of his worst performance of the season.

Arizona clamped down hard on defense in the second half as Oregon did not score a single point for six minutes and during this stretch, the Wildcats blew the game wide open. Gabe York hadn’t looked right the last couple of weeks and was removed from the starter’s role because of it. Later, it became public that he had been dealing with a bit of an ankle issue.

In this second half, however, the old Gabe York came to play. He made nine consecutive points for Arizona as they extended their lead to 19 with less than ten minutes left to go in the game. But it was also his defense that looked improved as well, making a steal before driving the length of the court only to pull off a ridiculous shot in the end.

Arizona will look to continue their dominating ways on Friday evening as they take on Oregon State at the McKale Center in a grudge match. Meanwhile, Oregon will hit the I-10 to Tempe, Arizona for a matchup with the Sun Devils of Arizona State the same night.