The Arizona Wildcats rounded off the weekend with a sweep of the Washington schools, defeating the Washington State Cougars by a final score of 90-66, extending the nation’s longest home winning streak. During this domination at home, 44 of those victories have been by ten or more points and have done so for 23 times in a row.
Cats open up big first half lead
This game started out much like the game on Thursday night against the other Washington school. Arizona maintained the lead for much of the first half with Mark Tollefson leading the ‘Cats early with ten points off of a three pointer and a very difficult alley-oop in which Parker Jackson-Cartwright threw it up a little behind the graduated transfer but still finished nicely.
Arizona’s big men also made their presence felt in the opening stanza. Ryan Anderson had eight early points. Kaleb Tarczewski is slowly looking like himself to full fitness but looks like his old self down underneath the rim, using his physicality to disrupt plays on defense and getting easy looks underneath. Dusan Ristic even hit a three pointer and is now shooting 75% from deep for the season which is quite good for a 7 footer.
Washington State, after making their first several shots, started playing sloppy basketball. They could not find their stroke from any part of the court, turned the ball over with poor passing. As a result of this, the Cougars dug themselves into a big hole. By the time the first half of the game had ended, the lead had grown from as small as two and ended down by 15.
Arizona pulls away from WSU early in second frame
In the second half, Arizona had their way on both sides of the court. Kadeem Allen scored eight points in the opening 3 and half minutes, six of those coming from downtown, which pushed the lead out to 23 early. Justin Simon would have brought the house down had completed a ferocious dunk, 5 minutes and 21 seconds in the last half. As time was winding down, however, Chance Comanche did eventually put an exclamation mark on the throwing down a monster jam.
Once again, multiple Arizona Wildcats finished the night in double figures – six. Ryan Anderson led all scorers tonight finishing with 15 points while nabbing eight rebounds. Parker Jackson-Cartwright and Dusan Ristic combining for 23 points off the bench with the former having 13 of those.
The one problem with Sean Miller’s team is their first half defense. Against better schools, the lack of focus digs them into early deficits and that was most notable in the games against UCLA and USC. If they hope to make a deep run into the NCAA Tournament, the focus will have to be stepped up throughout the entire 40 minutes of play.
Arizona will head to the road once more this coming week as they take on a surprising, winners of three of their opening five conference games, Stanford Cardinal side at the Maples Pavilion. For Washington, they will return to the Pacific Northwest and will welcome in Colorado and Utah this coming weekend.