Pac-12 Basketball Recap, Weekend Edition: Arizona Stands Head & Shoulders Above The Rest

Friday

Kansas 84, Oregon State 78

ConnorOSU, Building The Dam:

Oregon State trailed Kansas by double-digits five separate times on Friday night in Kansas City, but proving they can play play with anyone in the nation, came back each and every time and eventually only lost by six. However, trailing by as many as eight points with under two minutes remaining would do the Beavers in, thanks to some clutch free throw shooting by Travis Releford, Ben McLemore, and Elijah Johnson down the stretch. McLemore would lead the Jayhawks with 21 points.

Utah 74, Texas State 69

Tony Jones, The Salt Lake Tribune:

Jordan Loveridge gingerly wrapped a thick bag of ice around both knees. His body worn down from 30 minutes of physical basketball against Texas State, the Utah freshman walked slowly down the back steps of Strahan Coliseum.

On Friday night, the 74-69 win over the Bobcats in front of 2,237 onlookers could serve as a coming-of-age moment for the 6-foot-7 power forward. When his team needed it most, he shook off a quiet first half and became the Utes' best player down the stretch.

Saturday

Washington State 72, Portland 60

Craig Powers of CougCenter had the recap:

Washington State shot well from three as a team, and that was due in large part to Motum and Royce Woolridge. The two combined to go 5 of 8 from downtown. It's good to see Motum finally hit some jumpers. If he gets going from the outside, he'll be super fun to watch again this season.

Woolridge finished with a career-high 20 points on 6 of 11 shooting. He was aggressive all night, and hit 5 of 6 free throws.This is the first time that two Cougs have finished with 20 points or more on the year.

San Diego State 78, UCLA 69

Tydides of Bruins Nation files this report.

So the only other avenue to winning was to outscore the Aztecs, and with how the offense has looked so far this year, did anyone have any confidence that that was going to happen? Howland's motley crew did well for themselves in a less structured offense, but still shot a dismal 42%. It's more entertaining, but it's not winning basketball. Sadly, winning is not really the priority anymore with Howland's depleted team. Against SDSU's man to man defense, UCLA had a hard time getting anything close to the basket, and the Aztecs felt free to overplay our backcourt and apply pressure. It says something really sad about our frontcourt (well, the Wears anyway) that Shabazz Muhammad was our most reliable interior threat.

Wyoming 76, Colorado 69

Parker Baruh of Ralphie Report talked about what went wrong in Wyoming.

Wyoming is a good team and Leonard Washington is hard to stop down low evident by his 22 points, but talent wise, the Buffaloes are the better team. It's not easy to travel up to Laramie and pick up a win, but with a better performance the Buffs could have won. However, that was not the case as Colorado played sloppy defense once again as they allowed Wyoming to shoot 48% from the field and were careless on offense as they turned it over 17 times. Colorado was led by Spencer Dinwiddie with 24 points and Andre Roberson with 16 points and 12 rebounds.

Arizona State 90, Sacramento State 70

Ryan Bafaloukos has the recap.

Coming into Saturday night's contest with Sacramento State, Evan Gordon was averaging 7.5 points per game and the junior shooting guard was shooting just 21% from three point territory. Gordon broke out of his season long shooting slump on Satruday, putting up 29 points in ASU's 90-70 victory over the Hornets.

"It's a pretty good feeling," said Gordon about his performance. "Me having a couple of rough starts and everything, but I just tried to stay with it, I hit the first shot and it went on from there."

Arizona 85, Texas Tech 57

Kyle Kensing, Arizona Desert Swarm:

UA used its collective length to push Texas Tech away from the paint, and to take contested jump shots. Arizona parlayed those misses into a 37-26 rebound advantage. Kaleb Tarczewski was a force on the defensive blocks and glass. With 13 rebounds, 3-3 shooting and two blocked shots, the 7-foot freshman played his most complete game of his young college career.

Oregon 80, Arkanasas Pine Bluff 59

UOWillRubin, Addicted to Quack:

After opening the game on an 18-2 run, Oregon looked as though they would make a laughingstock of an Arkansas-Pine Bluff team that had lost their last three games by an average of 26 points, and only dressed eight players against the Ducks. Instead, the team got sloppy and at times looked like they were going to let UAPB make a game of it before pulling away to win by a less-than-comfortable 21 point margin.

"We got the big lead right out of the gate, and after that we got sloppy," Head Coach Dana Altman said.

"I think it was 18-2 we jumped out, and our guys got pretty happy with ourselves. We fundamentally weren't sound, both offensively and defensively."

Sunday

Wisconsin 81, Cal 56

Cal had another non-conference dud in Madison. Norcalnick, California Golden Blogs:

Has the Pac-12 been so down the last two years that the Bears (and everybody else) are perpetually unprepared for games like this? Is there something about this Cal team that allows them to look great against every team with less talent than them and awful against every team with more talent? Despite the evidence staring me in the face, I have a hard time believing that the Bears are that much worse than these types of teams.

The good news is that Cal has two chances to prove that this game was somehow a fluke. Maybe Ricky Kreklow's return adds something. Maybe today was an epic confluence of bad games. Maybe Bo Ryan had the perfect game plan. Maybe Cal, back in the friendly confines of Haas Pavilion, pulls off two straight upsets.

Stanford 71, Denver 58

Denver tried their best, but were totally overmatched on the inside by Stanford's most talented big. Bryan Kilpatrick, SB Nation Denver:

The Pioneers had all kinds of trouble with Stanford big man Dwight Powell, who scored 19 of his team's 35 first-half points and finished with 29. He helped the Cardinal finish with a 34-14 advantage in the paint.

The Pioneers compounded their defensive issues by having problems scoring early, falling into a 21-6 hole and never getting to within less than 10 points of the Cardinal afterward, despite outscoring Stanford in the second half, 39-36.

Washington 74, Cal State Fullerton 72

The Huskies benefited from good fortune and poor planning from CSF. Todd Dybas of the News Tribune reports.

Twice, the Titans inexplicably fouled Washington in the final 30 seconds of the game. First, after tying the score 69-69 with 25 seconds left, Alex Harris fouled Andrew Andrews right after the inbounds by basically jumping on his head. Worse, was D.J. Seeley’s foul of C.J. Wilcox with the score tied, Washington without timeouts and 3.6 seconds left on the clock. Seeley fouled Wilcox a good 90 feet from the basket. Wilcox made both and that was the difference.

"I was surprised on the first foul and then they did it again," Wilcox said. "I was really surprised."

As was everyone watching.