Everything about Saturday’s game screamed big-time.
It was the fifth sellout of the season at Matthew Knight Arena, with a crowd louder for any UA-UO game since the Ducks moved out of MacArthur Court, and the Pac-12 assigned well-regarded officials Verne Harris and Mike Reed to it.
ESPN beamed the game nationwide to a Saturday afternoon audience, while the marquee Pac-12 crew of Dave Pasch and Bill Walton called the action (with Walton wearing his classic tie-dye Pac-12 “Conference of Champions” T-shirt, of course).
Even Pasch, who also calls Arizona Cardinals football games, couldn’t help but get fired up.
“This is awesome,” Pasch said as the pregame atmosphere began to build Saturday. “It’s like some of the great Pac-10 games you used to see all the time, like Arizona-UCLA and Arizona-Stanford.”
