LAS VEGAS — Herb Sendek threw out a zone. He deployed some old tricks on Arizona’s veteran players. He spaced his own guys out and had them spray three-pointers all over the place.
As a result, his new team, Santa Clara, trailed the Wildcats by only a point with 4:21 left.
Before his Wildcats finally pulled out a 69-61 win Thursday, UA coach Sean Miller could have rolled his eyes in frustration. He had seen this story play out many times before, while facing Sendek-coached ASU teams, and it didn’t always end well.
“He’s running a little bit of a different offense, but no question his familiarity with what we do is not to our advantage,” Miller said. “He knows what we do against a zone. He knows our calls. Certainly he has a bead on some of our older players. And he’s an excellent coach.
“Santa Clara’s going to win their fair share of games. They’ve been beaten up and as they get healthy there will be some good moments for them for sure.”
But on Thursday, in part by hitting 9 of 18 three-pointers and holding the Broncos to 40 percent shooting, the Wildcats pulled away from Santa Clara for the second straight year. Santa Clara took UA to overtime last season in the Wooden Legacy event before the Wildcats survived 75-73.
This year’s win over the Broncos moved Arizona (5-0) into the championship game in the high-major bracket of the multi-team event, where the Wildcats will face Butler (5-0) at 8:30 p.m. on Friday.
“They have some things we don’t,” Miller said of Butler, which beat Vanderbilt 76-66 earlier Thursday. “They have experience. They have veteran leadership … and when you watch them in November, they’re a little further along than a lot of teams.”
Sendek enjoyed a veteran’s advantage of sorts, too, even though he’s in his first year with Santa Clara. As ASU’s head coach, Sendek beat the Wildcats nine times, including four times since Miller took over UA in 2009. Two of those wins came against the powerful UA teams of 2013-14 and 2014-15, too.
While Sendek doesn’t have James Harden and some of the other standouts he was able to recruit at ASU, he did inherit a veteran cast that took UA to overtime last season under then-coach Kerry Keating.
They were unafraid.
“We come out with confidence and swagger every game,” said Santa Clara guard Jared Brownridge, who had 44 points against Arizona last year and 25 on Thursday. “And with coach Sendek, he’s inspired me in every game.”
But the Wildcats made Brownridge arguably work harder for his 25 points than the 44 he scored last year, when Miller complained that his players ran away from prime defensive assignments.
This time, guys such as Kadeem Allen and freshman Kobi Simmons helped limit (at least in relative terms) Brownridge to 6 of 14 three-point shooting.
Meanwhile, Simmons had 14 points on 5-for-7 shooting, while Lauri Markkanen had 16 points and nine rebounds to lead the Wildcats.
“We knew what we had to do,” Simmons said.
Markkanen, too, had a difficult assignment on both sides of the ball while playing 36 minutes.
“It was good for him to experience guarding a team like that and on offense playing against a zone for 40 minutes,” Miller said of Markkanen. “It took us a while, took him a while, to figure out how he can get a shot.”
Arizona led 37-34 at halftime and took a nine-point lead midway through the second half when Markkanen made a three-pointer. But Brownridge hit a three with 4:21 to pull the Broncos within 59-58, and the Wildcats needed two free throws from Markkanen with 14 seconds left to finally increase their lead beyond two baskets.
In the first half, Brownridge had 16 points in the first half while Markkanen led UA with nine points.
The Wildcats took a 22-12 lead midway through the first half after a three-pointer from Simmons, but Santa Clara pulled back in the game with efficient offense and a 3-2 matchup zone defense the Wildcats couldn’t consistently get through.
Santa Clara shot 46 percent and made half of its 10 three-pointers taken through the first 16 minutes of the half, with Brownridge heating up much as he did a year ago against the Wildcats.
Brownridge had 12 points on 4-for-5 three-point shooting over the first 16 minutes. He hit three-pointers to pull Santa Clara within 25-22 and then another to tie the game at 25, and the game remained close the rest of the half.
