EUGENE, Ore. β If thereβs anything good about Arizonaβs blowout loss to Oregon, well β¦ there isnβt.
But at least the schedule is helpful for the Wildcats.
Not only does Arizona get to escape a return game with the Ducks for the second year in a row β at a time when they have lost three straight to Oregon β but the Wildcats get to play a Wednesday game against Stanford at home.
That means one less day to sit around and think about what happened at Matthew Knight Arena.
βBounce back,β were the first words out of Rawle Alkinsβ mouth during his postgame interview.
Arizona can actually regain sole possession of first place if the Wildcats beat Stanford and UCLA beats Oregon at Pauley Pavilion on Thursday.
That prospect looked a little more likely Saturday when the Bruins pummeled the Huskies even worse than Oregon did to UA and showed the kind of defensive ability they haven't recently.
In any case, UA and Oregon are now tied for first at 10-1, while UCLA and Cal are behind them with three losses each in conference play .
While the final margin was a surprise, the fact that Oregon beat Arizona at home hardly was. The Ducks beat UA in the Pac-12 Tournament semifinals last season, blew out Utah in the tournament final, then picked up a No. 1 NCAA Tournament seed and rode it all the way to the Elite Eight.
With nearly everyone back from that team, plus freshman Payton Pritchard and sixth-year senior Dylan Ennis, the Ducks were picked to win the Pac-12 this season, too.
On Saturday, that prediction appeared fairly accurate.
βThey looked like the best team today,β UA coach Sean Miller said. βThey played great. Sometimes you forget they were a No. 1 seed last year and if you look at the parts that they have back and players who have improved. β¦
βTheyβre a heck of a basketball team. We knew that before we came up here. It's just they put it on us. So I give them tremendous credit. Theyβre prepared, well-coached, they play with great effort, they pass the ball so easily, they made 16 threes.
βThe last time we had a feeling like this was I would say against Wisconsin in the Elite Eight couple of years ago.β
In that 2015 NCAA Tournament game, Wisconsin hit 10 3s in the second half β five by Sam Dekker β while the Wildcats fell a win short of the Final Four for a second straight season.
Oregon was so good Saturday, the way Miller explained it, that he shuddered to think what they would be like if they were even better.
βIf they have another level, I think thatβs a bad thing for every team in the country,β he said, smiling. βBut they were great today and we didnβt have any answers.β
Alkins was the only player UA chose to be interviewed after Saturdayβs game, and it wasnβt hard to guess why.
Alkins said nobody in the UA locker room was happy, even though sometimes a close game can sometimes seem more painful than a blowout because emotions get deadened by the end of it all.
βWeβre not looking at it like weβre tolerating this loss,β Alkins said. βBelieve it or not, weβre upset. β¦ We still think that if we played them tomorrow weβd still win. Thatβs how our mindset is. So Oregon played great tonight and hopefully we see them again.β
As of now, Arizona would be the No. 2 Pac-12 Tournament seed with a chance to face the top-seeded Ducks in the championship game, though if UCLA finishes third, that means the Wildcats might have to get past the Bruins in the conference semifinals.
But UCLA still gets a crack at both Oregon and UA, and thereβs still four more weeks of regular conference play left overall, so a lot could changeβ¦
The Oregonian called it maybe the game of a lifetime for these Ducks, while columnist Ken Goe said the Ducks look like a Final Four team.
The oft-understated Dana Altman noted in the Register-Guard that "sometimes you have those days." And, even with that ill-advised powder-throwing routine, columnist Austin Meek says the Ducks are building an atmosphere at Matthew Knight Arena.
Our coverage and the box score are attached to this post.
