CORVALLIS, Ore. — A new generation of Arizona Wildcats has now experienced the deceptive house of horrors that is Oregon State’s Gill Coliseum.
On the surface, the Beavers’ 58-56 upset of Arizona on Sunday night, earned after a game-winning layup by Langston Morris-Walker, was about as shocking as they come.
OSU was picked to finish last in the conference, having lost its top five scorers from last season while new coach Wayne Tinkle was hired away from Montana to rebuild the program. Seventh-ranked Arizona, meanwhile, was picked to finish first in the Pac-12 and a consensus top-3 pick nationally at the start of the season.
And the Wildcats were 9.5 point favorites, expected to coast into a McKale Center showdown with Utah on Saturday at McKale Center.
Flip all that upside down, throw in some rugged OSU zone defense before halftime and some out-of-nowhere second-half scoring for the Beavers, and there you have it: OSU’s first win over a Top 10 team since March 2, 2000, when the Beavers beat the Wildcats in overtime.
“Um, what can I say?” Tinkle said in his first comment on the postgame interview podium. OSU players “showed unbelievable toughness and resiliency from start to finish.”
It was reminiscent of OSU’s one-point wins in 1998-99 and 1999-2000. And just like 2003-04 and 2005-06, when the Jay John-coached Beavers shocked Arizona. Or the first two times UA coach Sean Miller ventured to Gill, and lost, the last coming with the electric “Kiss The Sky” signature dunk from Jared Cunningham.
This one came after Arizona won its last two games in Corvallis by double digits, and after the Wildcats appeared to have significant momentum in two decisive Pac-12 wins entering Sunday. And none of the current Wildcat scholarship players had ever struggled, really, at Gill.
Until Sunday, when Arizona’s offense disappeared in the first half, with the Wildcats managing to shoot just 26.1 percent against OSU’s zone, and its defense followed suit in the second, allowing the Beavers to hit 64.7 percent from the field after halftime.
“We were terrible,” Miller said of the Wildcats’ defense. “It’s something we have to learn from. But it’s an 18-game (league) season. You don’t win or lose the conference on one night.”
What the loss did was put the Wildcats at 14-2 overall and 2-1 in the Pac-12, a game behind 3-0 Utah. It also will likely drop seventh-ranked UA out of the Top 10 when votes are finalized today. And, while Miller wasn’t too concerned about the standings, the result on the floor shook him enough that he said he was considering deploying a zone defense.
Which he almost never does. But Miller, deeply discouraged by his team’s man-to-man deterioration late in losses to UNLV and now OSU, figures something has to change.
He also already began switching lineups around, changing the starters twice in the past three games, and going more often with a smaller group as Sunday’s game progressed. The Wildcats totaled only nine points and three rebounds total from post players Brandon Ashley and Kaleb Tarczewski, so Miller played neither more than 29 minutes.
“Kaleb played 23 minutes and while he did some good things he had zero rebounds,” Miller said. “So we decided to go small for obvious reasons.”
But UA’s success wasn’t much better anywhere else, except for the do-everything desperation play of T.J. McConnell (13 points, six rebounds, six assists) and the frequent free-throw line visits from Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, who hit 10 of 13 free throws and led the Wildcats overall in scoring with 14 points.
Without those two guys, who knows what else might have happened. But that was no consolation to McConnell, who was as downbeat as ever despite his individual production.
“I was just trying to penetrate and let the game to come to me,” McConnell said. “I might have forced a couple of shots. … There’s really nothing to be said about our defense.”
McConnell, who scored 21 points to lead UA to an 80-62 win at Oregon on Thursday, appeared especially determined when the Wildcats needed it most.
Arizona managed to pull ahead briefly midway through the second half thanks to McConnell, who was partly responsible for all seven of the Wildcats’ points during a 7-2 run that gave them a 43-39 lead with 8:52 remaining.
York hit a three-pointer off an assist from McConnell, who later dished a short pass inside to Tarczewski for another score. Then McConnell shot it himself, from about 10 feet, to give UA the 43-39 lead.
But the Beavers came back gradually, tying the game at 47 on a three-pointer from Morris-Walker with six minutes to go and the game stayed close.
Oregon State took a 56-52 lead with 1:33 left after Malcolm Duvivier converted a three-point play, having picked up what was Hollis-Jefferson’s fourth foul of the game.
But Gabe York sank a 25-footer on the other end to cut OSU’s lead to one point entering the final minute.
Then, after Hollis-Jefferson tied it at 56 by hitting the first of two free throws with 49 seconds left, the UA defense caved and allowed Morris-Walker to drive in for a layup with 26 seconds left. UA’s last possession failed to produce a decent shot, with McConnell throwing up a failed jumper off the glass and time expired, allowing fans to spill on to the court.
In the first half, instead of struggling defensively, the big problem was solving OSU’s zone. The Wildcats managed to squeak out a 21-20 halftime lead despite making just 1 of 10 three-pointers and 6 of 23 field goals overall, while OSU also out-rebounded the Wildcats. Hollis-Jefferson led UA offensively with seven points in the half, but earned five of those points at the free-throw line.
“I thought they played a good zone and we struggled against it,” McConnell said.
It was Arizona’s lowest halftime score of the year and the fourth time the Wildcats have only scored in the 20s for the first half.
The Wildcats led UTEP 28-25, tied Gonzaga 27-27 and trailed UC Irvine at halftime 29-26, though they managed to win all three of those games.
This time, they were hit with a loss. Now the question is whether their struggles turn into backward momentum, or a positive learning experience.
They’ll find out starting Thursday.
“This is a tough loss for us but we have to bounce back,” McConnell said. “If we hang our heads and cry about this loss, we’re not going to go anywhere.”
