STANFORD, Calif. — Deandre Ayton made a rare trip to foul trouble jail, Sean Miller picked up a technical and the Arizona Wildcats threw up a whole bunch of wayward 3-pointers Saturday at Maples Pavilion.
But when it was all over, the Wildcats still felt OK with their world.
They were in first place. Alone. At 6-1 after beating Stanford 73-71 in a seesaw game before 6,079 fans at Maples Pavilion.
“It’s something we expected,” Arizona forward Rawle Alkins said of first place. “We expected this. We seized the moment, our first road sweep.”
They did, but their 16th straight win over Stanford just might have been the toughest yet. In what has been a generally lopsided series since Miller took over the Wildcats in 2009-10, with only two being previously decided by a possession, Arizona needed help in some unusual ways this time.
While Allonzo Trier led the Wildcats in scoring with 21 points, he also uncharacteristically missed the third of four clutch free throws he took in the final 18 seconds.
That continued a wild finish, allowing Stanford a chance to win the game with five seconds left before the UA defense prevented Dorian Pickens from getting off a shot in time.
Among the other unusual sightings: The Wildcats had six blocked shots from Ayton, but also five fouls that disqualified him for only the second time this season and limited him to 28 minutes.
And, unable to get the ball to Ayton inside Stanford’s zone defense at times, the Wildcats also threw up 27 3-pointers and hit only 29.6 percent of them. Parker Jackson-Cartwright, usually a supplementary shooter who only takes good looks at the basket, was prompted into taking six of the long bombs and he made only one of them.
All this was a particular problem late in the first half, after UA had built leads of up to 12 points. The Wildcats scored just one basket, a layup by Dusan Ristic, over the final 8:20 of the first half, while missing six 3-pointers over that span.
They were 4 of 15 from 3-point territory in the first half after making 3 of 5 in the first six minutes.
“For us to have 15 3-point attempts in one half, that’s not who we are,” Miller said.
“It was as much our lack of execution as it was with Stanford’s zone. The ball stopped. And sometimes on the road, if you get hot early and make some threes, which we did, it’s a gift but it’s also a curse. We fell right into it.”
While Miller said Arizona executed better against the zone in the second half, it didn’t get any easier once the initial lead was gone.
The Wildcats hung on to a 31-29 lead at halftime but Stanford’s Oscar da Silva dunked just seven seconds into the second half to tie the game, and it was tied five more times before the Cardinal went on an 11-0 run to take a 57-46 lead with 9:29 left on a 3-pointer from Pickens.
It was then that another unexpected source of motivation came forth. That is, Miller was called for a technical foul toward the end of the run, apparently for riding official Tony Padilla.
Six seconds later, as a timeout began at the 9:19 mark, Miller lurched over toward Padilla to offer a few more words, though he said afterward he didn’t want to talk about it.
Whatever happened, the technical marked a turning point for the Wildcats. Down by 11 during that timeout, Arizona went on an immediate 11-0 run to tie the game at 57 with 4:22 left, getting 3-pointers from Dylan Smith, Trier and Rawle Alkins during the stretch. Ristic, who collected 18 points and nine rebounds for the Wildcats, also scored during the run.
They were methodical and efficient, and Miller wasn’t quite ready to attribute the technical foul to their play.
“I don’t know if that was the reason,” Miller said. “I gave our guys credit. They dug deep. It didn’t look good at that moment.”
What was, maybe, as much of a reason as anything: That Stanford freshman point guard Daejon Davis sprained his ankle late in the first half and did not return after halftime.
“Daejon Davis hurting his ankle is a big reason we probably won,” Miller said. “He’s a heck of a player and to give credit where credit is due, Stanford’s resiliency really (made a difference). They scored 42 (second-half) points on us, they were a very difficult team and they had their starting point guard out the entire second half.”
Alkins also gave his teammates credit down the stretch, saying they told each other during the timeout when they were down 11 that they “had to turn it up a notch,” and they did.
“We just wanted to win so bad, it was defense,” Alkins said, “defense won us the game.”
But Stanford wound up shooting 48.1 percent in the second half and the teams were separated by only one possession the rest of the way after Arizona tied it at 57.
Arizona held a 69-68 lead with 38 seconds left before Jackson-Cartwright stole the ball from da Silva, and the Cardinal fouled Trier. After Trier hit both free throws, Ayton fouled out when he was whistled for contacting Pickens, and Pickens hit one of two free throws, leaving UA with a 71-69 lead.
Stanford then fouled Alkins, who hit the first of two free throws, putting UA ahead 72-69 with 8.3 seconds left. But when Stanford tried to get off a 3-point shot to tie it with five seconds left, Smith fouled Pickens before he was in shooting position.
Pickens made both of his ensuing free throws, cutting it to 72-71, and then Trier was fouled with 5 seconds left. He missed the first of two free throws but hit the second, and Stanford couldn’t get another shot off before time expired.
Saying, again, that it’s always hard to win on the road, Miller said the Wildcats’ effort continued to increase as the game went on.
It’s the way it had to be for the Wildcats. It’s the way it might have to be the next time they face the Cardinal, possibly with conference title implications at stake, on March 1 at McKale Center.
“This Stanford team is definitely going to compete for one of the top four spots in the Pac-12,” Ristic said. “It was really hard to play against them. We just sort of fought through it and got a team win in the end.”
