Arizona Wildcats wake up in second half to beat Oregon State 62-53

Deandre Ayton had his 12th double-double of the season to help Arizona throw off some early struggles and beat Oregon State 62-53 Thursday at McKale Center.

Following their 80-77 loss at Colorado on Saturday, the Wildcats posted their lowest first-half scoring total of the season, trailing 22-21 at halftime, and struggled to move the ball efficiently against the Beavers’ zone.

But Arizona broke it open midway in the second half, when Ayton played 18 minutes after sitting out nine minutes in the first half with foul trouble. Ayton still finished with 14 points and 10 rebounds.

Allonzo Trier led the Wildcats in scoring with 21 points on 6-for-12 field-goal shooting and 5-of-6 from the free-throw line, while Ayton's double-double tied the UA freshman record for most double-doubles. Ayton is on pace to break the UA's all-time record of 22 double-doubles set by Al Fleming in 1974-75.

Arizona wound up shooting just 41.5 percent from the field but outrebounded OSU 35-33 and gave up only three turnovers in the second half after committing nine in the first half.

The Beavers shot 39.3 percent overall but 42.9 percent from 3-point range. Tres Tinkle had 18 points and nine rebounds to lead the Beavers.

The win moved Arizona to 13-4 overall and 3-1 in the Pac-12 after the Wildcats lost 80-77 on Saturday at Colorado. OSU dropped to 10-6 and 2-2.

The Beavers have won only once at McKale Center since the teams started playing each other in 1975-76 and became Pac-10 competitors three seasons later, with the lone win against Sean Miller’s first Arizona team in 2009-10.

But OSU led for the entire first half and the first three minutes of the second half before the leads began to alternate. UA didn’t take the lead for good until seven minutes remained, when it went on a 16-3 run.

Rawle Alkins capped that run with a transition 3-pointer from the corner after Ayton blocked OSU’s Tres Tinkle on the other end.

Slogging the game out for the first 23 minutes, the Wildcats finally showed some life when they artfully turned a pair of OSU turnovers into dunks and their first lead of the game three minutes into the second half.

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With Oregon State leading 26-25, strong UA defense on the perimeter forced OSU’s Stephen Thompson Jr. to throw an errant ball into the post that Ayton easily picked off. That led to a fast-break dunk from Allonzo Trier on a feed from Parker Jackson-Cartwright.

The next one nearly brought the house down. Dusan Ristic and Parker Jackson-Cartwright trapped Thompson near the sideline and midcourt lines and when Thompson coughed it up, Alkins picked it up and raced in for an expressive reverse dunk that made it 29-26.

But all those heroics didn’t make OSU go away. The Beavers went back ahead 35-31 with its defense continuing to throw off UA offensively.

The Wildcats took a 36-35 lead on a 3-pointer from Jackson-Cartwright with 10:25 left and pushed it to three points when Ayton crashed in for a fast-break layup. But two scores from Thompson put OSU back ahead 39-38 with 7:48 left.

Playing with Ayton for only 11 first-half minutes because of foul trouble, Arizona never led in the first half and trailed 22-21 after some fruitless final minutes on both sides. OSU failed to score for the final 5:30 while UA failed to score for the final 3:11 of the half.

UA shot only 37.5 percent overall and made just 2 of 11 3-pointers while turning the ball over nine times. Allonzo Trier had six points for UA while Dusan Ristic had four points and five rebounds.

It was the Wildcats' lowest-scoring first half of the season, with nine fewer points than even in any of their first halves in three losses in the Bahamas. Their previous low came on Dec. 5 against Texas A&M, when the Aggies led 31-29 at halftime. Last season, UA scored just 18 points in the first half of an 85-58 loss at Oregon.

Tres Tinkle had 10 points and four rebounds to lead the Beavers, who shot 34.5 percent but outrebounded the Wildcats 18-17 and had two fewer turnovers.

The Wildcats fell behind right away, hitting just one of their first six shots while OSU took an early 12-2 lead. UA actually went 3:39 without scoring at all, between Rawle Alkins’ early layup to a 12-footer from Deandre Ayton.

But Ayton sat out five minutes in the first half after collecting his second foul, and the Wildcats missed their first eight 3-pointers. UA trailed 16-10 before Alonzo Trier hit the Wildcats’ first 3-pointer, with 8:03 left, and he hit another with 3:10 left to cut OSU’s lead to 22-21.