After tough lessons in close games this season, Wildcats find payoff in Oregon win

SEATTLE — After holding onto inbounds passes for dear life as he was fouled twice in the final nine seconds Sunday, Arizona wing Anthony Dell’Orso had a few words to exchange with himself as he went to the free-throw line.

“I was like, You know what? I’m gonna make these. We’re gonna win, and we’re gonna fly to New Jersey,” Dell’Orso said.

So he did, hitting all four of his free throws in the final nine seconds to help seal the Wildcats’ 87-83 win over Oregon in an NCAA Tournament second-round game Sunday.

And so they did, flying directly from Seattle to Newark on Monday, since the cross-country transition from a Friday-Sunday weekend to a Thursday Sweet 16 game didn’t allow the Wildcats a trip home.

At this point, why would Dell’Orso think otherwise? Why would the Arizona Wildcats think otherwise?

These are the same guys who trailed Iowa State most of a Jan. 27 game at home, only to have Caleb Love hit a 60-foot buzzer bomb to send the game into overtime and, eventually, to a UA victory.

They were also the same guys who went down to the wire twice with Big 12 champ Houston and also learned from a 73-70 loss at Kansas State on Feb. 11 and a one-point home loss to BYU on Feb. 22, among other games.

From all those experiences, point guard Jaden Bradley said, the Wildcats could draw.

“It definitely helps,” Bradley said. “You’ve gotta take the losses as wins. You gotta learn from them. And I feel like we’re kind of learning from them. If you have a big turnover, don’t put your head down, like, smile and get a stop. And I feel like we did that.”

But to get to where they could hold off the Ducks, first the Wildcats had to make it a game. That’s also where their experience came in handy.

Oregon scored seven points off three UA turnovers over the first five minutes while taking a 19-4 lead, but the Wildcats gave up the ball only once more the rest of the half while shooting 46% and outrebounding Oregon 23-19 before halftime.

“Obviously, they jumped on us early,” Love said. “I was telling my teammates in that run that they had that’s the best punch that they got. Let’s keep coming. Let’s keep coming. Let’s keep, chipping away, chopping wood, and we’re gonna be right there with them.”

Arizona then went on 12-2 and 13-2 runs later in the first half, held a four-point halftime lead and matched the Ducks’ 45 points in the second by holding on with confidence and energy.

At the end of the game, it was more of the same, confidence and energy. Nobody with more than Love, who scored 20 of his 29 points in the second half, and Bradley, who mostly helped withstand Oregon’s late defensive pressure.

They both had learned. At Kansas State on Feb. 11, when Love was shooting 3-for-15 and missed all seven 3s he took, Bradley compounded the problem with several uncharacteristic late mistakes, including a long inbounds heave toward Henri Veesaar with six seconds left that went into the hands of Kansas State’s Dug McDaniel.

Overall, the Wildcats had four turnovers in the last four minutes at K-State, costing them a potential road win. They had led by two points with 4:05 left but lost 73-70.

On Sunday, the Ducks trapped Bradley twice late, and when they did it with 45 seconds left, the ball left Bradley’s hands and went into Duck hands … but officials ruled it ultimately headed out of bounds after Bradley touched it again.

“Call went the other way,” Bradley said. “Could have been either way, but we still got the stop.”

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Bradley didn’t fold. The Wildcats didn’t fold.

Bradley’s turnover left UA with just a two-point lead, 80-78, giving Oregon the ball and a chance to go ahead or tie with 49 seconds left. But Oregon guard TJ Bamba missed a hook with 32 seconds left and Bradley picked up a foul.

The Wildcats never trailed the rest of the game, with Dell’Orso’s two free throws with nine seconds and again at five pushing the Wildcats’ lead back to five.

Still, it ultimately wasn’t settled until, with three seconds left and UA leading 85-82, Oregon’s Jackson Shelstad made a free throw and then intentionally missed the second, leaving a possibility that Oregon could put back the miss and tie it up before the buzzer.

Instead, Love grabbed it.

“They did a little free throw miss and, you know, we’ve been working on that,” Bradley said. “We got the rebound on security.”

Until Sunday, the Wildcats have had to learn from losses much more often than wins in close games. They entered the matchup with the Ducks just 1-5 in games decided in regulation by five points or less, beating only Cincinnati within that margin but losing to Oklahoma, UCLA, Kansas State, Houston (at McKale) and BYU.

Within that mark, UA was also 0-3 in games decided in regulation by three or less: UCLA (57-54), K-State (73-70) and BYU (at McKale, 96-95). Arizona was 1-1 in overtime games, losing to West Virginia in the Battle 4 Atlantis but beating Iowa State at McKale thanks to Love’s buzzer-beater and two 3s in overtime.

“Today was obviously a great step forward in closing games,” UA forward Trey Townsend said after Sunday’s game. “I feel like that’s something we may have been struggling with, but today I was just proud of how everyone handled the situation.

“To see Delly come in making those free throws — it was a very, very high pressure situation, and then just battling the adversity of getting down (early) because we’ve been on the other side of runs like that, where we’ve had big leads and lost those and ended up losing games. To see us battle back from a deficit like that was super good.”

While the Wildcats did hang on to beat Cincinnati on Jan. 4 despite having a 19-point second half completely wiped away, they most notably lost to UCLA on Dec. 14 after taking a 13-point lead after halftime.

But in addition to their K-State meltdown, the Wildcats also led then-No. 6 Houston on Feb. 15 at McKale by seven points with 9:10 to go but lost 62-58 thanks in part to 3-for-11 field goal shooting after that point.

And while it wasn’t costly, it was notable that UA led at Baylor 53-39 with 12:49 to go on Feb. 17, but had the lead cut to three and won by only seven after shooting 5 for 16 from that point.

“We’ve had a few of those times we’ve been in a one possession game with three minutes left or four minutes left, and we’ve not executed right — we should have done this, should have done that,” Dell’Orso said. “But it all leads to these moments where we can learn from our mistakes and come out with a win this time in essentially the most important game of the year.”

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Photos: Arizona squeak by Oregon 87-83, round of 32 NCAA Tournament