Greg Hansen: Arizona Wildcats and their 'big dudes' dominate, but it's a 'mino' who delivers

SALT LAKE CITY —

Jean’s Golden Girls danced to J. Geils Band’s “Freeze Frame” Thursday at halftime in the Huntsman Center, and when 85-year-old Shirley Cox did the splits at midcourt, a slumbering crowd of 13,543 came alive.

Everything changed.

For the next 15 minutes, Arizona did the Freeze Frame dance itself. The Wildcats lost all of a 14-point lead. Total engine failure.

Utah swished six consecutive 3-pointers, tied the game at 72, and you’d have sworn the Swish Brothers were wearing Utes uniforms.

And then the Utes did the splits themselves.

Arizona won 94-82, and it wasn’t a typical Pac-12 road survival, it was the Wildcats manifesting their size and making use of 7-foot 1-inch Deandre Ayton the way you’d think a good team would.

“We need a couple of bigger dudes,” said Utah coach Larry Krystkowiak. “They got us. They beat us at their strength.”

Ayton had a typical statistical night — 24 points and 14 rebounds — but more than anything he showed up down the stretch, answering the factory whistle when it sounded after the last TV timeout.

“Deandre was like that football team that keeps running the ball,” said UA coach Sean Miller. “The other team says, ‘Aren’t they ever going to pass?’ It just wears you out.”

The Utes are a dangerous team at the Huntsman Center, not as potent as Krystkowiak’s 26-9 and 27-9 teams of 2015 and 2016, when the Utes finished second in the Pac-12 and had most opponents begging for mercy in Salt Lake City.

But after sweeping Oregon State and Oregon on the road last week — something no other team in the league might do this season — the theme changed. The Utes are a contender, and even though they are size-challenged and don’t have much depth, Krystkowiak is a resourceful coach, one of the best in the Pac-12.

In Salt Lake City as in Tucson, the crowd is half of the danger, and it became that way in the final 20 minutes Thursday.

Miller referred to it as “nasty.”

“It’s something you have to deal with if you’re us,” he said.

For five years, the Mountain Trip has become the most dreaded in the Pac-12. That was supposed to change this year because USC and UCLA were thought to be top-25 outfits, and because Arizona State has grown up and become a Big Baller Basketball team.

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But Colorado ambushed the Sun Devils on Thursday and USC has melted into a puddle of basketball goo, and it’s like nothing has changed. Arizona’s visit to Colorado’s Coors Evens Center on Saturday no longer looks like an automatic W.

Arizona had 75 possessions on Thursday, the most it has had this season. It averages 68. It played a speedier game than normal because it outrebounded the size-vulnerable Utes 46-23. It was off to the races.

Sooner or later, that rebounding gap was going to cost the Utes the game once Justin Bibbins and Sedrick Barefield returned to earth and missed a few 3-balls.

And then there was Parker Jackson-Cartwright. He scored 19 points. Only once before, last season at Washington State, has he scored more (20). If Ayton didn’t get you, PJC did.

“He played like a senior point guard tonight,” said Miller.

No kidding.

PJC’s career against Utah hadn’t exactly been Magic vs. Bird. In five games against the Utes, PJC had scored four points in 59 minutes. On Thursday, he had 10 points almost before people sat down from the national anthem.

We’ve all heard the ESPN analysts, and Pac-12 Networks’ Kevin O’Neill, say that PJC isn’t good enough to lead Arizona to much more than an early exit in March, but the more you see his steady play, his leadership and his greatly under-rated ability to bury a 3-pointer, you wonder if KO knows what he’s saying.

PJC goes by the Twitter handle “unrulymino00,” which I suppose is short for minnow, given his lack of height. But minnows aren’t softies. There’s a Desert Minnow, a Silverjaw Minnow and even a Fathead Minnow.

Perhaps PJC has played well enough this season to be known as more than the “unruly mino.” Perhaps he is the Desert Minnow with a silver jaw. Or something like that. I want him on my team, for sure.

As Utah rallied to tie the game at 72, Utah senior David Collette, the Utes’ only inside threat, exerted himself. He scored 19 points. Maybe he should score 19 every night. After all, he turns 25 this spring. He is almost six years older than Ayton.

But Collette had just one rebound in 27 minutes. Ayton and 7-foot Dusan Ristic combined for 23. Game over.

Winning on the road in the Pac-12, against a good team like Utah in an arena that ranks No. 2 behind McKale Center for overall inhospitality in the conference — making the best of the final four minutes — isn’t a lot different than moving into contention at The Masters on a Sunday afternoon.

A lot of guys challenge for the lead at the 14th and 15th holes. But as on Thursday night at the Huntsman Center, just as Utah looked and saw its name on the leaderboard, the Utes went bogey-bogey-bogey and all Arizona had to do was make pars to win.

Doing the splits was optional.