With coach Sean Miller back on the sidelines and Allonzo Trier back on the court, the Arizona Wildcats clinched a share of the Pac-12 title and No. 1 conference tournament seed with a 75-67 win over Stanford on Thursday at McKale Center.
Before the game, UA declared Miller was still the Wildcatsβ coach following an ESPN report that said he discussed paying Deandre Ayton $100,000, while Trier won an appeal for reinstatement after a two-game suspension last week following a positive PED test.
Dusan Ristic became the Wildcatsβ winningest player ever in style, scoring 21 points on 10 for 15 while collecting five rebounds to lead UA.
Ristic has now played in 111 UA victories, the most of any Arizona player ever, pulling ahead of previous record-holders Matt Muehlebach and Kaleb Tarczewski. Ironically, Muehlebach was an analyst for FS1βs coverage of the game.
Trier had 14 points while Ayton added 10 points and nine rebounds while struggling with foul trouble in the first half.
The win moved Arizona to 23-7 overall and 13-4 in the Pac-12. Arizona could still tie with USC if the Trojans beat UCLA on Saturday and Arizona loses to Cal but UA owns the tiebreaker because it beat USC on Feb. 10 at McKale Center and did not play the Trojans in Los Angeles.
Stanford dropped to 16-14 and 10-7 in Pac-12 play.
Ahead 37-28 at halftime and by up to 12 early in the second half, Arizona led just 42-37 when Daejon Davis hit a 3-pointer with 15:46 left. Arizona led by more than two possessions for most of the second half, taking an 11-point lead ointo the final five minutes after Parker Jackson-Cartwright hit a 3-pointer to make it 67-56 with 5:31 left.
But Stanford went on a 6-0 run while keeping UA scoreless for two minutes late in the half, cutting UAβs lead to 67-62 into the final four minutes. Then Davis threw down an open dunk with 1:04 left to cut UAβs lead to just 69-64 before Arizona hit six free throws in the final minute to pull away.
In the first half, Ristic led Arizona with 15 points on 7-for-8 shooting.
Arizona doubled up Stanford on the rebounding glass, 18-9, and shot 55.2 percent from the field.
Buoyed by pregame crowd support for players and Miller, who defiantly denied the ESPN report in a prepared statement earlier Thursday, the Wildcats scored on their first two possessions to take a quick 5-0 lead.
The Wildcats took a quick 5-0 lead on a jumper from Ristic and a 3-pointer from Trier, who won his appeal for a PED suspension after he tested clean on Feb. 23 in Salt Lake City.
Arizona took early leads of up to six points before Stanford had success scoring inside, getting dunks from Michael Humphrey and Oscar Da Silva that gave them a 20-19 lead with 10 minutes left.
Arizona then went on a 16-3 run to take a 35-23 lead with 2:02 left on a jumper from Trier.
The Wildcats will host Cal on Saturday at 4:30 in their regular-season finale. It will be Senior night for Ristic, Jackson-Cartwright, Keanu Pinder and Talbott Denny.
