SALT LAKE CITY β Just a few minutes after the guys wearing T-shirts reading βFBIβ and βU OF PAYβ filed out of the Huntsman Center, along with a bunch of their fellow hecklers, the Arizona Wildcats found out something else about playing on the road Thursday.
After holding off Utah and what UA coach Sean Miller called a βnasty crowdβ in a 94-82 win at the Huntsman Center, the Wildcats heard what happened to fourth-ranked ASU on the other side of the Rockies: The Sun Devils lost in overtime.
βItβs tough,β said UA forward Rawle Alkins, who had 22 points and seven rebounds for the Wildcats. βI think we just found out that ASU lost. Winning on the road is a hard thing.β
Yes, it can be. Especially when youβre playing in the most hostile road environment yet, and against a rising team that was coming off its first-ever road sweep of the Oregon schools.
The Wildcats, now 12-3 overall and 2-0 in the Pac-12 with their eighth straight win, established themselves early and often against the Utes. Behind 13 first-half points from Parker Jackson-Cartwright, who hit 3 of 4 3-pointers en route to a season-high 19 points, UA took leads of up to 17 points in the first half and led 46-32 at halftime.
They also held Utah (10-4, 2-1) to just 3 of 12 shooting from 3-point territory in the first half.
Then the road game effect started to take over. The Utes hit eight of their first 10 3-pointers in the second half and completely erased what was a 15-point UA lead early in the second half, tying the game on three separate occasions.
βTheyβre very organized on offense and they can pick you apart,β Miller said of the Utes. βThere were times when they did that to us.
Their fans woke up and, while media seats were too far away to hear what the hecklers actually said, the Wildcats apparently heard them loud and clear.
As they do at Colorado, where UA will play on Saturday at noon, student fans from Utah sit adjacent to the opposing teamβs bench and are actually elevated so their voices can project down on the players.
βVery, very good crowd. Nasty crowd. Something you have to deal with if youβre us,β Miller said. βI thought our guys did a great job of handling that. We answered a number of runs that Utah made against us and Utahβs a good basketball team. We didnβt come in here and expect to blow them out.β
They handled the crowd and, eventually, a Utah defense that made it initially hard to find freshman Deandre Ayton.
The dominating freshman forward took just five shots in the first half but was 8 of 10 in the second half, seemingly answering every Utah run with an unguardable dunk or short jumper in the post and thus quieting the fans again and again.
Aytonβs last score, in fact, broke the final tie, a short jumper that made it 79-77 with 3:24 to go.
Some 91 seconds later, after Alkins hit 5 of 6 free throws to give UA an 82-77 lead, the fans at the Huntsman Center started filing out to go home.
βIf the ball gets in the paint and he has the ball, itβs an automatic two points,β Alkins said. βThatβs something we know as a team and, we try our best to feed him, but we also understand teams are game-planning for him.β
Alkins said it was specifically a matter of finding Ayton through Utahβs hybrid defense, which he found would start in a 2-3 zone and morph into a man-to-man after 10 seconds or so.
UA coach Sean Miller, meanwhile, found the sheer repeated force of Ayton was pretty impactful as the game wore on.
Ayton had just five points and six rebounds in the first half but finished with 24 points on 10-for-15 shooting and 14 rebounds for his 11th double-double of the season.
βYou know, Deandreβs like that football team that keeps running the ball. And you just say, βAre they ever gonna pass?β β Miller said.
βYou just know when youβre that team, weβre gonna break one. It just wears you out. It wears the defensive line out. Itβs just from a basketball perspective getting the ball to him around the basket, it can wear out the other team.
βHe was the difference tonight and he was the difference in our first game (of Pac-12 play) against ASU. The guys on our team to their credit are learning how to play with somebody like him. The more comfortable we are with him in that role, the better.β
Aytonβs dominance helped UA overcome an initial second-half slumber, the kind Miller knew all too well was possible.
What was a 15-point Arizona lead, 48-33 with 19:30 to go, was completely gone just over 13 minutes later.
It was a road game, after all, just as ASU found out over in Boulder.
βI wasnβt sure if we were ready to go in the second half,β Miller said. βAs the coach, Iβve been there a lot more than our players. You always worry when you have that 14-point lead β¦ itβs human nature: you take that foot off the gas and when you do it, this is what happens.
βI know Arizona Stateβs a great team and they lost tonight. Going on the road when youβre ranked high has a whole different responsibility to it. Itβs not easy at all. Itβs a fight every night.β
