Oumar Ballo scores career-high 21 points as No. 3 UA beats Stanford despite losing Azuolas Tubelis

PALO ALTO, Calif. — As productive as Azuolas Tubelis and Christian Koloko have been inside for Arizona this season, the Wildcats proved again Thursday they have many different ways to win.

Tubelis went out with a sprained left ankle early in the Wildcats’ 85-57 win over Stanford at Maples Pavilion on Thursday, while Koloko struggled with fouls and turnovers. But the Wildcats managed just fine with a heavy dose of small-ball plus big contributions off the bench from backup center Oumar Ballo and guard Pelle Larsson.

Ballo had a career-high 21 points on 7-for-8 shooting while making 7 of 8 free throws, while Larsson had 13 points and six assists in a season-high 33 minutes.

"There's not a set formula every day," UA coach Tommy Lloyd said. "The game of basketball is crazy. There's a lot of moving parts -- injuries, scheduling, all these things that play into it. Sometimes you've just got to weather storms, and that's what high-character kids in high-character programs do."

At 7-foot and 260 pounds, plus patience that Lloyd has consistently praised, Ballo may have been built for such a storm. Especially with a matchup against Stanford, a physically big team that is one of the country's best in rebounding.

But Ballo was even bigger than the Cardinal. With six points in the first half, Ballo exploded for 15 more on 6-for-6 field goal shooting after halftime.

Mathurin was among the many Wildcats greeting Ballo with grins and slaps after Ballo returned to the bench with a minute to go, having also helped the Wildcats in spurts during their 82-64 win over Utah on Jan. 15.

"It was fun," Ballo said. "They were happy for me, because every time someone has a great night, everyone is happy for them. That's the best thing about our team, just being happy for each other."

Ballo also pulled down six rebounds, while Dalen Terry led the Wildcats in rebounding with nine. While Stanford managed to outrebound the Wildcats 42-39 overall, that was in large part because the Cardinal shot just 30% - and picked up 21 offensive rebounds on their 49 misses.

Offensively, Arizona shot 55.4% from the field but just 28.6% from 3-point range. 

"Don't overthink it," Lloyd said. "Fifty-five percent is fifty-five percent." 

Part of the Wildcats' offensive success was having point guard Kerr Kriisa run things after missing their Jan. 15 win over Utah. Kriisa shot only 2 for 7 from the field but dished seven assists while collecting four rebounds.

But it was Larsson's play that glued together the Wildcats' necessarily small-ball approach without Tubelis and Koloko, another show of improvisation after the Wildcats went heavily inside to those same guys against Utah when they couldn't shoot outside.

This time, Larsson and three other perimeter players often teamed with Ballo to make life dizzying for Stanford, which turned the ball over 11 times in the first half and shot just 30% for the game.

Larsson hit 5 of 8 shots overall, making 1 of 4 3-pointers, while even recording a career-high in blocks with three.

"Every player wants to play as much as they can and when you get a chance to play, you hustle and give great effort," Larsson said. "It feels great."

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Larsson knew he might have to give that sort of effort once he saw Tubelis go down just over six minutes into Thursday's game. Just as Tubelis scooped up a loose ball that Stanford's Harrison Ingram had lost control of, Ingram dived after the ball and fell into the Lithunian forward.

His legs taken out from under him, Tubelis was unable to easily break his fall and stayed down for several seconds. He played three more possessions while limping, even taking a 3-point shot but finally hopped off the floor and went into the UA locker room with trainer Justin Kokoskie with 13:10 left in the half.

Tubelis returned to the UA bench for the final few minutes of the first half with an ice pack over his left ankle and not wearing a shoe.

"It was very unfortunate," Larsson said. "Someone fell into his leg and we had to step up."

In the second half, Tubelis did not appear at all on the team bench, suggesting he may have been receiving additional tests. Lloyd said he didn't know where Tubelis had gone and that he did not know the extent of his injury.

As a result, Lloyd said he had no idea if Tubelis would be able to play Sunday at Cal.

Tubelis’ injury wasn't the only problem UA had with its frontcourt: Koloko played just three minutes in the first half, committing two fouls and three turnovers in just three minutes. Koloko finished with six points and two rebounds in eight minutes.

Ahead 42-31 at halftime, Arizona was up by 20 when Larsson made a layup just three minutes into the second half to make it 54-34. Midway through the first half, they went up 66-38 when Koloko hit a pair of free throws.

Other than Tubelis’ injury, the first half was also lacking suspense.

Mathurin had 13 points on 5-for-7 shooting while the Wildcats helped force 11 Stanford turnovers before halftime. The Cardinal also shot just 37.5% from the field in the first half.

"Obviously, we were beat by an excellent, excellent team tonight from early in the game and throughout the game," Stanford coach Jerod Haase said. "Defensively, they pressured us, forced us into a bunch of turnovers but even more importantly, we had no rhythm offensively. We weren't getting the shots that we want to get."

While Stanford guard Michael O’Connell rebounded a miss from Koloko and drove downcourt for a jumper in the lane for the first score of the game, things changed quickly for Stanford after that.

After recording a steal, O’Connell then turned it over himself , and the Cardinal went on to turn the ball over four more times in the first three minutes of the game while the Wildcats jumped out to a 6-2 lead. Then Mathurin hit back to back 3s to make it 12-2.

While 3-pointers from Maxime Raynaud and O’Connell cut UA’s lead to 22-16 with nine minutes left in the first half, the Wildcats quickly took control again: Mathurin hit a 3, Justin Kier stole the ball and took it in for a layup and Larsson hit a 3, and soon it was 30-16.

Ballo and Larsson helped lead the way to more of the same in the second half, too.

"We have a lot of good players that can do a lot of good things," Larsson said. "I think we've faced a lot of adversity this season, but we responded every single time. So it just feels good to be with these guys.