Arizona Wildcats clinch Pac-12 regular-season title with 88-65 win over UCLA at Pauley

LOS ANGELES — By the time Keshad Johnson was deemed no longer necessary Thursday, five minutes were still on the clock and Arizona held a 22-point lead.

Over UCLA. At Pauley Pavilion.

If that didn’t seem surprising enough, considering decades of Arizona-UCLA Pac-12 struggles on the Bruins’ storied homecourt, there was also what Johnson was told when he jogged off the floor for the last time.

In Pullman, the Washington Huskies had upset Washington State 74-68 in a game that started a half-hour before Arizona's, meaning the Wildcats would win the Pac-12 title outright if they finished off the Bruins.

UA coach Tommy Lloyd may have been the only one who didn’t know what happened in the Palouse until the Wildcats' game was over, with Arizona closing out its own 88-65 win over UCLA in the final scheduled matchup of the two longtime western men's college basketball powers.

“I didn't expect that. I thought we were gonna have to win on Saturday" at USC to win the title outright, Lloyd said.  “Nobody told me until literally before the buzzer went off. I think my whole staff was probably looking on their Apple watches or whatever they do now. Obviously you guys know, I'm not a watch guy. So I had no idea.”

But Johnson knew as soon as he came off the court. So did everyone else and, after holding a long postgame celebration not on the Pauley floor but in their closed locker room, Johnson and guard Caleb Love emerged with hats on that said “2024 Pac-12 Champions.”

“We got that PTC mindset: Pac-12 championship mindset,” Johnson said, noting of UA’s locker-room celebration that “it was ecstatic. Showers, that kind of stuff. It was ecstatic. It was ecstatic. We Pac-12 Champions.”

There was still more to play for, of course. The Wildcats (24-7 overall and 15-4 in the Pac-12) will finish regular-season play on Saturday at USC, and probably can’t afford to lose if they want to become a No. 1 NCAA Tournament seed.

“We're gonna celebrate probably tonight and a little bit tomorrow,” said Love, who had 17 points to help further his almost undisputable case for the Pac-12 Player of the Year award. “But we came here to get the sweep. It’s right back to work.”

But Thursday’s results did allow the Wildcats to sew up the Pac-12’s No. 1 Tournament seed, giving them a chance to open earlier (at noon on Thursday, March 14) and by facing nobody seeded higher than eighth in their first game.

Arizona needed to win the conference outright to earn the No. 1 seed since it lost twice to WSU earlier this season, but the Cougars’ loss to the Huskies finished their regular season at 14-6 in conference play, two games behind Arizona in the loss column.

While the Washington rivals were locked up in a tense game played mostly within one possession in Pullman, the Wildcats had no such worries against UCLA. Even though the Bruins had beaten the Wildcats in five previous matchups at Pauley Pavilion, they entered Thursday on a four-game losing streak and appeared in no mood to stop that trend.

UA built a 7-3 lead early and, while UCLA tied the game at 15 midway through the first half, the Wildcats went on to take a 44-27 halftime lead. Arizona held the Bruins to just 35.5% shooting in the first half, while making half its shots on the other end.

“Our guys settled in and played good team basketball, and I thought we were able to make a really good run at the end of the first half to kind of get some separation and that's crucial,” Lloyd said. “That's something we work on -- when you get that six, eight point lead, can you make that next run? It can't doesn't always happen, but they did it.”

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The Wildcats did it in a more balanced way than ever. They had five players score in double-figures for the 17th time this season, though only three of them were starters. Love had 17 points while KJ Lewis led the Wildcats in scoring with 18 off the bench, and Jaden Bradley added another 13 in reserve.

Having scored 14 points on UCLA on Jan. 20 at McKale, hitting 6 of 6 free throws and making 3 of 4 field goals, Lewis wound up with a total of 32 points against the Bruins in two games.

While Lewis wasn’t available for comment afterward, Lloyd said he had just had a conversation with Lewis earlier this week that mentioned the UCLA game and his role in all games.

“We were talking about the seasons and how they go and I said, `That UCLA game (at McKale), we couldn’t get you off the court. You were super valuable,' " Lloyd said. "Some days it's going to be your day, some days it's not. But that's the guy you are and when you're on the court, make sure you play like that and don't worry about anything else.”

Jaden Bradley also hit double figures off the bench, scoring 13 points with his usual efficiency, making 4 of 5 field goals and hitting all four free throws he took.

Of the Wildcats' other starters, Pelle Larsson had 12 points and Kylan Boswell had 10 points and five assists, while Oumar Ballo had nine points and Johnson seven.

Together, Arizona players built up leads as high as 28 points in the second half, going ahead 88-60 with two minutes left when reserve forward Paulius Murauskas hit a step-back 3-pointer. The game was never competitive in the second half, with UCLA shooting 42.9% after halftime but Arizona playing reserves entirely in the final five minutes.

All that prompted the 2,000 or so Arizona fans to chant “U of A” repeatedly over the final few minutes, giving Pauley Pavilion a little bit of a McKale Center feel even if the Wildcats couldn’t clinch the title at home.

Maybe, in one sense, clinching it at Pauley was even better for Arizona. The Bruins weren’t the ones the Wildcats pushed out into second place – that was WSU – but they were the ones the Wildcats pushed around all night.

On their famous homecourt, no less.

“We know they have blue bloods, we know they lead in NCAA championships, so we know how big it is to come in here and win at Pauley Pavilion,” Johnson said. “You look up there, and you see all the jerseys from Kareem and Walton, and we just knew we had business to take care of.”

Photos: No. 5 Arizona defeats UCLA 88-65 to clinch 2024 Pac-12 regular-season men's hoops crown