Big road sweep puts Arizona Wildcats firmly in driver's seat of Pac-12 race

BOULDER, Colo. — By sweeping two teams that hadn’t previously lost at their homes this season with 95 minutes of hard-driving basketball, the Arizona Wildcats didn’t appear to find short rest, high elevation and long work hours any sort of problem.

So what happens now?

After outlasting Utah 105-99 in triple-overtime on Thursday and routing Colorado 99-79 on Saturday, the No. 8-ranked Wildcats (19-5, 10-3 Pac-12) have nearly a week off before hosting ASU on Saturday night.

That’s a lot of time to rest, heal and work out ….but also a lot of time to slow the wave of momentum they are riding, one that has put them in clear possession of the driver’s seat in the Pac-12 race.

“Listen, I’d play right now if I could,” Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd said after Saturday’s game at the CU Events Center. “But we’re going to take advantage of how the schedule is set.”

There are advantages for the Wildcats. Though their charter flight home didn’t arrive until 3 a.m. Sunday, UA players still had six days of rest and practice ahead before facing the Sun Devils.

They also won’t have to leave the state of Arizona until the final week of the season — when the Wildcats will have at least clinched a tie for the conference title if they win out until then.

Before they travel to face UCLA and USC during the second weekend of March, the Wildcats will play ASU twice while hosting second-place Washington State, Washington and Oregon.

After WSU beat Oregon 62-56 on Saturday to win its fifth straight game, the Cougars (18-6, 9-4) are the only team within a game of the first-place Wildcats — and Arizona has head-to-head games remaining with WSU and both third-place teams, Oregon (16-8, 8-5) and UCLA (13-11, 8-5) to create additional space.

If the Wildcats win their next five games before heading to L.A., they would be at 15-3, at least two games ahead of everyone with two games to go.

That’s the kind of table you can set when you sweep on the road in the Pac-12.

“We know what we’re playing for,” Lloyd said. “Competing for the league championship is important to us. We knew playing well at Colorado was not make-or-break, but it goes a long way to helping you.

“We knew we had to play good, and our guys respect Colorado. We knew that there they’re a dangerous team, especially at home.”

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Lloyd indicated that was the mindset that helped the Wildcats continue to accelerate after taking a 47-40 at the end of the first half, despite having previously allowed several other opponents to get back in the game after UA held halftime leads.

On Saturday, Arizona received 3-pointers from Caleb Love and Keshad Johnson in the first 65 seconds of the second half to take a 13-point lead, and they were up 61-45 at the first media timeout, just four minutes and three seconds into the second half.

Colorado never came within single digits again, and some of its near-capacity crowd of 10,548 began filing out with several minutes left.

“We felt really good about how the first half went,” Lloyd said. “Earlier in the year, we were struggling making that first run of the second half for whatever reason, and we couldn’t quite pinpoint it.

“But today we made that first run in the second half. We had a couple of 3s right off the bat and then played some good defense and I think we won that first segment by nine points, which is what championship teams try to do.”

Even though backup guard KJ Lewis, forward Johnson and wing Pelle Larsson battled foul trouble, the Wildcats kept going thanks in part to little-used backup point guard Conrad Martinez. UA took a 20-point lead, 65-45, with 14:54 left and with UA up by 17 at the 12:01 mark, Lloyd inserted the Spanish freshman alongside four regular rotation players.

“We had a little lead and I really trust Conrad with the ball,” Lloyd said. “He’s got great speed and great instincts. If you have an appreciation for point guard play, he’s an exciting player to watch. I see it every day in practice. He gives our starters fits every single day.”

Martinez wound up playing five minutes, making a layup and missing a 3-pointer, and the Wildcats never led by fewer than 14 points the rest of the way, despite playing a team that had been undefeated in 13 previous games at home this season — and hadn’t lost to Arizona at home since 2014-15.

“I thought Arizona played great tonight,” Colorado coach Tad Boyle said. “I really do think they deserved to win. They were the more aggressive team. They made shots. They were physical, and we didn’t play well enough to win. That was obvious.”

Boyle credited the Wildcats, especially for crushing the Buffs in ball-control areas, with UA scoring 23 points off 16 Colorado turnovers and putting in 23 second-chance points off 12 offensive rebounds. That was on top of Arizona shooting 52.9% from the field, including 10 of 22 3-pointers.

The Wildcats did it all less than 48 hours after outlasting Utah in triple-overtime, then taking Friday and early Saturday to quickly refocus.

“After that Utah game, we went straight to recovery mode,” said Love, who led Arizona with 19 points, “putting our mindset on watching the film and getting ready for this game.”

When it was all over, Arizona shuffled out of the CU Events Center and to the airport in nearby Bloomfield for a post-midnight flight home, having collected not only a road sweep but their third straight road win, all over teams that were previously undefeated on their home courts.

“That’s pretty impressive,” Lloyd said. “Three games in a row — at Oregon, at Utah, at Colorado – and we were their first (home) loss. I think that says something about this team.”