Greg Hansen: Ecstasy, agony for Arizona hoops teams in McKale back-to-backs

In the space of 23 hours last weekend, Arizona’s men’s basketball team lost a game that seemed unthinkable to lose. A day earlier, the UA’s women’s team won a game that seemed unimaginable to win.

McKale Center is on the clock for its 50th anniversary next month, a period in which the UA’s men’s and women’s teams have combined to play more than 1,400 games. But rarely, if ever, have there been two such flabbergasting outcomes on one weekend — or even in one season — at McKale.

When the once-hopeless scenarios came to an end at 5:07 p.m. Saturday, Washington State coach Kyle Smith waved to several Cougar fans leaning over a McKale Center railing. He shouted, “Thanks for coming!’’ and sprinted down a corridor where his joyous staff awaited, jumping up and down in a spontaneous celebration.

“Someone get us some Modelos,’’ shouted Smith, who compared the Cougars’ bewildering 74-61 victory to a similarly unexpected 75-57 upset by his 2012 Columbia Lions at mighty Villanova.

“This is probably the biggest (WSU) win in 30 or 40 years, since George Raveling was coaching the Cougs,’’ Smith said.

How did this all happen? Here’s how it went down:

Part I

A few ticks past 7:30 on Friday night, Oregon State led Arizona 65-53 with 3:24 remaining. The crowd of 7,182 at McKale had been duly suppressed.

“I was stressing out the whole game,’’ UA coach Adia Barnes would say 30 minutes later.

The size-challenged Wildcats had been unable to stop OSU’s twin towers: 6-9 Jelena Mitrovic and 6-4 Raegan Beers, who had combined for 24 points and 17 rebounds.

But they would not score again, and everything changed.

Over the next two minutes, Arizona outscored OSU 15-0. Steals by Helena Pueyo and Shaina Pellington fueled a pair of 3-pointers by Lauren Fields and another by Pueyo.

“We could’ve laid down and died,’’ said Barnes, whose last-gasp strategy was to instruct her team to play an aggressive, trapping defense, one that gave them an opportunity, if risky, at the improbable comeback. One more OSU basket would’ve surely been a dagger.

Fields was the unlikely hero. She scored nine points in the final 2:28, which was more than her season scoring average at the time of 5.8.

But all of that became window dressing when OSU closed to within 70-69 with 28 seconds remaining. Because the Beavers had committed just one foul in the fourth quarter, they would foul the Wildcats four times in 11 seconds in attempt to get the ball and stop the clock.

The four resulting inbounds passes in front of the Arizona bench were harrowing, to say the least. With five defenders against Arizona’s four on-court players, every in-bound attempt was almost intercepted by the Beavers. Almost.

“You don’t want to wait until the end of the game to do that,’’ Barnes said, shaking her head in relief.

With no margin for error in the final 3:24, Arizona was error-free. The Wildcats outscored the Beavers 19-4 and went a perfect 6 for 6 from the field with no turnovers.

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“It was all part of the plan,’’ Barnes said, able to laugh after two hours of uncertainty,

Part II

At 3:04 p.m. Saturday, Tommy Lloyd’s No. 5 Wildcats were 13-point favorites against the 6-10 Cougars, who earlier this season lost to Prairie View A&M, Hawaii, Utah State and UNLV.

There was little or no tension among the 14,176 at McKale, and for good reason: Arizona had played 20 games as the AP’s No. 5 team at McKale and won all 20. Many of those were blowouts, like a 101-41 rout over St. Mary’s in 2000 and a 127-99 stomping of ASU in 1998.

What the fans probably didn’t consider is that Smith plays a style different than other Pac-12 teams. He is the league’s version of a baseball analytics guru. He believes in 3-pointers as the difference-maker the way baseball people believe in home runs.

Smith also believes in working the shot clock close to its full 30 seconds, shortening the game, limiting possessions. Smith’s Cougars lead the Pac-12 in 3-point shots (412) and are No. 322 in tempo nationally, according to kenpom.com.

In its losses to Utah, Oregon, Hawaii and Utah State, the Cougars were awful 3-point shooters, going a cumulative 12 of 74, or 16.2%. That’ll get you beat every time.

But on Saturday, Smith’s bombers went 12 for 28. Combined with the dreadful 3-point shooting — 2 of 20 — from Arizona’s Kerr Kriisa, Kylan Boswell, Courtney Ramey and Cedric Henderson, the Cougars played the game on their terms: slow and able to concentrate their defense on UA center Oumar Ballo.

“We limited their inside catches,’’ said Smith, who said his team had 18 deflections, a huge improvement on the seven deflections two days earlier in a loss at ASU.

The Cougars weren’t intimidated by Ballo. They believed 6-11 Mouhamed Gueye could front Ballo and keep the UA offense from flowing through its big man. Most UA opponents have guarded Ballo from behind. Gueye’s length is every bit that of Ballo’s, maybe even longer, and, amazingly, he affected four Ballo shots at the rim.

No other team has been able to do that.

“Mouhamed’s length made a difference,’’ Smith said in his postgame Zoom conference. Gueye also outscored Ballo 24-11 in what would become Gueye’s career performance with a double-double of 24-14.

It was a game that put Gueye on the Pac-12 basketball map, not only as a likely all-conference player, but one of the most feared players in the conference. At 6-11, Gueye also stepped out and swished a 3-pointer at McKale. NBA scouts everywhere have surely absorbed that information by now.

Arizona learned from its loss against WSU. On his radio show this week, Lloyd said that Ballo’s frustrated attempts to dunk over similarly tall players isn’t a good way to operate.

“We want Oumar to be an elite layup-maker,’’ Lloyd said. “He doesn’t need to dunk everything.’’

In the rematch Jan. 26 in Pullman, it’s likely that no one in an Arizona uniform — and those UA fans watching on TV — will think of the Cougars as anything other than a formidable opponent.