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Arizona 80, Arizona State 69: The Pac-10 season continued Saturday morning in Tucson, where the Arizona Wildcats hosted the Arizona State Sun Devils in the Territorial Cup. Coming into the game, Arizona knew that they would be on the top of the Pac-10 with a victory, even if just for a day.
The Wildcats trailed early, but some hot shooting quickly gave them the lead. The Wildcats led by as many as twelve in the first half, and if not for a Rihards Kusiks three pointer with 10 seconds left, the UA lead would have been 43-31 instead of 43-34 going into the locker rooms.
Going into the 2nd Half, the Wildcats erased any thoughts of an upset. Arizona did lead by as many as 13, but the Sun Devils did make a small run to cut the lead down to 60-55. But the Wildcats would not let ASU get any closer in front of a packed McKale Center, as the UA defense turned up the defense another notch and sunk all of their free throws down the stretch to hang on for the 11 point win.
Derrick Williams led Arizona with 31 points, while Trent Lockett led Arizona State with 17.
UCLA 67, Oregon 59: After their first Pac-10 victory on Thursday, the Ducks looked to do the impossible in their brand new arena: Sweep the LA Schools.
And the way the Ducks started out the game, a sweep did indeed look possible. Oregon led by as many as twelve in the first half, but the Bruins closed the half on a 11-2 run, and Oregon only took a 27-24 lead into Halftime.
The second half went back and forth for a while, but UCLA slowly began to pull away. Using hot shooting from behind the arc and excellent rebounding inside by Tyler Honeycutt and Joshua Smith, UCLA built up their lead. Oregon did hang around, but the Ducks could not make any of their shots down the stretch. On the other side of the court, the Bruins knocked down their free throws and escaped Eugene with a 67-59 victory.
Malcolm Lee led the Bruins with 18 points, while E.J. Singler led Oregon with 15.
Washington State 61, Stanford 58: "WSU played very even with Stanford, for the most part - they held a slight edge in shooting, turnover rate and free throw rate... but were beat soundly by the Cardinal on the boards. The Cardinal have a solid, attacking defense, but WSU executed the 2-3 zone well throughout the game.
The result was seven steals, four blocks, and a mostly frustrated Stanford offense. The Cougars flipped the script of last year's loss in Palo Alto: opening the second half on a 10-1 run over the first 4:19 and never fading away down the strech." (Recap via CougCenter)
More game recaps, plus updated standings after the break
Oregon State 80, USC 76: "After a competitive start to the game, Oregon St. opened a 10 point working margin going into halftime, and took control of the game early in the second half, going up by 16 points with 16 minutes left on a pair of free throws by Devon Collier. USC cut down three quarters of the lead over the last three quarters of the second half, but never got closer than the final margin of 4 points." (Recap via Building the Dam)
Updated Pac-10 Standings
1. Arizona, 15-3 (4-1)
2. Washington, 12-4 (4-1)
3. UCLA, 11-6 (3-2)
4. Stanford, 10-6 (3-2)
5. California, 9-7 (2-2)
6. Washington State, 13-5 (3-3)
7. Oregon State, 8-9 (3-3)
8. USC, 10-8 (2-3)
9. Arizona State, 9-8 (1-4)
10. Oregon, 8-10 (1-5)
Once again, if you would like an excerpt from your blog's game recap, please let me know at ConnorOSU@gmail.com.
--Connor