The Arizona Wildcats ended their two game losing skid while increasing their overall home court winning streak as they dominated the Washington Huskies in the second half, winning 99-67 at the buzzer in the sold-out McKale Center.
Ryan Anderson dominates down low in first half
Ryan Anderson did not have a very good Los Angeles trip for the Wildcats in their two losses, blowing defensive assignments in both games and not finishing his easy shots. Right from the tip off though, Anderson looked like a completely different player. He used his physicality to take control of the area underneath the rack and got a ton of easy looks down low, finishing off the half with 15 points which led his side. With his physical ability, the Boston College transfer got to the free throw line early and often. This made things difficult for Washington as a few key players got into early foul trouble.
With two minutes remaining in the half, Washington got their first lead after being able to stay in the contest. David Crisp hit a three point shot to give them a 37-36 lead and Matisse Thybulle extended that lead to three forcing Sean Miller to call a timeout. Out of the timeout, however, Arizona got anything and everything they wanted on the offensive side of the ball, capping the opening frame with an 8-2 run.
Neither side played much defensive in the first 20 minutes of basketball, with both sides finishing with 51% shooting. A lot of these baskets were made though down by the rack with the big bodies of the aforementioned Ryan Anderson, Noah Dickerson of the Huskies, and Kaleb Tarczewski combining for 32 of the 85 total points, which is an absolute remarkable figure.
Wildcats open up big second half lead, don’t let up
The halftime lead for Arizona was only three points, but that kept growing and growing and all of a sudden, just seven minutes into the second half, the lead had been pushed out to eleven. Washington could not buy a bucket, partially thanks to the Wildcats clamp on defense and partially because they just took poorer shots than in the first half. Before anyone knew it, Arizona were up by 30 and hitting every shot on the offensive floor.
Each and every Wildcat starter finished the night in double figures. Tarczewski had 16 points and was second on the team, then came Kadeem Allen with 13, Gabe York ended with 11, followed up by Mark Tollefson with 10. Their second half shooting percentage went up dramatically, by a whopping 19% which rarely happens. They shot the ball 19 times and made 27 times, making nearly half of those from behind the arc and made 20 shots from the charity stripe.
This win will give Arizona confidence knowing that even without their leading scorer, they will still get production to breeze by the weaker teams in the conference.
On Saturday night, the Arizona Wildcats will welcome in the Washington State Huskies who got off to a decent start in conference play but fell to ASU on Thursday. Washington will travel north to Tempe to take on Tra Holder and the Arizona State Sun Devils.