Arizona pulls away late, beats Washington State 79-62

Coming off the UCLA game, a big win on the road, letting up is always a fear. Arizona was back home, against Washington State, with a perfect trap game opportunity.

Thursday night’s game against Washington State, for 30 minutes, was closer than expected. It wasn’t until late in the game when Arizona finally put distance between them and Wazzu, winning 79-62.

Allonzo Trier came in off the bench, as he did against UCLA, leading all Wildcats scorers with 17 points and seven assists. It was his first game of the season playing in front of McKale. He scored his first points in McKale with an NBA-range three.

Trier was a bit rocky in the first half, taking a couple of bad shots, including one from near half-court. It wasn’t until the second half when it seemed Trier was comfortable. He scored 11 in the second half and showed his leadership late. Maybe it was the change of kicks? Trier wore two pairs of shoes during the game, and they got a lot of attention. He wore LeBron 12 EXT Wheat “12th Generation” edition Nike’s in the first half, the white and gold in the second.

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He began to force his hand with much-needed buckets. Trier was also shown calling on his teammates to give more during huddles and timeout. Each time he did this, the team responded well.

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Lauri Markkanen continued his hot shooting from long-range. In the first half, Lauri was perfect from outside, shooting 3-3. In the second half his hot three-point shooting faded a bit, but when the team needed a big shot, Lauri answered the call. He finished the night with a double-double, scoring 16 points, shooting 4-7 from three, and grabbing 13 rebounds.

Conor Clifford, a 7-foot 260 pounds beast, had his way in the paint all night for the Cougars. He came into the game averaging 9.5 points but scored 19 on Arizona. The entire team was very physical on offense, but Clifford used every inch of himself to make room inside.

Washington State made the evening difficult for Arizona. The Cougars showed no signs of being intimidated. From the tip-off, they took their game right to the chest of the Wildcats players.

The Cougars were very physical and active on the defensive end. After being red-hot against UCLA, the Wildcats offense was stagnant from time to time. It took Arizona 10 minutes to score 20 points. Arizona went up 22-12, their first double-digit lead, after a three by Lauri.

But Washington State didn’t panic. They closed the gap 28-23 with four minutes remaining in the first half.

Arizona used a small run of their own, really stepping up the defensive pressure and getting out on fast breaks. At the half, the Wildcats held a 39-33 advantage.

Defensively, Arizona was very inconsistent in the first half. On several occasions they rotated perfectly, helping at the right time and forced Washington State into bad shots. But then the defense would have several possessions of slow rotation, helping when not necessary and were slow in closing on the defender with their hands down.

After the game, Sean Miller spoke about the defensive lapses but reassured it wasn’t totally a hangover from UCLA.

“Even if you’re a great defensive team, and we’ve had some great defensive teams that have had bad defensive games. Tonight I don’t think was a byproduct of us overlooking Washington State. It is that we weren’t at our best. Credit Washington State and we’re trying to work through some things. If you watch us a few weeks from now, we’ll be that further along.”

Washington State went right back to Clifford to start the second half and came out firing on all cylinders. Wazzu went on a 6-0 run in the first two minutes to tie the game at 39-39.

The defensive lapses started to carry over to the offensive end. After taking a bad shot from three, Kadeem Allen then got too far underneath the basket and turned the ball over. Sean Miller was visibly upset. After having only just seven turnovers against UCLA, the Wildcats already have seven with 17:00 left in the game.

Rawle Alkins broke the tension with a nice steal and score. But the Wildcats wouldn’t score for a couple of minutes. At the 15 minute mark, it was only a two-point game. Wazzu was the team in control, even though they were down 44-42.

Allonzo Trier scored on a nice move to the hoop, but then Clifford went right at Chance, who had three fouls, and scored on a dunk. Just as it was in the first half, Washington State countered every time Arizona scored.

What was telling was how In the first half the Cougars shot 46 percent. With 11 minutes left in the game, the Cougars were shooting an incredible 75 percent from the field. At some point, there is only so much you can do, but when a team is shooting that high of a percentage, you need to look for someone to take over.

Trier began to force his hand with the game staying close. He scored twice in a row and had a beautiful pocket pass to Chance Comanche for the slam.

Allonzo continued to push and helped put the Wildcats up 56-48, but again, Wazzu came right back at Arizona. After a three and a lay-up off of another Arizona turnover, and another three, the game was again close at 56-53 with eight minutes left.

Arizona needed to go on a run badly, and they got one. Rawle Alkins hit a three with just under six minutes to capitalize on a 9-0 run, pushing the lead to double figures, 65-55. After Clifford had scored for Wazzu, Lauri got back into his realm and hit a three to put Arizona up 68-55, his 14th point of the night.

The Wildcats finally began to put space between themselves and the Cougars as the final minutes counted down. Washington State began to show signs of fatigue after giving it t

At the final buzzer, Arizona had a 17-point win over the Cougars, 79-62. Event though the game did end up technically being a blowout, the final score doesn’t do justice for how hard Washington State fought.

Lauri and Allonzo stepped up big when needed and filled their stat sheets, but one person who should be getting a lot more notice is Chance Comanche. His improvement from last year to now is amazing. Chance has made 14 out of his last 15 field goal attempts.

Thursday evening he showed off his mid-range jumper, low post play, as well as his impressive pick-and-roll game. Defensively Chance has also really grown as well.

Even though he finished with four fouls, he took every shot Clifford gave him on the block. After scoring on a great inside spin, he made a huge block under the basket. When all was said and done, Chance was 4-4 from the field for eight points and pulled down three rebounds, all in only 16 minutes.

Arizona now turns its attention to the Washington Huskies and their freshman phenom, Markelle Fultz. The Wildcats will be heavily favored but will have a big challenge guarding Fultz. The Washington freshman will get his points, but outside of him, there isn’t much of a threat.

Next: Arizona Projected as No. 2 Seed in Latest Bracketology

Take care of business on Saturday and Arizona will then head to the Pacific Northwest for a showdown with the Oregon schools and a top -ten game against the Ducks. BEAR DOWN!