Arizona Basketball can’t close, lose another close game to Oregon

TUCSON, AZ – For the third time this season, the Arizona Basketball team (19-8, 9-5) blew a late lead to end up losing the game by one point.

Agony, it’s what Arizona Basketball fans have grown accustomed to over the years. And after yesterdays’ 73-72 overtime loss to the Oregon Ducks, there’s plenty of blame to go around following the loss.

Oregon guard Payton Pritchard would have a career day, scoring 38 points on 12-27 shooting, including 6-14 from three. However, it would seemingly be the last two points scored of Shakur Juiston’s 14 that was the difference here.

Arizona Wildcats

Arizona would get great efforts from a number of players, especially Dylan Smith as he would finish his day with 18, but it was Arizona’s execution, or lack there of down the stretch that cost them this one.

Once again leading by six with a little over three minutes to go, the offense went stagnant and ice cold. Not making a single free throw or basket over the final 3:27, the Wildcats would need overtime against the Ducks again, perhaps foreshadowing to what many fans were hoping wasn’t a repeat outcome from last time.

Oregon would find a rhythm in overtime, but it was late mistakes and poor shooting that couldn’t seal the deal for Arizona.

Leading 72-71 with 29 seconds to go, Oregon would come down and get three attempts to finally get the look they needed to go up for good.

Juiston would be wide open inside the paint, laying the ball with under two seconds to go to put the Ducks up 73-72.

Not leaving much time for really any offensive sets, Jemarl Baker would throw the ball across court to Christian Koloko who would miraculously be fouled by Pritchard to give him two shots at the line.

With free throw shooting certainly not being a strength of his, Koloko would miss both, as Oregon escaped Tucson with a win.

Hard to blame Koloko for the loss here, because really this loss comes down to Arizona’s ability to execute in close games. The team absolutely has no killer instinct, and on a night where you shoot 10-21 from the line, that’s the difference.

Now with the loss, Arizona really needs to find a marquee win still and falls back to fifth in the Pac-12, leaving rival ASU all alone in first place.

Listen to Sean Miller following the teams’ loss to Oregon:

At Zona Zealots, we’re frustrated with the loss and hope the Wildcats can figure things out quickly, because this team likely isn’t going very far if they can’t close out close games. As always, Bear Down, Arizona!