Arizona men’s basketball defeated Oregon State with a score of 90-65. With this solid performance, Arizona caught its seventh win in a row to start the year and its first win in the Pac-12 in its first match of the season, since the game against Washington was postponed due to COVID-19. 

Arizona struggled a bit in the first half. Oregon State proved to be a tough matchup, in the beginning, taking the lead for the first part of the game, albeit head coach Tommy Lloyd’s team arrived at the break with a solid 8-point-lead.

Oregon State, now 1-8 and 0-2 in the Conference, was carried by the shining performances of Warith Alatishe (14 points and nine rebounds) and Jarod Lucas (17 and five rebounds).

Arizona turned the ball over 12 times in the game and collected 39 rebounds. Arizona shot 47.1% from the field (33/70) with a decent 28.1% from the 3-point-line (9/32, a big slump from the 56.3% against Sacramento State) and a poor 62.5% from free throws (15/24).

Bennedict Mathurin lead Arizona with 29 points and six rebounds. Mathurin had struggled in the first games, so this huge performance in the first Pac-12 game was a good signal from him. Christian Koloko scored 12 with six rebounds, while Azuolas Tubelis had 10 and five. Kerr Kriisa shined, too, with 11 points, five assists and three rebounds. 

“We played one game basically in the last two weeks, so it took us a little bit to get our feet underneath us,” Lloyd said after the game. “I’m really proud of how the bench came in and changed the game, pressuring defensively and making some things happen.“

“In the beginning, I think if everybody watched the game it was a little bit off,” Kriisa said. “We didn’t start off as good as we usually do. So you can tell maybe the first real road game, everything’s a little bit different with fans.”

Next up: Arizona will face Wyoming in McKale Center on Wednesday night before going on the road again to play Illinois on Saturday. 

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