The Arizona men’s basketball team defeated the University of Oregon Ducks 84-81 Saturday night in front of a huge crowd in McKale Center . This victory moves the Wildcats to 24-2 overall on the season and 14-1 in Pac-12 play.
Both teams began this game on fire with Oregon hitting four of their first five 3-point shots. Arizona also came out hot hitting their first six attempts, as Oregon took a 15-14 lead into the first timeout. Both teams’ hot shooting start began to fall off as the half continued, but Oregon’s activity on the offensive, grabbing five offensive rebounds, allowed the Ducks to open up a lead as large as 12 points.
The Arizona offense once again was able to find their rhythm, as they were able to make a comeback to tie the game up at 37. Despite the late run by the Wildcats, they were still unable to retake the lead as they trailed 47-45 going into halftime.
Once again Oregon came out of the locker room hitting their shots as they quickly got out to a 7-point lead. The Wildcats did not allow this run to hurt their confidence as they responded with an 8-0 run to take a 55-54 lead.
As each team tried to make a run to establish a lead, the other was able to respond with a run of their own. Arizona was never able to create a comfortable lead as Oregon’s Will Richardson led the Ducks 22 points on 7-15 shooting to keep them in the game.
Eventually, Arizona was able to close the game out as Bennedict Mathurin scored 13 of his 24 points in the second half. Dalen Terry with 13 and Azuolas Tubelis with 14 were the other Wildcats to reach double digits in this game. Even though the Wildcats were able to hold on to this win, their free throw shooting hurt them down the stretch as they only shot 11-19 for the game.
Arizona will be back in action next Thursday against the University of Utah at 9 p.m. MST.
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