After a convincing win over Washington on Thursday No. 18 Arizona continued its winning ways with a dominant 90-66 victory over the Washington State Cougars.
Ryan Anderson finished the game with 15 points and Parker Jackson-Cartwright added 13, as six Wildcat players reached double-digit scoring and Arizona won its 49th straight home game.
“I thought the story of this weekend was Parker,” Arizona head coach Sean Miller said. “He played his best basketball of his career in back-to-back games. 18 assists and three turnovers is phenomenal.”
Arizona played a more complete game defensively against Washington State, building off its strong second-half performance versus Washington.
The Wildcats forced Washington State to commit 13 turnovers and only shoot 45 percent from the field. The UA in turn shot 54 percent from the field and 56 percent from three as Arizona rebounded from last weekend in Los Angeles with a sweep of the Washington schools.
Arizona picked up right where it left off in the first half, going on a 10-2 run in the first two and a half minutes of the second half, capping it with a huge one-handed slam from Gabe York. Arizona’s largest lead of the game came at 28 when Justin Simon scored on a breakaway dunk.
“I think I found my rhythm in the last two games,” Jackson-Cartwright said. “My teammates are doing a great job of finding me. My teammates and the coaching staff have given me a lot of confidence.”
Big plays were abundant this game as Parker Jackson-Cartwright livened the crowd with ally-oops to both Mark Tollefsen and Ryan Anderson. Jackson-Cartwright, coming off an 11-assist night against the Huskies, finished this game with seven assists.
“Those are the type of plays that we feed off of,” Jackson-Cartwright said of the ally-oop to Anderson. “I saw it as soon as I got the ball.”
With a back and forth game to start, Arizona began to pull away midway through the first half. Mark Tollefsen leads all scorers in the half with 10 points on 4-4 shooting. Arizona grabbed a 15 point lead heading into half after York sank a three right before the buzzer.
Arizona will have a couple days off before it hits the road to Palo Alto, California, for a matchup with the Stanford Cardinal this upcoming Thursday.
