A slow start all-but-assures that the Arizona Wildcats won’t earn an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament in head coach Sean Miller’s first year. But if the young ‘Cats keep improving, winning the Pac-10 conference tournament and its automatic bid to extend its record 25 straight Tourney appearances isn’t out of the question.
On the strength of a monster second half by freshman Derrick Williams, Arizona defeated the Stanford Cardinal at home, 76-68 to take sole possession of second place in the conference.
Williams scored 16 of his team-high 23 points in the second half to withstand the Cardinal and give the Wildcats their third straight win, despite potential Pac-10 player of the year Landry Fields’ 31 points and 11 rebounds. The difference was at the free throw line, where the Wildcats outscored the Cardinal 27-10.
The win sets up a showdown with conference leader Cal on Sunday in Tuscon, whom Arizona trails by a single game.
Friday, January 29, 2010 at 11:12 am by Raj Sethi
The No. 22 Arizona Wildcats (8-4) will be in a battle of Top 25 teams on Dec. 30 in the Holiday Bowl, when they take on the No. 20 Nebraska Cornhuskers (9-4) in San Diego, California.
This exact matchup took place 11 years ago at the Holiday Bowl in 1998, where Arizona managed to rally to beat Nebraska, 23-20.
The Wildcats accepted their bid to the Holiday Bowl one day after finishing their regular season with an 21-17 upset of then-No. 20 USC on the road, which snapped the Wildcats’ seven-game losing streak to the Trojans.
Arizona started the season off decently well under coach Mike Stoops, winning their first two games before losing on the road to Iowa (who would finish the season ranked 10th in the country). They also dropped games to Washington, California, and eventual Pac-10 champion Oregon.
But the win over the Trojans catapulted Arizona back into the Top 25, and sealed second place in the Pac-10 up for the Arizona Wildcats, who finished with their best season in a decade.
Knowing that the Holiday Bowl planned on choosing the winner between Arizona/USC, the Wildcats had a little extra motivation to pull out the huge road win.
“With such a big bowl on the line, and a finish of anywhere from second to sixth [in the Pac-10], it was a big thing for us,” Stoops said. “It’s been like this all year. I’ve never seen a year like this. … I don’t know if we have the best players, but we’re awfully good if we’re balanced.”
They’ll meet a Nebraska squad hungry for revenge, after nearly upsetting Texas in the Big-12 championship on Saturday night and nearly thwarting the Longhorns’ national championship dreams. Instead, the Longhorns kicked a last second field goal to seal their place against Alabama, and Nebraska was left to wonder how the major upset got away.
With two teams who beat (or nearly beat) such traditional powers during the season, the Holiday Bowl should likely kick off the bowl season with a bang, one day after No. 18 Oregon State meets No. 14 BYU.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009 at 10:07 pm by bryan
The Arizona Wildcats threw everything they had at the Oregon Ducks and still came out on the short end in double overtime, 44-41.
With the Pac-10 title still up for grabs, this will undoubtedly go down as one of the most exciting games of the season.
The first half was relatively low scoring, with the Wildcats heading into the locker room trailing just 14-10.
The Wildcats took a 17-14 lead at the end of the third quarter before the two teams combined for 31 fourth-quarter points.
Each team scored a touchdown on their first overtime possession. Oregon countered the Wildcats field goal on the second possession by getting into the end zone for the game-winning score.
Friday, November 27, 2009 at 11:33 am by steve
