I don’t know if you know this, but Arizona basketball is kind of good right now. The Wildcats defeated Washington in an 87-86 thriller Saturday evening to win their eighth straight game. Arizona hasn’t lost since Jan. 20, when they fell to the Huskies in Seattle.
The Wildcats are ranked No. 12 in the AP poll and No. 13 in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll, but are likely to move up when the new rankings come out Monday thanks to the top four teams losing this past week. Whether this team deserves to be so highly ranked is a different story, but let’s save that argument for another day, shall we?
As excited as I was about the win—rather, as excited as I would have been if I weren’t a totally professional and unbiased journalist—I’m going to have to be a downer for a second: Was Zona trying to lose that game? The team tallied 19 turnovers. Nineteen. I kept looking for Jay Cutler and Brett Favre on the court.
Simply put, the game should not have gone down to the wire. Arizona held a solid lead for about 75 percent of the matchup, but allowed the Huskies to catch up at the 9:14 mark in the second half after a few missed rebounds and turnovers.
With 2.2 seconds left and Arizona up by one, Washington had the ball to inbound from the baseline. McKale Center stopped breathing. But as Darnell Gant attempted the game-winning shot, Derrick Williams flew across the paint like a bat out of hell and smacked the ball right out of the building. Here it is in case you missed it or you just want to drool for the rest of the day. NOT IN MY HOUSE!
“With games like that, it makes me want to stay,” Derrick Williams said after the game. I just took an unscientific poll in my head and I think fans would be OK with that.
Given Williams’ timely defense, 26 points and 11 rebounds, it’s easy to give him the credit for the win. But let’s not forget that his roommate, Solomon Hill, scored the go-ahead layup with 22 seconds remaining, or that Kevin Parrom chased down more shots than Lindsay Lohan on a Friday night. Or in her case, pretty much whenever. No easy buckets, y’all.
It’s funny how much has changed in a month. When the ‘Cats faced Washington on the road in January, the Huskies were the most feared team in the Pac-10. But now Arizona leads the conference and is making noise on the national scene. With four regular season games left, Zona is in control of its destiny, just like old times.