Quick turnaround means Wildcats can't dwell on late-night loss

After losing 77-74 to No. 21-ranked Washington State in a late-night showdown at McKale Center on Thursday, the No. 4 Wildcats slipped a half-game below the Cougars in the Pac-12 standings heading into a noon game with Washington on Saturday.

Arizona, 20-6 overall and 11-4 in Pac-12 play, also lost a potential tiebreaker with WSU (21-6, 12-4), since the Cougars completed a season sweep of the Wildcats for the first time since 2009-10.

Losing the tiebreaker means that in order to win their final Pac-12 regular season title outright and earn the Pac-12 Tournament’s No. 1 seed, the Wildcats will have to win one more game than WSU the rest of the way while also staying in front of Oregon, which is just another game back at 10-5.

The schedules favor Washington State, too. The Cougars must play at ASU on Saturday, but then return home for their final three games of the season. After playing Washington on Saturday, Arizona has three of its four final games on the road, plus a potentially tricky final home contest against Oregon.

In short, the Wildcats backed themselves against a wall Thursday, losing in front of a spirited, near-capacity crowd at McKale Center after WSU wing Jaylen Wells made a go-ahead 4-point play with 24 seconds left by hitting a fallaway 3-pointer in the left corner and hitting a free throw after drawing a foul from UA’s Keshad Johnson on the play.

“I wish I could have seen it go in,” Wells said. “I guess I can watch the replay.”

That’s the way most people probably watched it. The game didn’t start until 9 p.m., turning quickly into a long and tense late-night affair in which there were 10 ties and 13 lead changes, with Wells’ go-ahead heroics not even happening until after 1 a.m. Eastern time.

Everyone interested might have been tired by then. Or just asleep. Fans, players and maybe some coaches not named Tommy Lloyd.

A day before Thursday’s game, the UA coach joked that the tight weekend schedule meant a “double all-nighter.” He elicited chuckles with that comment, but the reality is that the Wildcats didn’t shuttle out of McKale until Thursday night turned into Friday morning, trying to quickly put it all behind them.

“This game is already over,” Oumar Ballo said in UA’s two-minute postgame interview session. “It’s in the past and our main focus is Washington. They are a great team, so we respect them and they’re gonna get our full attention.”

Maybe so, but the Wildcats basically only had Friday to give that full attention, since a noon start Saturday typically reduces or eliminates the typical pregame shootarounds and film sessions.

“You gotta do everything you can in a very condensed and very short period of time,” said UA assistant coach Steve Robinson, who has been scouting the Huskies.

The Wildcats also don’t have the benefit of knowing Washington from a previous matchup this season, since the Pac-12 swapped several games around to ensure Arizona would face UCLA at McKale this season — including taking the Wildcats out of an originally planned game at Seattle.

“Would it maybe be a little bit easier if you had played them before? Maybe,” Lloyd said. “But the first half of conference, you’re playing teams for the first time on Thursday-Saturday, so it’s really no different.

“And your team is getting a little longer in the tooth. So hopefully you have enough experience in the basic things that you do and have some other preparations you’ve had over the course of the year that you can draw on.”

Also helping the Wildcats: That Washington doesn’t have it any easier. The Huskies blew a 21-point halftime lead at ASU before eventually pulling out an 84-82 win in overtime Thursday and, while that game ended two hours before the Wildcats’ game did, the Huskies still had to make the drive to Tucson after playing a game that required arguably even more energy.

“It wasn’t pretty,” Washington coach Mike Hopkins said. “But we found a way to win.”

Finally, Washington runs at a similarly high-powered tempo as the Wildcats do, unlike the way Washington State mosetly controlled things at a slower pace on Thursday with a stubborn defense powered by one of Division I’s tallest lineups.

Ballo and Lloyd both disagreed with questions suggesting the WSU matchup is simply a bad one for the Wildcats, though Lloyd noted how the Cougars made their life more difficult.

The Cougars, who shot 46.4% in their 73-70 win over Arizona on Jan. 13 in Pullman, wound up shooting just 41.9% this time but had only nine turnovers and were outrebounded by only one. Arizona shot 44.8% but was just 5 of 18 from 3-point range and made just 17 of 27 free throws.

“I think we were better defensively; we just probably made some poor decisions here and there,” Lloyd said. “I thought the plan was fine, but they’re a ball control team and this defense they’re running is hard for your players to get rhythm. They’re changing constantly.

“Even when you run a play and have success, the next time they come out and are making adjustments. Your players are constantly having to bank on their fundamentals and concepts. They do a good job of keeping you off balance.”

Washington presents a much different challenge with a veteran, talented team that is, as is often the case, a bit on the mercurial side.

In recent seasons, the Huskies have played the Wildcats better in Tucson than in Seattle, winning games at McKale in 2018-19 and 2019-20, while losing by a point in 2020-21 and by just three last season in Tucson.

But this time, the Huskies could face an Arizona team that is desperate to win. The Wildcats simply don’t have any room for error left if they want to win the Pac-12, as much as Lloyd and Ballo indicated they were keeping the mood upbeat after their loss Thursday.

They are certain to win at least a share of the Pac-12 title if they win out in the regular season, and they are certain to make the NCAA Tournament. But not much is certain beyond that.

Not anymore.

“Heads up. Our heads are up,” Lloyd said. “Everything we want for this season is still out in front of us. We’ve got to come out and play a really talented team on Saturday early. So let’s go.”

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