Arizona blows out North Dakota St.
TUCSON — Allonzo Trier banged knees with a North Dakota State player and immediately went down. The McKale Center fell silent as Arizona’s leading scorer and an All-American candidate writhed on the floor, clutching his left knee.
Trier returned later in the second half with an ice bag on his knee, but his injury put a damper on what was an otherwise dominant performance.
Deandre Ayton scored 25 points and Trier added 15 before leaving with the injury, lifting No. 18 Arizona to an 83-53 rout over North Dakota State on Monday night.
“It’s scary as a player when you feel that in your knee,” Arizona coach Sean Miller said. “I’m sure he’ll have a bruise there and hopefully he’s good for the long haul, and hopefully we get some good news.”
Arizona (9-3) allowed the Bison (5-6) to hang around early before blowing past them with a 29-3 run spanning halftime to win its 46th straight nonconference home game.
The Wildcats shot 50 percent from the floor and kept North Dakota State’s longrange shooters in check most of the night, holding the Bison to 8-of-27 shooting from the 3-point arc to win their sixth straight game.
“Your margin for error isn’t very big against them,” North Dakota State coach David Richman said. “We came out and executed our game plan, they made some adjustments like wellcoached teams do and we didn’t handle those adjustments very well.”
Paul Miller, who inadvertently banged knees with Trier, led the Bison with 12 points.
Heading into the game, the Wildcats had rounded back into form since a 0-3 run in the Bahamas knocked them out of the AP Top 25.
Arizona won five straight games after returning stateside, including over No. 7 Texas A&M, a solid Alabama team and New Mexico in The Pit.
The Wildcats had a few defensive breakdowns, and North Dakota State made some difficult shots to keep it close early in the first. The Wildcats began to tighten up defensively midway through the half, and the Bison began clanking shots while failing to score over the final 6:54.
Arizona had some success lobbing the ball over the top into Ayton and Dusan Ristic and scored the final 16 points of the first half to lead 38-22.
Ayton had 13 points by halftime and Trier 10.
Arizona didn’t let up in the second half. Ayton scored on an alley-oop on