Trier leads late flurry to lift No. 17 Arizona past Beavers
TUCSON — Tough defense ignited enough offense for No. 17 Arizona to get the Wildcats a bounceback victory over Oregon State on Thursday night.
Allonzo Trier scored 15 of his 21 points in the second half and the Wildcats, coming off a road loss at Colorado, pulled away from a sluggish, close game in the final 7 1/2 minutes to beat the Beavers 62-53.
“I am happy with our defensive effort,” Arizona coach Sean Miller said. “That’s as hard as we’ve played. It’s not really my opinion. You look out and see things happen. Guys are really helping each other, pressing the ball.”
Deandre Ayton had 14 points and 10 rebounds and Rawle Alkins scored 11 points, nine in the second half, for the Wildcats (13-4, 3-1 Pac-12).
“The best offense is good defense,” Alkins said. “Defense-to-offense, we had a lot of great plays.”
Tres Tinkle scored 18 points and Stephen Thompson Jr. had 14 for the Beavers (10-6, 2-2), who have won just once in Tucson in the last 35 years (2010).
“It was a physical game. You saw that down the stretch,” Beavers coach Wayne Tinkle said, “and we weren’t able to make plays.”
Oregon State led the entire first half and was up 22-21 at the break, the lowest-scoring half for Arizona this season, and the lowest-scoring for a Beavers opponent.
“We felt like we should have had a little more of a lead,” Tinkle said, “then they did what they did.”
The Wildcats outscored the visitors 24-14 over the final 7:33.
“Our defensive effort and the consistent effort broke the game open,” Miller said.
It took quite a while for Arizona to figure out how to get anything against Oregon State’s match-up zone defense.