Wildcats surge past Colorado
LAS VEGAS — Arizona was not particularly crisp on offense and big man Deandre Ayton missed shots that normally fall for him.
None of it slowed the Wildcats on their way to the Pac-12 Tournament semifinals.
Scrappy and suffocating on defense, No. 15 Arizona rolled over Colorado 83-67 on Thursday in the Pac-12 quarterfinals.
“I really liked our defense, especially in the second half,” Arizona coach Sean Miller said. “We had plenty of transition opportunities because of our defense and that’s when we’re at our best.”
Ayton missed numerous shots near the rim, fouling out after scoring 10 points on 4-of-14 shooting and grabbing six rebounds. The Wildcats (25-7) were disjointed at times on offense, unable to find seams in Colorado’s zone defense.
But Arizona was superb on defense most of the day, though, holding Colorado to 5-of-20 shooting from 3-point range and nabbing 11 steals, including four by Rawle Alkins.
Allonzo Trier scored 22 points, and Dusan Ristic had 15 points and 11 rebounds. The Wildcats move on to face UCLA in Friday’s semifinals.
“I thought our ball screen defense was good,” Miller said. “Our team defense was good. We had a lot of players working together. I didn’t really look at them having a lot of great looks that they missed. I think our defense was intact.”
Colorado (17-15) managed to hang with the Wildcats well into the second half despite playing a tough opening-round game the day before. The Buffaloes suffered a huge blow with about 13 minutes left, when point guard McKinley Wright IV went down with a right ankle injury. Arizona reeled off 14 straight points and the Buffaloes never recovered.
George King had 19 points, and Lucas Siewart 16 for Colorado.
“McKinley goes out, it might take us a while to figure things out offensively, but we weren’t getting any stops,” Colorado coach Tad Boyle said. “They went on that run, and it was kind of all she wrote.”
Arizona played through a season of turmoil, winning its fifth Pac-12 regular-