Parrom soars, defense absent in Wildcats’ win

TUCSON — A 17-point victory over the Pac-12’s last-place team left Arizona coach Sean Miller in no mood to lavish praise on his team, particularly because of the 12th-ranked Wildcats’ dubious second-half effort on defense, something that’s become a distressing pattern.

If not for Kevin Parrom’s offense, and Washington State’s lousy free-throw shooting, Arizona’s 73-56 victory on Saturday would have been a whole lot closer. Parrom matched his career best with five 3-pointers — in six tries — scoring a season-high 19 points.

“I don’t know where we would be in this game if Kevin didn’t play the way he played,” Miller said.

The senior entered the game shooting 26 percent from 3-point range in conference play and was just 2 of 12 in his previous six outings. But he had the touch from the start this time, opening with two 3s and the Wildcats (23-4, 11-4 Pac-12) led all the way.

“I was happy the first one went in,” he said, “because I don’t remember the last time I made a 3.”

Arizona was up by as many as 21 points early in the second half before the Cougars cut it to 11 late. It was that lull, which followed similar drop-offs in a litany of other contests, that perturbed the coach.

“The second half at Colorado, the second half at Utah, the second half against Cal, the second half against Stanford wasn’t very good,” Miller said.

“So it’s our team is having a hard time playing very, very hard for 40 minutes.”