Quick Hitters
AWC wins 3rd straight
The Arizona Western women’s basketball team won its third straight game on Saturday. 11 of the 12 Matadors that played made a field goal in the win.
Faith Silva drops 15 points as Matadors launch 47 attempts from three.
Buse Utku and Harria Mendoza each added 12 points.
No. 23 BYU upsets No. 2 Gonzaga
SALT LAKE CITY — Yoeli Childs scored 28 points to help No. 23 BYU upset second-ranked Gonzaga 91-78 on Saturday night and end the Bulldogs’ 19-game winning streak.
Jake Toolson added 17 points and T.J. Haws had 16 points. BYU (23-7, 12-3 WCC) never trailed after halftime en route to winning its eighth straight game.
Killian Tillie scored 18 points and Corey Kispert added 16 to lead the Bulldogs. Filip Petrusev added 14 points and Admon Gilder chipped in 13. Gonzaga (27-2, 131) won the previous five meetings in Provo before Saturday.
Gonzaga trailed by 14 points early in the second half before mounting a comeback. The Bulldogs cut the deficit to 70-68 on a jumper from Drew Timme with 7:52 remaining. BYU did not let Gonzaga erase the lead entirely.
Zac Seljaas made back-to-back baskets to give the Cougars a little breathing room again. Then Childs bookended a string of four straight BYU baskets with a layup and a jumper to put the Cougars up 8776 with 3:15 left.
BYU got a big lift from Childs in the first half. The senior forward crashed the boards and made several critical baskets to provide a much-needed spark for the Cougars on offense.
Childs capped a 13-4 run that gave BYU a 21-18 lead with back-to-back baskets. Gonzaga briefly regained a 25-24 lead on back-to-back baskets from Kispert and Petrusev. The Cougars surged back ahead before halftime thanks to Childs.
He accounted for three buckets on a run of five straight possessions that ended in baskets for BYU. It helped the Cougars claw out a 38-32 lead.
Gonzaga struggled to keep pace with BYU after going without a field goal over the final 4:36 of the first half.
The Cougars kept building on their momentum early in the second half. 3-pointers from Kolby Lee and Toolson highlighted a run of four straight baskets that put BYU up 58-44.
A win over a Gonzaga team that spent part of the season ranked no. 1 overall will go a long way to helping the Cougars lock up an NCAA Tournament bid in March.
TUCSON — Oregon’s Payton Pritchard had one of the best games of his college career, hitting a handful of jaw-dropping 3-pointers that silenced Arizona’s crowd. But after more than 40 minutes on the court, the shots finally stopped falling.
The Ducks found a second scorer just in time.
Pritchard scored a career-high 38 points and Shakur Juiston added all of Oregon’s points in overtime to push the 14thranked Ducks past No. 24 Arizona 73-72 on Saturday night.
The 6-foot-2 Pritchard made six 3-pointers and hit 8 of 8 free throws. He played all 45 minutes and was the only player on either team who never came out of the game. Even though he has nearly 1,900 career points, it was the first time the senior has scored 30 or more in a game.
“It was a heck of a performance,” Oregon coach Dana Altman said. “We’ve been struggling a little, we’re banged up and in a game we really needed him, he did a tremendous job.”
Juiston was the unlikely star in overtime and his layup with 1.4 seconds left was the winner. Arizona had one more great opportunity but Christian Koloko missed two free throws with a second left that could have tied or won the game.
Oregon has won five straight overtime games.
“You’ve got to consider yourself a little lucky when you win five overtime games because you need some breaks like we got today,” Altman said.
Arizona led 64-58 with 3:27 left in regulation but the Wildcats went cold and Pritchard hit six straight free throws to pull the Ducks (21-7, 10-5 Pac-12) even with 15 seconds left. Arizona’s Josh Green missed two free throws with 2.5 seconds remaining that would have put the Wildcats ahead.
Dylan Smith led Arizona (19-8, 9-5) with 18 points. Zeke Nnaji and Nico Mannion both scored 13. The Wildcats had a rough night at the free throw line, making just 10 of 21 and missing the four crucial ones by Green and Koloko.
“You’ve got to make free