Colorado is defeated by Arizona men’s basketball team to complete a mountain road sweep.
Tucson will be a stop on the route to another Pac-12 regular-season title, but Arizona’s performance away from home has grown to be crucial to the outcome.
On Saturday night, the Wildcats defeated Colorado 99-79 in a close game to clinch their first road sweep of the Rocky Mountain schools in nine years. This was their third straight road victory after losing their first three away games. Overall, the Wildcats have now won five straight games.
Three of those victories have come away from home against unbeaten opponents.
Not 8 Arizona (19-5, 10-3) showed no signs of weakness following their triple-overtime victory against Utah on Thursday, maintaining their one-game lead atop the Pac-12 standings. Just 2:29 separated the Wildcats from the lead, and that was prior to the first media timeout.
Arizona shot 52.9 percent overall and made 10 of 22 3-pointers. Caleb Love scored 19 points, Pelle Larsson scored 18, Oumar Ballo scored 16 (with 13 rebounds for his fourth straight double-double), and Jaden Bradley scored 14 points off the bench. The Wildcats scored 23 points on second chances and converted 16 Colorado turnovers into points.
Colorado (16-8, 7-6) has given up 196 points in two games versus Arizona, which destroyed the Buffs 97-50 at McKale Center in January. This is the most points the team has given up at home since 2017.
Arizona led 47–40 at the half after making 5 of 9 3-pointers and shooting 51.6 percent. The Wildcats scored on their first three possessions after the half, made three-pointers on their next two attempts, and then converted a Love three.
With 14:54 left, a 10-0 run that was completed by a 3-pointer by Larsson made the score 65-45.
Tommy Lloyd was able to introduce Filip Borovicanin and Conrad Martinez into the game before to the under-12 timeout, allowing him to rest some of the players because of the large advantage. After grabbing a steal right away, Martinez made a blow-by layup with 10:05 left to make the score 73-53.
After Larsson committed his fourth foul, Colorado narrowed the lead to 77-63 with 7:48 remaining, but Boswell converted a second-chance basket on the next possession.
After an error on an inbounds play early in the game, Arizona recovered to trail 8-2, but they scored 11 straight points to reclaim the lead and maintain it for the remainder of the first half. Boswell accounted for seven of those, including a deep three.
After Colorado scored seven straight points, the Wildcats led 18–10. However, four minutes later, Arizona led 9–0 and Bradley, who was 6 of 9 from the field and added three thefts, extended the advantage to double digits with a steal and reverse.
With Larsson’s stepback three, the UA led 37–26.
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