No. 14 Arizona’s 73-59 loss at Oregon on Thursday was not as bad as it could have been for the Wildcats because of No. 17 UCLA’s loss at home against Washington State.
The loss by the Bruins on Thursday night left Arizona alone at No. 4 in the Pac-12 standings with an 11-6 record. The top four teams in the conference receive a bye from playing in the first day of next week’s Pac-12 tournament at Las Vegas.
UCLA and USC are tied for fifth at 10-7.
With only one game remaining for all the teams, Arizona holds the tiebreaker over UCLA and USC because the Wildcats beat them in their only meetings of the regular season.
Arizona still has an opportunity to tie Colorado (12-5) for third place with the Wildcats playing at Oregon State and the Buffaloes hosting Cal on Saturday.
Te-Hina Paopao scored 21 points, Endyia Rogers added 18 and Oregon ended the game with a 16-3 run against Arizona in Thursdays win that snapped the Ducks’ seven-game losing streak.
The Ducks led by as many as 16 points in the third quarter before Arizona answered with an 11-2 run to pull to 57-56 with 7:58 remaining in the game. But Rogers scored the next four points, Paopao added 10 that included consecutive 3-pointers and the Ducks pulled away.
Paopao and Rogers were a combined 13-of-22 shooting from the field. Chance Gray added 12 points for Oregon (15-13, 6-11 Pac-12). Phillipina Kyei had nine points to go with 14 rebounds. Paopao made five 3s and Gray had four from distance.
Cate Reese scored 19 points for Arizona (21-7). Madison Conner added 10 points and Paris Clark had nine points and 10 rebounds.
Shaina Pellington, coming off an ESPN national player of the year performance against Utah and Colorado at home last week with 54 points, was held to only eight points on 2-of-8 shooting from the field.
Rogers scored six points and former ASU player Taya Hanson added five as Oregon outscored Arizona 22-11 in the second quarter to take a 40-30 lead into halftime.
Arizona won the first matchup, 79-71 on Jan. 8, when both squads were ranked.
The Wildcats play at Oregon State (11-17, 3-14) in regular-season finale on Saturday at 1 p.m.
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