Make it 44 straight years for a victory for Kansas on Senior Day at Phog Allen Fieldhouse.
Hunter Dickinson was too much in and around the paint, matching his career high with 33 points while posting 10 rebounds in Arizona’s 83-76 loss on Saturday.
The Wildcats (20-11, 14-6 Big 12) enter their first appearance in the Big 12 tournament Thursday at Kansas City winning only three of their last eight games.
“I mean, he played great today,” Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd said of Dickinson during the postgame interview on 1290-AM. “I think that was his best game of the year. I mean, for him to have 33 points and (attempt) only four free throws is pretty impressive.”
The 7-foot-2 Dickinson, matched often against Tobe Awaka, of whom he had a 6-inch height advantage, made 15 of 23 shots from the field.
Zeke Mayo scored 14 of his 20 points in the second half and finished with six assists and no turnovers in 34 minutes. He converted 5 of 7 shots from 3-point range.
Dickinson’s frontcourt mate KJ Adams was also impressive, scoring 12 points on 6-of-9 shooting from the field with eight rebounds.
Arizona was outrebounded 36-30 — only the seventh time the Wildcats have lost the rebounding battle. Their record in those games is 2-5.
Jaden Bradley led Arizona with 21 points on 7-of-11 shooting from the field and 7 of 7 from the free-throw line.
Caleb Love had 16 points and led Arizona with three assists. The Wildcats finished with only 10 assists.
Trey Townsend had 13 points and seven rebounds off the bench.
“It was great to have Trey play like that,” Lloyd said. “I mean, he stepped up and played exceptionally well. That means a lot to me and to our program. I respect his character and him hanging with it. Listen, I’ll do my best if a guy’s playing well to always reward him with opportunities, and he was playing well today.”
Awaka finished with 10 points and nine rebounds.
Arizona’s other players who had minutes — KJ Lewis, Anthony Dell’Orso, Henri Veesaar and Carter Bryant — combined for only 16 points on 5-of-16 shooting from the field.
The Wildcats were in a dire situation with 1:17 left in the first half with Kansas (20-11, 11-9) ahead 39-25 behind the dominance inside of Dickinson and Adams.
Arizona had six of its eight turnovers in the first half.
“I was disappointed about how we started,” Lloyd said. “I mean, you can’t come in a place like this and play selfish and do things for yourself.
“I thought we did a little bit of that too much. I’ll tell you what, there’s no heroes in Allen Field House that don’t wear the Jayhawk uniform. Now, you could be the villain, but the only way to be the villain is you have to have your brothers with you, supporting you. And I didn’t think we did a good enough job of that.”
The Wildcats started to play more to Lloyd’s liking, scoring the last five points of the half and opening the second half outscoring Kansas 24-14 to take a 54-53 lead following a Love 3-pointer with 13:25 left.
“We played great basketball in the second half for stretches,” Lloyd said. “We got ourselves back in the game, took a lead. We weren’t able to make that next run.
“Whether we should have called a timeout here or there, this or that, you know, a call here or there … I mean, Kansas made a few big shots down the stretch. They were the deserving victor today.”
The teams traded leads four times before Mayo scored six straight points to put the Jayhawks a 64-59 lead with 10:32 left.
After Love made a layup to cap a 7-0 run, giving Arizona a 68-66 lead, Kansas responded with a 7-0 run of its own culminating with a Mayo 3-pointer with 4:07 remaining.
Kansas, which led 64-59 at that point, never trailed again.
After Love made a jumper to narrow the lead to 75-72 with 2:44 left, Kansas pulled away for good with an 8-2 run that included four straight free throws made by Mayo and Bradley’s former Alabama teammate Rylan Griffen.
“As a coach, you don’t feel great after a loss, but I like where we’re going,” Lloyd said. “We need to get back (to Tucson) and get our gritty back a little bit, figure out what that is and find a way to get to Kansas City and go there and win some games.”
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