Elliott’s 31 Points Help Arizona Wildcats Beat Villanova Wildcats

Sean Elliott scored 31 points and became Arizona’s all-time leading scorer as the No. 9-ranked Wildcats defeated Villanova, 75-67, Saturday.

Arizona, the Pacific 10 Conference leader at 7-1, improved to 13-2 overall by winning the meeting of Wildcats.

Villanova, 2-3 in the Big East, fell to 10-8.

Arizona led, 63-50, with 4:18 remaining before Villanova’s Marc Dowdell made consecutive layups and Doug West hit a short jump shot that made it 63-56 with 2:41 left.

But Elliott made 6 of 7 free throws and a slam dunk in the next 1:19 as Arizona went ahead, 71-58, and he finished the scoring with another 2 free throws with 7 seconds left.

Elliott, who shot 8 for 12 from the field and 13 for 15 from the foul line, also had 8 rebounds and 3 assists. He has 2,147 points, breaking the school record of 2,132 by Bob Elliott,who is not related.

West finished with 29 points and 7 rebounds, and Tom Greis had 16 points and 14 rebounds for Villanova.

Arizona, which shot 49% for the game, led, 34-24, at halftime. Villanova shot only 36.6% for the game and just 28.6% in the first half.

“The key to our ballclub is defense,” Arizona Coach Lute Olson said. “This is the best defensive team since I’ve been here, and it’s going to be much better with another month of work.

“It’s good for us to play nationally known teams like Villanova and North Carolina and Duke. It is important for us to get accustomed to playing teams like this because it helps our confidence level when we go into postseason play.”