Arizona Is Not Exactly Cooking : Cook Helps Wildcats Win, but It’s a Struggle, 62-54

Anthony Cook scored 19 points, and Sean Elliott led a late Arizona rally as the top-ranked Wildcats struggled to a 62-54 victory over Washington State Friday in the quarterfinals of the Pacific 10 Conference basketball tournament at the Forum.

The Wildcats (25-3), winners of 17 of their last 18 games, will face Oregon State in a semifinal game today. The Beavers (22-6), seeded fourth in the tournament, beat California, 79-66.

Washington State finished its season with a 10-19 record and was 4-14 in conference play, while the Wildcats were 17-1.

Arizona won the two regular-season games by scores of 76-59 and 74-48.

But this was a lot tougher as Arizona looked like anything but the nation’s top-ranked team and Elliott like anything but an All-American and the Pac-10’s all-time leading scorer most of the time.

The Wildcats didn’t go ahead for good until Cook’s three-point play with 3:28 remaining broke a 48-48 tie after WSU’s Herb Delaney had tied the game with a short jump shot 24 seconds earlier.

Brian Quinnett’s short hook shot with 3:10 to play cut Arizona’s lead to one point. But Elliott, who had 12 of his points in the final seven minutes, made two foul shots with 2:51 left and Ken Lofton hit a three-point shot with two minutes remaining to make it 56-50.

Elliott’s layup with 1:06 to go made it an eight-point Arizona lead.

Washington State, seeded eighth in the tournament, took its final lead at 45-44 on a follow shot by Harold Wright with 6:03 left. Wright finished with 12 points.

The Wildcats had scored six straight points to take a 40-34 lead with 11:25 remaining, but the Cougars came back with seven in a row to go ahead 41-40 with 9:34 left.

The Wildcats led at halftime, 28-25, thanks to Elliott’s buzzer-beating jump shot from the free throw line. The field goal was only the second in 10 tries for Elliott, who finished with five field goals in 15 attempts.

Elliott’s only other first-half points came with 8:07 gone when he made a three-point play. Cook had scored the Wildcats’ first six points and finished the first half with 12 of their 28 points and seven of their 17 rebounds.

Cook finished with a 10 rebounds and Jud Buechler had 11 points and seven rebounds for the Wildcats.

Quinnett led Washington State with 20 points and seven rebounds.