Arizona’s Pressure Cooks Stanford, 73-51

The Pacific 10 Conference basketball tournament, long on predictability and short on suspense, at least proved one thing: Arizona is far and away the best team in the conference.

A 73-51 rout of Stanford Sunday in the championship game confirmed that.

Stanford finished second in the Pac-10 standings, is ranked 12th and was the only conference team that beat the No. 1-ranked Wildcats.

But that was two months ago.

In front of a crowd of 10,403 at the Forum, Arizona turned up the pressure and buried the rattled Cardinal, which made a season-high 23 turnovers and trailed at halftime, 43-27, despite making 73.3% of its first-half shots.

How could that be?

“It wasn’t a question of not being able to score if we got shots,” Stanford Coach Mike Montgomery said. “We just couldn’t get shots.”

More specifically, the lumbering Cardinal, which relies more on physicality than it does on finesse, couldn’t get the ball up the court.

“People always say that we’re vulnerable to pressure,” Montgomery said. “We’re vulnerable to that kind of pressure because it’s great pressure. We’ve ripped pressure before. We’ve taken the ball down and laid it up against pressure.

“It’s just that Arizona happens to be quick at every position, and they’ve got a shot blocker (Anthony Cook) who allows them to gamble.

“We’ve played 32 games and the only team that has beaten us with pressure is Arizona. It’s what they do best.”

And the Wildcats, in the opinion of Coach Lute Olson, have rarely done it better than they did in improving their record to 27-3, including 17 consecutive victories against Pac-10 competition.

“It was probably as strong a defensive effort we’ve put in, and I’ve felt our defense has been the thing that’s made our club all year long,” Olson said. “It seemed today that we turned it up another notch.

“I was surprised, frankly, that we could maintain that kind of intensity, playing on three consecutive days.”

Stanford (26-6) made 15 turnovers in the first half, falling behind for good when Arizona’s Jud Buechler intercepted a pass by Cardinal freshman Adam Keefe and drove for a dunk that gave the Wildcats a 10-8 lead.

Arizona outscored the Cardinal, 30-11, in a 10 1/2-minute span, opening a 36-19 lead and leaving little doubt about the outcome.

The Wildcats were led offensively by All-American Sean Elliott, who scored 16 of his game-high 21 points in the first half, and the unsung Buechler, who scored 12 of his 16 in the opening 20 minutes.

Defensively, it was a group effort, although Matt Muehlebach provided a surprisingly strong individual effort, effectively taking Todd Lichti out of the Cardinal offense.

Lichti wound up with 11 points, his 72nd straight game in double figures, but that’s almost 10 points less than his average.

And he took only eight shots.

Not that any of his teammates were much better.

Stanford made 67.8% of its shots, but attempted only 28, including just 13 in the second half, when it fell further and further behind.

“Once they got across half-court, it’s obvious that we had trouble stopping them,” Olson said.

But that happened so rarely that it didn’t matter.

“There was no question from the first seconds of that game that we were fired up and we were going to make it difficult for Stanford to do what it wanted to do,” Olson said.

The loss ended an 11-game winning streak for Stanford, which will play Siena Thursday night in the opening round of the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. tournament, making its first tournament appearance since 1942, when it won the NCAA championship.

“We can play better,” said Montgomery, sounding as if he was trying to convince himself. “We’ve got to play better.”

The Cardinal, he said, is not as bad as it looked.

“We just happen to be in a league with the No. 1 team in the country,” Montgomery said.

No shame in that.

Arizona has won 40 of 42 games against Pac-10 competition in the last two seasons, losing only in Stanford’s Maples Pavilion.

“I think Arizona is better than us in some areas,” Montgomery said.

Presumably, he meant all areas outside Palo Alto.

The NCAA tournament, he suggested, might offer a less demanding challenge than that provided by the Wildcats.

“We’ve just got to go from here and perhaps not have to play a team as good as Arizona for some time,” Montgomery said.

That’s certainly possible.

Arizona, Olson said, is quicker and better defensively than it was last season, when it reached the Final Four.

“It’s a compliment to these guys that the improvement and progress have been a steady thing from Oct. 15,” Olson said of his players. “We’ve gotten better all the time.”

Much better, clearly, than anyone in the Pac-10.

Tournament Notes

Sean Elliott, who was named as the tournament’s most valuable player for the second straight season, was joined on the all-tournament team by Todd Lichti of Stanford, Gary Payton of Oregon State and teammates Anthony Cook and Jud Buechler. . . . Stanford freshman Adam Keefe, who appeared to be a shoo-in for the all-tournament team after contributing a season-high 22 points and 11 rebounds Saturday to the Cardinal’s 95-86 semifinal victory over UCLA, had seven points, three rebounds and five turnovers against Arizona.

Arizona made 53.3% of its shots from the field and made 17 of 18 free throws, including eight without a miss by Elliott and six without a miss by Buechler. . . . The Wildcats, who will play Robert Morris in the first round of the NCAA tournament Thursday night at Boise, Ida., have won their last 19 of 20 games, including nine straight since they lost to No. 2-ranked Oklahoma, 82-80, last month at Norman, Okla. . . . Arizona has won its last 17 games against Pac-10 competition by an average of more than 21 points.