Arizona Is Crossed Up at Stanford

Without its big man, Stanford needed one of its smaller players to come up big Saturday against No. 9 Arizona.

Six-foot-2 guard Dion Cross did just that for the Cardinal.

Cross had a career-high 30 points, including seven three-point baskets, to lead Stanford to an 80-71 victory at Maples Pavilion.

The defeat was the second in as many Pacific 10 games for Arizona (10-3), which lost to California, 99-75, Thursday night--its worst defeat in 13 years.

Stanford (8-2, 2-0) ended a losing streak against Arizona at 15 games.

The Cardinal was playing for the fifth consecutive game without 7-foot-1 center Tim Young, who is sidelined because of a bad back, but they didn’t need an inside presence with Cross scoring frequently from long range.

Cross scored 14 of his team’s first 16 points of the second half to give Stanford a 53-46 lead with 9:41 left.

Arizona was able to pull within 57-51, but forward Darren Allaway’s dunk and a three-point shot by Cross made the score 62-51 with six minutes left.

Stanford made 13 of 16 free throws in the final 2:55 to seal the victory.

Cross, who was averaging 13.8 points a game, made nine of 14 shots from the field--including seven of 11 three-point attempts--and all five of his free throws.

Point guard Brevin Knight (18 points, 10 assists) and forward Andy Poppink (15 points, 11 rebounds) supported Cross with solid efforts, while Stanford held Arizona’s 6-foot-10 Joseph Blair in check (11 points) without Young. The Wildcats committed 19 turnovers and were outrebounded, 37-36.

“We’ve obviously got a huge hole to get out of,” Arizona Coach Lute Olsen said. “But . . . in 1990, we lost our first two conference games against Oregon and Oregon State, and then came back to win the conference. A lot of teams are in the mix. You can’t overlook Cal, Washington State or Stanford.”

Stanford travels to play UCLA on Thursday and USC next Saturday. Arizona plays rival Arizona State at Tucson on Wednesday.

California 97, Arizona State 82--Shareef Abdur-Rahim had 28 points and 15 rebounds and Ed Gray a career-high 27 points for the Bears (7-3, 2-0) at Oakland.

Jeremy Veal had 21 points for Arizona State (5-5, 0-2), but leading scorer Ron Riley had only five--17 below his season average--as he was benched by Coach Bill Frieder most of the game.