Arizona Bands Together, 80-75

Much to the shock of Coach Lute Olson, second-ranked Arizona’s players came out for Thursday night’s game against Washington State at Tucson wearing white headbands.

After Arizona struggled to an 80-75 victory, Olson promised the headbands would never be seen again.

“The headbands compressed the brains,” Olson said. “The first time I saw them was when they came out to warm up. You won’t see the headbands again.”

Center Loren Woods scored a career-high 25 points and blocked a school-record 10 shots as Arizona improved to 14-2 overall and 3-0 in the Pacific 10, but Olson was livid about his team’s play in its first game since beating then-No. 1 Stanford on the road Saturday.

“We played extremely stupidly,” Olson said. “We played like we had no brains.”

Washington State (5-7, 0-3) led 35-34 at halftime, fell behind by 13 in the second half, then cut Arizona’s lead to three on four occasions over the final 2:06. The Wildcats avoided their first loss to the Cougars in 29 games by making all 12 of their free throws in the final five minutes.

Arizona, down to seven scholarship players after forward Richard Jefferson suffered a broken foot against Stanford, was outrebounded, 36-25. However, Woods--who became the first Wildcat player to wear a headband last month--provided enough presence around the basket to minimize that statistic.

“I am a shot-blocker,” proclaimed the 7-foot-1 Woods. “They kept trying to shoot layups. You have to think they would get the hint after a while.”

Just as the soon-to-be-headbandless Wildcats figure to get the hint from Olson.

No. 3 Stanford 73, Oregon State 45--The Cardinal (13-1, 2-1 in the Pacific 10) went on a 17-2 run to end the first half and scored the first 12 points of the second half to pull away from the Beavers (8-5, 0-2) at Corvallis, Ore.

Oregon State, ranked second in the conference in three-point shooting, missed 18 of 21 attempts from behind the arc, and made only 28% of all their shots. Stanford leads the nation in field-goal defense at 32%.

No. 7 Syracuse 77, South Carolina 74--The Orangemen (13-0) remained Division I’s only undefeated team with an overtime victory over the Gamecocks (9-6) at Columbia, S.C.

Syracuse was sluggish for most of its third road game in six days, trailing 51-44 with seven minutes left. Center Etan Thomas scored five of his team-high 19 points, and forward Ryan Blackwell and guard Jason Hart made three-point shots to help the Orangemen take a 59-57 lead with less than a minute left.

Forward Antonio Grant’s tip-in tied the score with 19 seconds then Blackwell missed a three-point shot as time ran out but scored six points in an overtime in which Syracuse never trailed.

No. 17 Ohio State 53, Wisconsin 51--Center Ken Johnson had 13 points, 14 rebounds and a career-high six blocked shots at Madison, Wis., as the Buckeyes (10-3, 2-1 in the Big Ten) won their first road game in three tries.

Scoonie Penn’s driving layup with 1:09 left turned out to be the deciding basket, but Ohio State had to survive two missed three-pointers by Wisconsin (9-6, 1-2), including guard Kirk Penney’s airball with two seconds to go.

OTHER GAMES

Guard Eddie House scored 29 points in his first game since tying the Pacific 10 record with 61 against California on Saturday, to lead Arizona State (10-4, 2-1) to a 90-80 victory over Washington (6-9, 1-2) at Tempe, Ariz. House, who has averaged 36.5 points in his last seven games, made 13 of 30 shots after going 18 for 30 in his previous game. . . . Guard Frederick Jones had a season-high 20 points for Oregon (11-2, 2-0) in an 83-66 victory over California (9-6, 0-3) at Eugene, Ore. Forward Sean Lampley had 29 points for the Golden Bears.