Victory Is Child’s Play for Wildcats

The chip-off-the-old-block was a few inches shorter than the original version, and the uniform he wore wasn’t the powder blue of UCLA’s Bruins. But everything else was like a flashback Thursday night at Staples Center, when Luke Walton scored 25 points and led Arizona to an impressive 73-56 victory over Arizona State in the first round of the Pacific 10 basketball tournament.

Walton, of course, is the son of Bill, among the all-time greats to play anywhere, much less UCLA, where he left a legacy of excellence and national championships in the John Wooden era.

Son Luke, now a junior at Arizona, wasn’t as highly touted coming out of high school in San Diego, but he is beginning to be a great argument for recruiting the genes rather than the prep performance.

It wasn’t so much what Walton did in his 34-minute performance, which included eight rebounds, two assists and two blocked shots, but how he did it. He scored when it mattered most, he missed only six of 17 shots and none of those were bad ones, and he played with a poise and presence, as well as an intelligence, that probably even impresses that 6-foot-11 chatty broadcaster back home.

“Luke had an exceptional game tonight,” Arizona Coach Lute Olson said.

So did teammate Jason Gardner, the co-star of this 15th-ranked Wildcats, who played the entire game and got 22 points, making all 12 free throws he shot.

Olson wasn’t especially happy with his team’s 21-of-31 foul shooting, but compared to the Sun Devils--on this night the gang that couldn’t shoot straight--Arizona was stellar.

Arizona State, which shot 34% from the floor, was two for 12 from the free-throw line, including 0 for 7 in the first half.

“We’re not usually a bad foul-shooting team,” said Coach Rob Evans, whose team fell to 14-14.

Arizona’s victory gave the veteran Olson yet another 20-win season, his 24th in a 29-year career. The last time Olson, who won an NCAA title in 1997, didn’t win 20 games was in the 1986-87 season, when he was 18-12 and still finished second in the Pac-10.

Olson didn’t achieve what he has without being smart and cool about it. His Wildcats will play the winner of the late Cal-UCLA game in tonight’s semifinals, so the veteran coach knew there was no need to be celebrating anything quite yet.

“We’re happy we got this one,” Olson said, in appropriate understatement.