No. 14 Arizona Easily Beats Eastern Washington

Channing Frye made sure Arizona didn’t overlook a struggling opponent.

Frye had 16 points, and the 14th-ranked Wildcats beat Eastern Washington, 79-45, Tuesday night at Tucson to advance to the championship game of the Fiesta Bowl Classic.

The Wildcats will play Richmond, a 69-68 winner over Butler, for the title Thursday night. Arizona is 38-1 in its holiday tournament, losing only to Mississippi State in 2000.

“We want to beat teams bad,” Frye said. “We’ve had enough teams come back on us to know that we can’t let it happen again, especially at home.”

Marc Axton, a 1,000-point career scorer, was three for 12 from the field and finished with seven points for the Eagles (2-9).

The Wildcats won their sixth game in a row and handed the Eagles, a preseason favorite to repeat as Big Sky Conference champion, their seventh consecutive loss and worst this season.

Arizona shot 61.5% in the first half and 53.8% overall. Frye was seven for 11 from the field, including six for eight in the first half, when he scored 12 points.

“It was great to have an all-around game,” said Hassan Adams, who scored 13 points. “It started defensively. That was big, because we are keeping the defensive intensity up.”

The Wildcats led by 16 points at halftime and squeezed any suspense out of the game with an 18-6 run that featured seven consecutive points by Adams.

Arizona State 92, Long Island 63 -- Ike Diogu scored 20 points in 22 minutes to lead the Sun Devils in the first round of its Hoops Classic at Tempe, Ariz.

The Sun Devils (10-1) advanced to tonight’s championship game against Valparaiso, a 69-56 winner over Penn State.

Arizona State has won eight games in a row for the first time since the 1980-81 season.

Aubin Scott scored 13 points to lead the Blackbirds (4-5), who committed 17 turnovers that led to 14 points by Arizona State.

Oregon 92, Portland 67 -- Malik Hairston scored 20 points in a game in which the Ducks never trailed at Eugene, Ore.

The Ducks (8-1) shot 58% from the field and held the Pilots (9-4) to 42% shooting.

Pooh Jeter had 22 points for the Pilots, who were outrebounded, 41-26.

Oregon State 86, Cal State Sacramento 59 -- David Lucas, playing in his first game this season since having surgery to repair a tendon in his right toe, had 13 points to lift the Beavers (8-3) at Corvallis, Ore.

The Beavers led, 42-19, at the half after the Hornets (2-9) made only one of 11 three-point shots and eight of 31 shots from the field.

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Outside the League

A look at the Pacific 10 Conference men’s basketball teams, going into Friday’s league openers:

*--* Team Over. Home Away Neu. Pac-10 Opener Washington 10-1 6-0 1-1 3-0 vs. California Arizona State 10-1 8-0 1-0 1-1 at Arizona (Sun.) Oregon 8-1 5-0 2-0 1-1 vs. USC Arizona 9-2 6-0 1-1 2-1 vs. Arizona State (Sun.) UCLA 6-2 6-0 0-1 0-1 at Oregon State California 7-3 5-3 2-0 0-0 at Washington Oregon State 8-3 4-0 2-2 2-1 vs. UCLA USC 7-4 4-1 0-2 3-1 at Oregon Stanford 6-4 3-0 1-1 2-3 at Washington State Washington State 5-4 2-1 2-3 1-0 vs. Stanford

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