A Step Back for Bruins

Arizona senior Salim Stoudamire played with UCLA freshman Arron Afflalo’s inexperience, toyed with his bravado and then broke his heart.

With 2.5 seconds left in a tie game, Afflalo backed away from Stoudamire, against his coach’s instructions, then watched as Stoudamire lofted the perfect 26-foot jump shot, a ball that barely ruffled the net to give 17th-ranked Arizona a 76-73 victory over UCLA on Saturday in a Pacific 10 Conference game at the McKale Center.

Stoudamire scored a season-high 32 points (24 in the second half) on 11-of-16 shooting (four of seven on three-pointers).

He scored 17 of 18 points for the Wildcats (14-3, 4-1) during a 9 1/2 -minute stretch in the second half. First he baffled the Bruins (10-4, 4-2) by beating a variety of defenders off the dribble and floating free for mid-range jump shots.

Then he stepped back.

Afflalo, who had made a three-point shot of his own with 16.9 seconds left to tie the score, said that UCLA Coach Ben Howland told him in the final timeout: “ ‘Don’t give [Stoudamire] any space and make him drive.’ I just didn’t listen.”

It was that quick first step and sweet, soft shooting that planted a notion in Afflalo’s head that he’d be better off backing away from Stoudamire, who’s second in the nation in three-point shooting percentage (56.2%). “I didn’t want to foul,” Afflalo said. “It was a little immaturity on my part.”

Afflalo’s instructions had been to stay in front of Stoudamire, to make him dribble and penetrate, without fouling him.

“No doubt at all,” Stoudamire said when asked if he knew the game-winner was going in. The moody and talented Wildcat guard has been benched several times this season -- including an entire game against Marquette -- because of his lackluster efforts.

Arizona Coach Lute Olson even pulled Stoudamire once in the second half Saturday when he made a lazy pass that was stolen by Bruin freshman Josh Shipp. Worse than the pass was that Stoudamire didn’t bother to follow the play to the other end of the court. Shipp slammed home the basket to give UCLA a 48-40 lead with 17:01 left.

It was the end of UCLA’s momentum.

After shooting 60.7% from the field in the first half, after confounding Arizona with quick cuts to the basket and with senior Dijon Thompson -- who had his fifth double-double of the season with 27 points and 10 rebounds -- shooting a perfect six for six from the field before halftime, the Bruins seemed to lose their legs and gradually their confidence in the second half.

After Thompson scored on a dunk with 13:07 left to give UCLA a 54-51 lead, the only Bruin field goal until Thompson made a pull-up jumper on the right side with 32.8 seconds left was on a goaltending call on Channing Frye against Thompson.

Stoudamire took advantage. He scored 24 of Arizona’s final 29 points. He beat everybody who tried to guard him -- Afflalo, Jordan Farmar and Brian Morrison, who had chased Stoudamire around the court here last season just to throw an elbow in a game where Stoudamire scored 34.

“The amazing thing about Salim,” Olson said, “is that if he’ll move without the ball and we do a better job of screening, the guy is the best shooter in the country. No one else is close. He got it going in the second half, and you can see what happens when he gets it going. The amazing thing is, he shoots the ball like that all the time.”

After Stoudamire’s game-winner, the final 2.5 seconds were still action-packed. Arizona’s Hassan Adams stole UCLA’s inbounds pass from Thompson to Afflalo. Afflalo fouled Adams with 1.2 seconds left and when the clock stopped, several Wildcats ran off the bench to mob Stoudamire, a rules violation that resulted in a technical foul.

But Farmar missed two free throws, and even though Adams missed both of his, the Bruins, without a timeout, couldn’t get off a shot before the final buzzer and their Pac-10 winning streak ended at four games.