Frye Takes Command

Channing Frye does not need Lute Olson to go all “Midnight Lute” again and write another scathing e-mail on his behalf. Nor does Frye have to “take the tickets at the door ... [or] sell concessions” at the Pacific 10 Conference tournament to gain the league’s attention, chores Olson suggested Frye take on to impress the powers that be.

Not after the Arizona senior center had his way with California in the Wildcats’ 88-63 victory in a Pac-10 tournament first-round game Thursday at Staples Center.

Frye scored 22 points, on 10-of-11 shooting, grabbed four rebounds and blocked two shots in 25 minutes. His lone miss was a three-point shot.

Top-seeded Arizona (26-5) will next meet Oregon State (17-13) today in a semifinal at 6:15 p.m.

The Wildcat demolition of the Golden Bears was not unexpected. After all, Arizona had won 15 of the previous 17 meetings with Cal and swept the Bears by a combined 41 points this season.

Olson’s diatribe against Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen a week earlier, when Frye was passed over as the league’s player of the week and Olson wrote that he was “appalled” and that it must “take the box score hitting you square between the eyes” to appreciate Frye? Now that was surprising.

Most of all to Frye.

“I was shocked because of the aggressiveness of the tone,” Frye said in the postgame news conference as he elicited laughs. “But it’s good to have a coach stick up for you like that.”

Barely anyone stood up for Cal (13-16), which was led by sophomore forward Dominic McGuire’s career-high 13 points and six rebounds.

Showing a balance that is Arizona’s strength, all five Wildcat starters scored in the first three minutes, giving them a 10-0 lead.

Cal was able to close the gap to four points, 16-12, with 9:34 remaining in the first half, but the Wildcats eventually built a game-high 30-point lead, 60-30, after a three-pointer by Mustafa Shakur with 14:06 left in the game.

Arizona shot 58.1%, outrebounded Cal, 39-27, and outscored the Bears, 18-9, in second-chance points.

“The thing I’m pleased with this team is, they’re not self-satisfied,” Olson said. “They want to get better.”

And it doesn’t take a tersely worded e-mail to get that message across.