Arizona Ponies Up to Win

Amazing how one’s opinion about the Pacific 10 Conference tournament can change so quickly when he feels it actually benefits him.

Lute Olson, one of the resurrected tournament’s harshest critics three years ago, is now arguably its biggest proponent.

All it took was for Arizona’s Hall of Fame coach to get in his mind that his No. 8-ranked Wildcats have a shot at a No. 1 seeding in the NCAA tournament when the brackets are released Sunday.

Especially after the Pac-10 regular-season champions punished fifth-place Oregon State, 90-59, in a semifinal Friday night at Staples Center, and Wake Forest lost in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament earlier in the day.

“I wasn’t aware that Wake got beat,” Olson said on the postgame interview dais as two of his players, Channing Frye and Salim Stoudamire, raised their eyebrows, suggesting Olson indeed did know.

“We can’t do anything about seeding. All we can do is keep playing and keep playing well. And I think it’s pretty obvious from the two games that we’ve played here that we’ve played well.

“We’ll try to get the Pony Express going to get word out East that we’ve played well.”

Midnight Lute riding in on the Pony Express to save the day for West Coast basketball? That should say something about how focused Arizona is at this time of year. The Wildcats (27-5) will meet No. 2-seeded Washington (26-5) in today’s championship game at 3 p.m.

Arizona, coming off Thursday’s 88-63 rout of California, set a record for biggest blowout win in Pac-10 tournament history and made Oregon State look more like the team that lost to last-place USC in the regular-season finale than the one that upended UCLA on Thursday.

“That’s the best they’ve played against us,” said third-year Oregon State Coach Jay John, who spent the previous four years as an assistant to Olson at Arizona. “They’re just in a rhythm right now.”

Leading the Wildcats’ beat were seniors Frye and Stoudamire, who paced five Arizona players scoring in double figures with 17 points apiece.

Still, the duo is in danger of ending an Arizona streak the school is especially proud of -- since 1990, every four-year Wildcat has played in a Final Four, except for Frye and Stoudamire. This is their last shot.

Frye, a center, continued his dominance in the post, making seven of eight shots and grabbing seven rebounds. Guard Stoudamire knocked down five of 10 from the field, three of seven from three-point territory.

Oregon State (17-14) was led by senior forward David Lucas’ sixth double-double of the season (15 points, 12 rebounds), and now the Beavers are hoping for an NIT bid after posting their first winning record since 1990.

Arizona led by only five at the half, 40-35, but blistered the Beavers after the break, scoring the first 12 points of the second half.

“We went into the locker room ... and said we were going to make a run at them,” Lucas said. “They made the run and put us in a hole.”

It was one from which the Beavers could not crawl out.

Arizona’s harassing man-to-man defense limited Oregon State to 29.2% shooting in the second half and forced 18 turnovers for the game. The Wildcats also had six steals.

Arizona shot 68.8% in the second half, and for the game outscored Oregon State in the paint, 46-28, in points off turnovers, 26-12, and in fastbreak points, 14-7.

“We’re playing extremely well right now,” said Stoudamire, who tweaked a calf muscle but said he would play today. “When we get out running, we’re a team to be reckoned with.”

If only the Pony Express moved at the breakneck pace of the Wildcats.