Arizona’s Skid Stops at Stanford

Hassan Adams broke out of a slump with 23 points and Ivan Radenovic scored 23 to help Arizona end a four-game road losing streak with a 76-72 win over Stanford on Sunday.

Marcus Williams keyed a 16-3 run to start the second half and the Wildcats (16-10, 9-6 Pacific 10 Conference) bounced back after a loss at California on Thursday to complete a season sweep against the Cardinal (13-10, 9-5).

Arizona and Stanford have dominated the Pac-10 the last decade, but this matchup was more about boosting both teams’ chances of making the NCAA tournament.

Both teams have won three outright Pac-10 regular-season titles and shared another with each other the last eight seasons. The only season since 1996-97 that neither the Cardinal nor the Wildcats finished atop the Pac-10 was in 2001-02, when they finished in a four-way tie for second, two games behind Oregon. Arizona won the conference tournament that season.

Arizona trailed by two points at the break, but Williams scored nine of his 11 points in the run to open the second half, including an alley-oop jam on a pass from Mustafa Shakur and Arizona’s first three-point basket to make it 48-39. He capped the spurt with another basket, making it 52-41.

Stanford’s Chris Hernandez missed a free throw during the run, ending his streak of 34 made in a row.

The Wildcats led, 66-52, with 6 minutes 19 seconds to go before Stanford rallied behind three three-pointers from Hernandez during a 16-5 run that cut the deficit to three points with 50.1 seconds left. Radenovic then made a free throw to make it a four-point game.