In a double-overtime game any little bit of help can make a difference. Arizona guard Terrell Brown Jr. found that help Saturday night as he helped the Wildcats seal a victory over previously-unbeaten Washington State in Pullman. The Seattle native took the floor at the Beasley Coliseum with a heavy heart after the death of his grandfather on Friday.

Brown believes his grandfather's spirit played a role in helping him bank in a 3-point shot in the final seconds of the Wildcats' 86-82 win over the Cougars.

"I guess you could say that was him guiding that basketball in," Brown said after the game. "They gave me the opportunity to shoot the shot when the clock was running down, and ... to be honest I was just trying to get a shot up before clock ran out. Somehow guided the ball in. Hopefully my grandfather was watching me tonight."

Saturday's contest was an imperfect one for both teams as each had its struggles throughout the course of the night. Arizona (9-1, 3-1 Pac-12) struggled to find any offensive rhythm for most of the game while the Cougars (8-1, 1-1) struggled from the free-throw line leaving the door open for UA to pull out the victory.

Both teams found themselves in foul trouble with their front court players resulting in a difficult battle to finish line.

"This was the first game all season where we really faced some true real adversity in a game," assistant coach Jason Terry said about the Wildcats after the win. "Give Washington State credit, they were 8-0 coming into this thing and they proved the reason why. They beat the teams on their schedule and we were another one, and we were primed to be beat tonight. We did not shoot the ball well. Defensively we fouled a little bit too much.

"I just thought our guys remained resilient. There were a couple timeouts where there was some indecision creeping in, but coach came in and showed why he's one of the greatest coaches to ever step foot on the Arizona campus because he calmed us down. He got us back out. We went out and executed on the offensive and defensive end, and we came away victorious tonight.All around resiliency from everyone involved."

Foul trouble for Arizona's key frontline contributors forced freshman Bennedict Mathurin into an unfamiliar position as he had to play at the power forward spot late in the game, but the young forward delivered with his best performance of the year.

Mathurin was one of the only players to have any kind of scoring punch early in the game and it carried over into the second half and overtime periods. He ended up with a season-high 24 points on 8-of-12 shooting to go with a game-high 11 rebounds.

"JB (Jordan Brown), Ira (Lee) and Christian (Koloko), they were in foul trouble and I knew I had to step up at the four," Mathurin said about his performance late in the game that helped the Wildcats seal the win. "My role was to grab rebounds, and I did what I had to do to help the team."

The win helped secure the third victory of the week for Arizona after the Wildcats took care of Washington on Friday night and Colorado at home on Monday. UA will likely now be in the discussion for a spot in the Associated Press Top 25 and is doing it all while knowing it will not be playing in the postseason this year.

"It shows a lot of grit," Brown Jr. said of UA's success to open conference play. "We didn't have the best game starting off, it was a back-and-forth battle between two good teams. They're a really good team. They took us to double overtime, we took them to double overtime. We want to win every game.

"That's just the effort we bring to the table every time. Whether we're playing in the postseason or not, we don't really care because it's always the next game. We still want to prove people wrong whether we're playing postseason or not."

UA returns to the floor back at home to face USC this Thursday followed by a matchup on Saturday against UCLA.

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