The Pac-12 moved Arizona's schedule so that it would have to play its in-state rival, Arizona State, twice in a span of just a handful of days. The Wildcats won a two-point thriller in Tempe on Thursday night and on Monday Sean Miller's team looked to make the contest a little less nerve-racking by jumping out to an early double-digit lead in the opening minutes.
Ultimately, the Wildcats (12-3, 6-3 Pac-12) never trailed in what ended as an 80-67 victory over the Sun Devils helping UA complete a season sweep of its rival. Getting to the finish line had its ups and downs, however.
Miller's team came out hot with most of the starting lineup getting involved in the scoring to open up a 12-0 run. ASU didn't score its first bucket until the 13:16 mark. The Wildcats opened up the lead to as many as 24 points in the first half and 26 in the second half.
ASU (4-8, 1-5) would eventually chip away and make it a nine-point game with 2:30 left to play but that was as close as it would get.
"When they can get hot from three, which we know they can, then you go the line a couple times and you don't make them the game starts to feel funny," Miller said. "For the most part, we did what we needed to in the second half. For a large portion of the first half we played very, very good basketball both on offense and on defense."
Outside of Arizona earning the sweep, the biggest story of the game came late in the first half when freshman wing Bennedict Mathurin went down and stayed down for a bit after attempting to make a play on the defensive end of the floor.
Mathurin, who led the team with eight points and seven rebounds during that time, turned his ankle when he landed after attempting to block a shot. He had to be helped off the floor, and when he attempted to return before the second half he simply could not do so without a severe limp and obvious pain.
The team announced during the game that X-rays on his ankle came back negative for any broken bones and it is being called an ankle sprain at this point. Miller is confident Mathurin will be able to return and said it is the first time the freshman wing has injured his ankle during his career.
"His ankle is not broken, it's a sprain," the UA head coach said. "There's different severities of a sprain as we all know. I don't think his is significant."
The loss of Mathurin in the second half meant the Wildcats had to lean on some of their other playmakers to put the Sun Devils away and some of UA's other starters certainly made their impact over the final 20 minutes. Point guard James Akinjo had 14 of his 16 points in the second half while Terrell Brown Jr. had nine of his team-high 18 points for UA in that time.
Freshman power forward Azuolas Tubelis chipped in with eight points and four rebounds in the second half to finish with his first double double after scoring 16 points and grabbing 12 rebounds in the win.
Most of the work for UA came at the free-throw line in the second half as the Wildcats shot 31 free throws in the final 20 minutes. It was something the team was focused on especially when its offense went a bit stagnant.
"We knew going into the game that we had to be more aggressive, because that's how they play" Brown said. "They're an aggressive team. Our bigs helped that out a lot because they rebound the ball, they got offensive rebounds and they got foul calls for us. For the guards we know when they're in the penalty we can attack and hopefully draw some fouls."
Monday night's win put the Wildcats just two games behind first-place UCLA in the Pac-12 race while the Sun Devils head into the rest of the week all alone in last place in the conference.
UA will now look to build on its three-game winning streak and get ready for two more games this week as the Bay Area schools head down to Tucson starting with Stanford on Thursday night.
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