Despite losing starting power forward Azuolas Tubelis early in the first half to an ankle sprain, No. 3 Arizona routed Stanford, 85-57, for its fourth straight victory.

By the end of the night Tubelis was seen on the bench in a boot on the injured ankle.

With the Wildcats (15-1, 5-0 Pac-12) being down Tubelis for most of the night, the bench stepped up for the second game in a row outscoring Stanford's bench, 45-26. Three of the five players to score in double figures for Arizona in the game came in off the Wildcats' bench.

"That was a high-character program win, said Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd during his postgame radio show after his team's dominating victory. "You know, you're getting tested in different ways as these seasons play out whether it's unfortunate injuries or some tough calls. I'm not saying they're bad calls, but just tough. Some of your guys don't get to play as many minutes as they're accustomed. I thought we did a really good job just hanging with it today. It wasn't going perfect, but then coming out playing a great second half."

Leading the way for Arizona off the bench was center Oumar Ballo, who saw extended playing time due to foul trouble for Christian Koloko throughout the game. Ballo put together a career-high 21 points on 7 for 8 shooting with six rebounds and two blocked shots.

"He's been working really hard," Lloyd said of Ballo, who made the move with the UA head coach from Gonzaga in the offseason. "'I'm so proud of Oumar, because I've been with him for quite a while now and during his development things haven't come as easy as he would have hoped, or even I would have hoped. But, sometimes you just gotta hang with it. There's just so much value in showing up every day with a positive attitude, which he's done.

"To come out and put on a performance like this when C-Lo [Koloko] struggles with some foul issues and only plays eight minutes, it's a special deal for him, and it's a special deal for our program."

Arizona showed off its toughness as a team by dominating scoring the paint 48-20 and collecting eight blocked shots versus the Cardinal (10-6, 3-3). Overall, the UA defense held Stanford to just 30% shooting from the field and forced the Cardinal into 17 turnovers in the game.

"We gotta have a chip on our shoulder, we gotta be edgy, we can't get out-physicaled, and they're doing that on a daily basis," Lloyd said. "We lost the battle of the boards, but sometimes it's a little deceiving. When a team shoots 30%, there's a lot of misses, and they're a great offensive rebounding team. So, I mean 21 of them is too big of a number, but a team also shoots 30% and there's lots of rebounds to be had.

"The turnovers, we did a good job pressuring them, but we had a few too many turnovers. I'm trying to tighten up the reins on that just a little bit without us losing our pace and our creativity. We're walking a fine line there, and I'm just so happy that our guys played great in the second half today."

The Wildcats will continue their three-game road trip with a matchup against Cal (9-9, 2-5) Sunday at 1 p.m. (MST) on Pac-12 Networks.

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