No. 6 Arizona buried the Oregon men’s basketball team with an explosive 19-4 run in the second half to coast to a 90-56 victory on Wednesday night in Tucson.
After trailing by 15 at halftime, Oregon (14-7, 4-4) cut the Wildcats’ lead down to 10 points with 13:06 left to play. Arizona (19-2, 7-1) head coach Sean Miller quickly called a timeout and his team responded with a 19-4 run that flushed away the Ducks’ chances at an upset.
Whenever the Wildcats’ offense briefly fell out of sync, the defense quickly locked down the Oregon attack.
Whenever Oregon fell out of sync, Arizona capitalized, leading to a lopsided Wildcats win.
The Wildcats shot 59.3 percent from the field, held Oregon to 40.4 percent shooting and out-rebounded the Ducks 34 to 20 in a dominant display of their superior talent and athleticism.
Each of Arizona’s starters finished in double figures, while Gabe York chipped in 16 points off the bench.
Elgin Cook led the Ducks with 16 points on 7-11 shooting. Arizona point guard T.J. McConnell held Joe Young to just 12 points. Dillon Brooks had a rough night and went 2-10 from the field, but made seven free throws to finish with 11 points.
Freshman Roman Sorkin received valuable minutes in his second career game, but looked rattled in the face of elite competition. Sorkin finished with one rebound and two turnovers in seven minutes.
Oregon has now lost all three of its conference road games and has given up at least 85 points in each of those contests.
The Ducks will have to regroup quickly as they head north to Tempe to take on Arizona State on Friday at 5 p.m.
Follow Josh Schlichter on Twitter @joshschlichter