No. 8 Arizona Rolls to Sixth Win in Row

Arizona capped its roller-coaster regular season with a 78-76 victory against California on Saturday night at Berkeley, sending the No. 8 Wildcats into the NCAA tournament with a six-game winning streak.

Loren Woods had 22 points and nine rebounds, Michael Wright had 20 points and Gilbert Arenas added 18 for Arizona (23-7 overall, 15-3 in the Pacific 10 Conference), which upset No. 1 Stanford on Thursday night.

“Probably the thing that makes me the happiest is the play we got from Loren Woods today,” Arizona Coach Lute Olson said. “He was much more aggressive and I felt like that was the missing link for us.”

Jason Gardner’s three-point basket with 59 seconds remaining gave Arizona a 77-74 lead. Sean Lampley responded with two free throws for Cal, then Richard Jefferson made the second of two free throws with 12 seconds left to give the Wildcats a 78-76 lead.

Lampley missed a 12-foot turnaround jump shot at the buzzer.

Lampley had 27 points for Cal (20-10, 11-7). The senior forward said coming so close to Arizona is a positive at this time of the season.

“It will give us a boost if we make the tournament, whichever tournament we make,” Lampley said. “I’m just going to wait until tomorrow [to find out].”

The Wildcats were No. 1 in the preseason, but were only 5-3 in mid-December and 8-5 after a home loss to Stanford in early January. That defeat came in the absence of Olson, who missed five games surrounding the death of his wife, Bobbi, from ovarian cancer.

Arizona also struggled this season with the NCAA suspensions of Woods for six games and Jefferson for one game.

Since Olson returned to the sidelines in mid-January, the Wildcats are 13-2.

Oregon 69, Oregon State 60--Bryan Bracey had 19 points and 11 rebounds as the Ducks completed a sweep of the Beavers at Corvallis, Ore.

The Ducks (14-14, 5-13) had lost eight of nine. They have now won 15 of 16 against the Beavers.

Jason Heide, one of three seniors playing his last game at Oregon State, had 13 points and nine rebounds. Brian Jackson added 10 before fouling out for the 11th time, with 11:31 to play.

For the first time in 82 years, the Beavers (10-20, 4-14) won fewer games in a season than the school’s football team. During the 1919 season, the football team went 4-4-1, while the basketball team was 3-13. This season’s football team finished 11-1.

Freddie Jones added 14 points for the Ducks.

The Beavers were only seven of 30 from three-point range.