Kerr Kriisa scored 17 points to lead a balanced scoring effort as No. 8 Arizona avenged an earlier loss to Utah with a resounding 88-62 victory on Thursday night in Tucson, Ariz.
The Wildcats (23-4, 12-4 Pac-12) had eight players score at least seven points. Courtney Ramey had 13 points, seven rebounds and six assists, and Azuolas Tubelis scored all 11 of his points in the second half after battling foul trouble. He also pulled down a team-high nine rebounds in 20 minutes.
The Utes (17-10, 10-6), who opened the conference season on Dec. 1 with a 15-point home victory over Arizona, shot just 32.2 percent (19 of 59) from the field. Branden Carlson scored 19 points to lead Utah, and Marco Anthony added 12.
Arizona built its lead to 54-34 with a 9-0 run early in the second half and later ran off eight consecutive points for a 62-39 advantage with 13:26 to go. When Utah threatened by surging back within 68-56, Tubelis answered with back-to-back jumpers to ignite a 13-0 run, which he capped with a layup at the 4:15 mark.
Kriisa, who was 4 of 4 from 3-point range, contributed a 3-pointer in the game-clinching run. He finished with six assists.
Tubelis, an All-America candidate who was coming off a game in which he had four points and no rebounds in 17 foul-plagued minutes during a loss at Stanford, picked up two personal fouls on the same play with 14:42 to go in the first half. He committed a foul near midcourt in a loose-ball situation and then picked up a dead-ball Class A technical foul (also a personal) when he kicked the ball into the stands as it was rolling toward the baseline.
The Wildcats shot 9 of 18 from behind the arc, but their guards also spent a lot of time attacking the basket. Arizona ended with a 38-10 edge in points in the paint.
The Wildcats shot 58.1 percent from the field in the first half, helping them build the lead to 43-26 with 1:12 to go after an alley-oop dunk by Henri Veesaar. The Utes scored the final five points of the half, though, including a late 3-pointer by Rollie Worster, to make the score 43-31 at the break.
–Field Level Media
