Country Roads? More like Wildcat Country Roads.
Arizona left Tucson nearly a week ago for its first Big 12 road trip and will be coming back with a pair of wins over ranked opponents. The latest was a 75-56 win Tuesday night at No. 21 West Virginia, avenging a loss to the Mountaineers in November.
KJ Lewis had a career-high 21 points in 26 minutes off the bench, pacing an Arizona offense that shot 50.8 percent against a West Virginia team that was allowing 37.1 percent shooting. Jaden Bradley added 15 and Anthony Dell’Orso 10 for the Wildcats, which led for nearly 35 minutes.
The UA trailed for only 5:34 in its two wins, beating consecutive ranked teams on the road for the first time since 2003. It also improved to 10-0 in revenge games under Tommy Lloyd, getting West Virginia (11-3, 2-1) back for the 83-76 overtime loss at the Battle4Atlantis.
Arizona led 39-28 at halftime, its second consecutive double-digit lead on the road. And like at then-No. 16 Cincinnati on Saturday the Wildcats quickly extended the lead, building it to 15. But also like that previous game, the big lead quickly dwindled as the home team started to get hot.
West Virginia made six straight shots including 3-pointers on three consecutive possessions. The last two were by Sencire Harris, who entered the game 2 of 32 from outside, forcing Lloyd to call timeout as the edge was down to 48-43 with 14:11 left.
That was as close as West Virginia would get, as the Wildcats responded outscoring the Mountaineers 27-13 the rest of the way. That started with the UA scoring on five straight possessions, including a driving one-handed dunk by Henri Veesaar.
An 11-0 run capped by a Lewis 3 and a breakaway layup from Lewis off a turnover made it 64-47 with 9:36 to go. Lewis scored seven in a row at one point, then Bradley scored five straight to get the margin to 17 with just over five minutes left.
West Virginia’s defense forced Arizona to take its first 10 shots from mid- or long range, but it made four including consecutive 3s from Trey Townsend, Bradley and Anthony Dell’Orso. That opened up the paint and Arizona responded by scoring 10 straight inside.
A 6-0 run put the UA up 23-15 with 9:38 left in the first half, and the Wildcats kept it a 2-score lead the rest of the half and led by as many as 13 at 35-22 with 2:30 to go thanks to an 8-0 run. West Virginia shot only 38.5 percent in the first half and went more than five minutes without a field goal at one point, shooting even worse in the second half (34.4 percent).
The Mountaineers were without senior Tucker DeVries, who torched Arizona for 26 points including eight 3s in the previous meeting. Fellow senior Javon Small, the Big 12’s scoring leader, had 17 points but needed 17 shots and in two games against the Wildcats is 8 of 26 from the field.
Arizona returns home for its next two games, starting with Saturday night’s matchup against UCF. It will be the first meeting between the schools.
