SEATTLE—No game is ever decided in the first five minutes, no matter how big the deficit.
Arizona rallied from down 15 points early in the first half to lead the final 24-plus minutes but still had to hold on for deal life at the end in beating Oregon 87-83 in the second round of the NCAA Tournament at Climate Pledge Arena.
The 15-point comeback was the second-largest of the Tommy Lloyd era.
The 4th-seeded Wildcats (24-12) advance to the Sweet 16 for the second year in a row and third time in four seasons under Lloyd and will face top-seeded Duke on Thursday in the East Region semifinals in Newark, NJ. The UA lost 69-55 at home to the Blue Devils in mid-November, the fourth game of the season.
Caleb Love had 29 points, 20 in the second half including two free throws with 2.2 seconds remaining to ice it, and tied his career high with nine rebounds to go with four assists. Four other Wildcats had 12 including Tobe Awaka, who pulled down 14 rebounds despite playing only 22 minutes because of foul trouble.
Arizona shot 45.5 percent and was 10 of 20 on 3-pointers, the fifth time in the last seven games it has shot at least 40 percent from 3. Love was 5 of 7 from 3, nailing two down the stretch as Oregon (25-10) rallied from down 11 to make it a one-score game several times in the final five minutes.
The Ducks shot 47.1 percent, 51.6 percent in the second half, but were just 12 of 22 from the line with eight misses after halftime. Arizona was 17 of 24, draining 7 of 8 in the last 21 seconds.
The UA led 42-38 at halftime after being down double digits with 11:22 left in the first half, needing just over 10 minutes to erase that 15-point hole. It had a double-digit lead at 54-43 with 16:48 to go after Anthony Dell’Orso scored five in a row, first off a baseline fake for a layup and then a corner 3 after getting the ball back following a miss from the elbow.
Oregon went on a 7-0 run, which could have been 10-0 had it not missed three free throws, to pull within 56-52 on Jackson Shelstad’s 3 with 14:18 left. That run coincided with Awaka having to sit after picking up a third foul, and Henri Veesaar got his third with 13:01 remaining but stayed in the game.
Arizona had a couple other miscues that kept it from being able to pull away, with KJ Lewis picking up an administrative technical foul for hanging on the rim to try and putback his own missed dunk and Carter Bryant getting called for a second goaltending.
Yet through all that the UA maintained a 2-score lead and was up 68-59 with 9:51 left on a Lewis 3, but then came a 3-minute scoring drought that saw the Ducks make it a 3-point game.
Shelstad—who led Oregon with 25 points hit a long 2 to get Oregon within 72-70 with 4:33 to go but that was its last points for more than two minutes. Love scored five in a row, draining his fourth triple and then splitting the defense for a dunk to put Arizona up 77-70 with 2:27 left.
What followed was a final two minutes that seemed to take forever, and not just because of the four monitor reviews to determine possession on out-of-bounds calls.
Arizona was up 80-76 with 1:21 to go when Veesaar was fouled but missed both free throws, and on the other end Nathan Bittle hit a hook shot to cut it to 2 with 49.2 seconds to go. Arizona turned it over with 45.5 seconds to go but the Ducks missed a chance to tie it and then it became a foul fest.
Shelstad cut it to 81-80 with 10.6 seconds before Dell’Orso twice nailed both ends of a 1-and-1 with Shelstad hitting two foul shots in between. Arizona fouled Shelstad again, up 85-82 with 3.6 seconds to go, and he intentionally missed the second after making the first but Love secured the rebound and made the last two free throws.
It was about the worst start possible for Arizona, which made only one shot in the first 5-plus minutes while it felt like Oregon couldn’t miss. The Ducks led 19-4, hitting three 3s and converting three early UA turnovers into seven points.
Once the Wildcats settled down they began to chip away at the lead. A 9-0 run, capped by a Love 3, got them within 26-23 with 9:02 left in the first half. Oregon extended it to an 8-point margin before Arizona stormed back to take its first lead on another 9-0 run, with Bradley’s driving layup making it 32-31 with 4:48 remaining in the first half.
The UA led by as many as six before halftime, outscoring the Ducks 38-19 over the final 14:49 of the first half.
Arizona and Duke will be facing off in the NCAA Tournament for the third time, with each winning once. The Wildcats knocked off the top-seeded Blue Devils in the 2011 Sweet 16 after losing the 2001 national title game to them.
