By Craig Degel
Arizona Daily Wildcat
March 2, 1998

UA blasts Stanford, clinches Pac-10

OK class, grab your pencils. It's quiz time.

Take a career-high 19 rebounds from A.J. Bramlett, add a school-record nine steals from senior Bennett Davison, add 64 points from the big four of Mike Bibby, Jason Terry and seniors Miles Simon and Michael Dickerson and what do you get?

One Pacific 10 Conference championship.

The 90-58 dismantling of Stanford Saturday at McKale Center sealed UA's eighth Pac-10 title, but its first since 1994.

Until Saturday, the seniors had never tasted such a victory.

"We seemed to step up for the big game," said Davison, who bid farewell to McKale Center with five points, five rebounds, three assists and the aforementioned steals.

The second-ranked Arizona men's basketball team out-hustled, out-rebounded and out-shot the eighth-ranked Cardinal.

And in the waning moments of UA's 32-point victory, Stanford's stars were reduced to spectators who seemed as much in awe of Arizona's game as the unusually boisterous Senior Day sellout crowd of 14, 542.

"We just got outplayed every way possible," Stanford coach Mike Montgomery said. "We were not getting good shots and we weren't getting the offensive boards."

The Wildcats (26-3 overall, 16-0 in the Pac-10) awoke from what seemed like a two-week-long funk and won the game by more points than the margin of their last four victories - 18 points - combined.

"This was a great win," Arizona head coach Lute Olson said. "We came out strong again and played some of our best basketball of the year."

The Wildcats, it seemed, could do no wrong as they extended their nation-leading win streak to a school-record-tying 19 in a row.

They seemed to alley-oop and score at will. Rebounds were there for the taking. Steals were the order of the day and the oft-criticized interior defense, the underdog against a bigger, stronger Stanford team with Tim Young and Mark Madsen, was suffocating. Bramlett did not allow Young to grab a single offensive rebound and Davison held Madsen to just two.

"Bennett Davison was absolutely fabulous on the defensive end of the floor," Olson said. "A.J. came up huge with the double-double."

Bramlett had 11 points and the 19 rebounds, 13 of them defensive.

"I guess I've been slacking a little bit lately," Bramlett said. "I only got three (rebounds) Thursday. But I know that in the (NCAA) Tournament I have to be aggressive."

A big key to Arizona's game is defense and steals. Over the last four games, the defense had sagged but Saturday it was every bit the "Cat-Astrophe" for Stanford, picking up 18 steals.

"When we get steals and can run," Bramlett said, "nobody can run with us."

Especially not Stanford (24-4, 12-3), a team that has had trouble running with athletic teams like Arizona. The Cardinal lost two games to UA this season by an average of 25 points and Conneticut beat Stanford by 20 in early February.

"The two premier teams we have played have given us problems with their quickness," Montgomery said. "Once we broke down it made everything that much easier for them and that much harder for us. Maybe we can't play at this level ... I don't know."

Just one Cardinal - Madsen - was in double figures with 10 points. Peter Sauer, who set a career-high with 23 points when these two teams met Jan .29, hit just one field goal and finished with five points. As a team, the Cardinal shot an anemic 28 percent in the first half and 35 for the game.

And while the Wildcats hit just 36 percent in the first half, they were red hot in the second, shooting 58.

Five players finished in double figures. Bibby had 14, Bramlett had his 11, Terry had 15 and seniors Dickerson and Simon finished with 15 and 20 respectively.

"It was fun, it was such a good time today," Simon said.

With UA owning a big lead - by as many as 37 points in the second half - the subs were inserted and the seniors left to standing ovations. Following the game, the players ascended a ladder to cut a piece of the net to celebrate the title. Simon went up last and grabbed a piece of the net which he placed around his grandmother's neck.

"We finally got UCLA off the throne," Simon said. "Hopefully this is the start of something."

NO. 2 ARIZONA 90, NO. 8 STANFORD 58

Stanford (24-4)

Sauer 1-8 2-2 5, Madsen 5-10 0-1 10, Young 3-4 3-4 9, Weems 3-6 1-1 8, Lee 2-12 2-2 7, McDonald 0-1 0-0 0, Moseley 3-10 0-0 8, Collins 1-2 0-0 2, Mendez 1-4 0-0 2, Tshionyi 2-3 0-0 5, Van Elswyk 0-2 0-0 0, Seaton 1-1 0-0 2. Totals 22-63 8-10 58.

Arizona (26-3)

Davison 2-2 1-3 5, Dickerson 6-13 1-1 15, Bramlett 5-10 1-2 11, Bibby 6-13 0-0 14, Simon 7-17 4-5 20, Terry 6-11 0-0 15, Edgerson 0-0 3-4 3, Jenkins 1-1 0-0 3, Pastner 0-1 0-0 0, Tebbs 0-1 2-2 2, Wessel 0-0 0-0 0, Stewart 0-0 2-2 2. Totals 33-69 14-19 90.