CHRIS CODUTO/ Arizona Daily Wildcat Senior guard Jason Gardner drives baseline against Stanford's Julius Barnes in Arizona's three-point win over the Cardinal Saturday night. Gardner scored 12 points in the win, putting him over the 1,000 point mark for his career.

Title-clinching road win opens college hoops' month of madness

STANFORD, Calif. ÷ At times, home court advantage is way overrated.

Until Saturday night, the visiting team had won the last five in the Arizona/Stanford series ÷ make it six. Until Saturday night only two teams had ever gone undefeated on the road in Pacific 10 conference play ÷ make it three.

The Wildcats (23-6, 13-3) claimed their first outright Pacific-10 championship in five years and swept on the road in the Bay Area for the fourth consecutive time by downing Stanford, 72-69, at Maples Pavilion.

"This was our first goal," said head coach Lute Olson of the conference championship. "And to do it by beating Cal at Cal, and Stanford at Stanford ·"

In doing so, Arizona becomes just the third team in Pac-10 history to go undefeated on the road (9-0). Stanford was the last, winning every conference road game during the 2000-01 season.

Player of the game: Salim Stoudamire, sophomore guard Play of the game: Stoudamire penetrates past 3-point line and drains a 15-foot jumper with 57 seconds remaining to put UA up by three. Stat of the game: UA claims its 10th Pac-10 title of the Lute Olson era with two games to go.

The visiting Wildcats won again in Maples, ending Stanford's nine-game home winning streak in the process.

"It's always tough to win here," said Channing Frye, who had seven points and six rebounds. "This (Pac-10 title) is one of our stepping stones."

Taking the conference title was all that mattered to Salim Stoudamire, who put up 18 points despite shooting only 1-of-4 from behind the arc.

"I'm not worried about me," Stoudamire said. "We won the Pac-10 title."

Wildcat faithful held their collective breath with 18 seconds left as senior Rick Anderson went to the foul line for a one-and-one opportunity on a foul by Cardinal Jason Haas.

Anderson air-balled the shot, giving Stanford possession in the three-point game.

"I'm going to hear about that for the rest of my life," Anderson said laughing after the game.

The Cardinal failed to capitalize on the resulting possession however, with two missed 3-pointers by Josh Childress and Julius Barnes.

"It's a lot of difference having to get three, compared to one or two," said Stanford head coach Mike Montgomery. "We took a lot of shots we couldn't make."

Stanford was 29 percent from the field in the first half and was 35 percent on the game. Childress still put up 20 points and pulled down 10 rebounds.

"I looked up and the clock, it said zero and it felt great," said Luke Walton who posted a double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds. "(Stanford) did a great job, but we hit big shots when we needed."

Frye, who extended the Arizona lead to 68-64 with 1:21 left by hitting two free throws, said the growth of the team was evident.

"Our maturity really showed," said Frye, who had seven points and six assists. "This game was just fun to be in."

Hassan Adams made his presence known in a big way coming off the bench, forcing a turnover with just over five minutes left in the second half. Adams then went the length of the court and converted the layup to cease a 9-2 Cardinal run, putting the Wildcats up 64-61.

Jason Gardner was the usual field marshal, playing 38 minutes with 12 points en route to his second Pac-10 championship.

Game notes

With his 12-point effort, Gardner crossed the 1,000-point barrier in his Pac-10 career (1,006) · The victory marked the 277th Pac-10 win for Olson, moving him into sole possession of second place behind only UCLA legend John Wooden (304) · One Stanford student in "The Sixth Man" section was dressed as a candy vending machine.