SAUL LOEB/Arizona Daily Wildcat Stanford's Julius Barnes charges into Arizona's Luke Walton during the second half of Stanford's 82-77 win over Arizona last night at McKale Center.

Wildcats can't stomach the taste of losing at home again to unranked Stanford squad

Call it a distraction or whatever you like but, there was something agitating the nation's No. 1 basketball team in the first half.

Was it the candy incident? Maybe.

Was it the same problem that has plagued the Wildcats all season long, starting slow? Most likely.

But after the loss last night the Arizona players were quick to put the so-called candy incident behind them saying it wasn't a distraction, but UA head coach Lute Olson thought differently.

"The off-court stuff has been a distraction, thank you," said Olson, clearly upset.

It bothered Luke Walton ÷ one of the players that was accused of being involved as the lookout ÷ so much that he stormed out of the locker room without stopping to talk to the media, something that is out of character for the team's captain.

Candy or not, the Wildcats, for maybe the 10th time this season, didn't come out early and established their dominance.

"Arizona was not ready to play its best basketball and in the first half they allowed us to stay in the game," Stanford coach Mike Montgomery said. "As the minutes passed, our players began to gain confidence and realize that we could win."

The Arizona players didn't get going again last night until they looked up at the McKale Center scoreboard and saw that they were down 14 points with just under 12 minutes to go.

UA freshman Andre Iguodala said the slow starts are something that this team should not be having anymore as its more than halfway through the season.

"I think it's a lot of things, lack of focus, being too hyped for the game," Iguodala said. "Sometimes before the game were not getting good warm-ups."

Continuously starting slow has been the one major issue that Arizona has not been able to overcome all season, but other than the team's first loss against Louisiana State, it has never hurt the team.

Against Oregon, Southern California and Kansas, the Wildcats found themselves down by double-digit margins but in each game they fought back to win.

Last night Arizona was down 14 points again, they came back again and took the lead again.

It was looking like deja-vu all over again.

You could see the look on Montgomery's face when Iguodala hit a 3-pointer to give the Wildcats their first lead since the score was 3-2.

It was almost like he was expecting it.

But Montgomery had nothing to worry about because his young team did what they have been doing all season ÷ winning games down the stretch as they wound up doing last night in a game where they came in as a 15 point underdog. The Cardinal is now 7-2 in games decided by five points or less.

"In the late part of the game every member of the team made the play they needed too," Montgomery said.

The Wildcat's sense of urgency in this game came too late and even when they caught the Cardinal, they didn't have enough at the end to put them away.

Missed dunks, turnovers and defensive rebounding all went in Stanford's favor down late in the game and turned out to be the Achilles' heel for UA.

"We made a great run but it's typical when you make a run that you expend so much energy that you don't have enough left when you need it," Olson said.

It's not like it gets any easier now for Arizona either.

It has a battle for Pac-10 supremacy tomorrow against California, a team even after losing to Arizona State 75-70, is playing some of its best basketball since the Jason Kidd era.

"We're going to come out with some passion for this game," freshman Hassan Adams said.

The Wildcats haven't lost two games in a row in about a year, but if they don't come out with a sense of urgency from the start, they could put an end to that streak.