It was the near-perfect ending to an anything but perfect regular season for the Arizona men's basketball team.
Senior reserves Jason Ranne and Fil Torres received their proper send-offs, taking the floor in McKale Center for the final time as Wildcats. The nation's highest-scoring offense put up 106 points, while the struggling defense used a full-court press to stifle Arizona State time and again.
So how do the Wildcats celebrate what was arguably their most complete victory of the season?
They forget about it and start over.
"It just feels like a new season right now for everybody," said freshman point guard Mustafa Shakur, who dished out 11 assists in the win. "We're putting everything behind us, and we're just trying to come out with a lot more fire."
One way the Wildcats are visibly starting over is by sporting new team T-shirts with the slogan, "Our season begins in March," printed on the back.
As the slogan would suggest, Arizona players agree that with college basketball's most frenetic month comes a new mentality: "Win now."
Junior shooting guard Salim Stoudamire said the team feels a sense of urgency as the Pacific 10 Conference Tournament, which begins Thursday, approaches.
"We know that we've been up and down, but we know that this month is the month that counts. It's time to step it up. There's no saying, 'Well, we've got time.' The time is now," he said, emphasizing the importance of winning as many games as possible in Los Angeles this week. "I wouldn't say it's just like any other game, because it is March now. We need these games to help our seeding."
Ranne, who was honored in a post-game ceremony with Torres, said that as great as it was to play seven minutes in his final home game, he and his teammates still have plenty of unfinished business.
"There's still one thing lacking, and that's a national championship," Ranne said. "It's everything. That would pretty much be the storybook ending to my career."
Torres shared Ranne's sentiments.
"I can't complain about my college experience at all. I've lived a dream," Torres said. "It's been an incredible ride, but I just hope these next couple weeks have something more in store for us."
Sophomore guard Chris Rodgers, fresh off his career-high 20-point outing, said this is the logical part of the season for the Wildcats to reach a turning point.
"We just wanted to finish up the season strong at home, and I think the guys did a great job today," Rodgers said. "But this is where everything counts. We don't have any room for error anymore."
Rodgers said Arizona especially needs to understand that mistakes happened, but it's too late in the season to dwell on them.
"You just have to take all criticism as motivation," Rodgers said. "We messed up a few games here in the season, we had some mental lapses, but it's all a learning process in order to put our best out here at the end of the season."
As for Ranne and Torres, leaving McKale Center and hitting the road for the next few weeks couldn't come at a better time.
"It was a perfect game to end it," Ranne said, "but everything starts now."