Joe McLean and Corey Williams celebrated their 22nd birthdays last night, but it was Dion Cross that blew out Arizona's candles, extinguishing all hope of the Wildcats capturing a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament with Stanford's 85-79 win last night.

Despite the loss, in front of 14,362 at McKale Center, the Wildcats (23-6 overall, 12-5 in the Pacific 10 Conference) remained in second place in the Pac-10, a full game ahead of Cal because of Arizona State's 56-53 win over Cal last night in Tempe. The Golden Bears play UA tomorrow.

"I won't remember this one too much," McLean said about his birthday.

McLean probably will not be able to forget Cross, a 6-foot-2, 180-pound guard who torched the Wildcats for 27 points. It was a perfect night for Cross, literally. He took 11 shots last night € nine from the field, two from the line - and each one went in. Included in that barrage were seven 3-pointers. He was the beneficiary of multiple screens set by the Cardinal (18-8, 11-6) to free him to shoot, sometimes as many as three on a single play. But maybe Cross just has Arizona's number. In Stanford's 80-71 win over UA Jan. 6 in Palo Alto, Cross had 31 points and seven 3-pointers.

"You can look back on a lot of different stats, but look back on the line for Dion Cross and that's where the difference is," UA head coach Lute Olson said.

"I really didn't know I was shooting like that," Cross said, who averages 14.2 points a game. "But I was feeling in a groove."

The game marked the first win for Stanford at McKale Center since Olson's first season in 1984 and the first time Stanford has ever swept the Wildcats.

The loss certainly knocked the Wildcats from contention for a second seed and a short trip up to Tempe for the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Now UA will have to wait and see how the selection committee reacts to the loss, and take care of business against the Golden Bears. The Cardinal were thought to be on the bubble before the game, but played themselves into the tournament with the win.

"I have no idea what will happen, I don't pick the teams," Williams said, who scored 19 points and had seven rebounds. "We are going to the dance and we will make a lot of noise."

It seemed Arizona had the Cardinal on the ropes at various points in the first half, leading by as many as 12, but just couldn't put them away. Cross' 15 first-half points kept Stanford in the game and they found themselves down just 39-37 at the half.

The Cardinal opened the second with a 7-0 run and relinquished the lead only once after that, at 51-50. With Miles Simon and Reggie Geary clamping down on Cross, who still had 12 in the half, the Cardinal found offense from an unlikely source, senior guard David Harbour. Harbour, who averages 9.2 points, scored 15 in the second half and finished with 19 overall.

Stanford seemed to have UA finished off with a 69-60 lead with seven minutes and 50 seconds left, but the Wildcats mounted a comeback. Ben Davis scored six of his 25 points (tying a career high), over the next three minutes as UA forged into a tie at 71. But after the Cardinal took a 74-71 lead, Cross hit a backbreaking 3-pointer to put the game out of reach with just over a minute to go.

"Every time we though we were getting ahead, they got a lot of key buckets," McLean said.

"It seemed like the same game, Cross got hot, hit a lot of shots and the rest of the team fell in line," Davis said, comparing the two UA-Stanford games this season. "The screens with Cross getting open was the turning point in the first half."