TEMPE - The Arizona State band welcomed the Arizona men's basketball team onto the court last night with a rendition of "The Mickey Mouse Club" theme. The members must have known what was coming, as the Wildcats turned the University Activity Center into their own Magic Kingdom, pulling a 71-69 victory out of their hats.

The 12,529 fans in attendance - the smallest turnout for a UA-ASU game in Sun Devil coach Bill Frieder's tenure - saw the Sun Devils (8-10 overall, 3-7 in the Pacific 10 Conference) blitz Arizona with a 19-7 run over the last seven minutes of the game. But both Jeremy Veal's 18-footer with six seconds left and the ensuing put-back fell short, ensuring the Wildcats (17-4, 7-3) of breaking their two-game losing streak in Tempe.

Ben Davis provided the winning margin with two foul shots with 26.2 seconds left.

"We got what we wanted on the last shot," Frieder said. "We wanted Brewer to drive to the hole and if they closed the gap, then we wanted to kick it out to either Veal or Riley. We got the shot. It just didn't go."

A UA loss would have spoiled a sparkling performance by freshman guard Jason Terry, who energized the offense with 10 points in 21 minutes and logged five steals on the defensive end. In one stretch of the first half, Terry had three steals on three consecutive ASU possessions.

"I felt great coming in," Terry said. "Coach (Lute Olson) said we had to put pressure on them. I'm just trying to play hard and things just seem to happen."

"He gave us some big-time looks on both ends of the floor," Olson said. "I thought it was the best performance on the floor tonight."

Though the Sun Devils finished at 42.9 percent from the floor, they were uncharacteristically silent from the 3-point line. Their 13 attempts and three 3-pointers last night were both season lows.

Arizona tied its season low with a 29-point first half performance that saw the team shoot just 32.3 percent. In the second half, however, the Wildcats recovered, shooting 47.1 percent and outrebounding ASU 22-15. For the game, they pulled down 39 rebounds to ASU's 38.

"We knocked our open shots down," Olson said. "We had our hands full with the Sun Devils being so fired up. We are fortunate to get out of here with a win."

After ASU ended the first half with a 15-1 run to take a 35-29 lead, the Wildcats stormed back. Arizona opened the half with a 35-15 run and seemed to have the game under control at 64-50 with just under seven minutes to play. Riley and Brewer combined for 15 of ASU's final 19 points. A Veal 3-pointer tied the game at 69 with 58.2 seconds left.

"We started making bad decisions," UA forward Corey Williams said. "Against a team like ASU you can't do that."

"We had them in trouble but they came up with defensive plays, particularly by Brewer," Olson said. "That gave them full-court opportunities. We did a great job in our half-court defense, but we knew we couldn't allow them open-court opportunities."

Miles Simon led Arizona with 16 points while Reggie Geary had 13. Ben Davis started slowly, hitting just 1-of-9 shots in the first half, but finished with 12 points and a game-high 10 rebounds.

What was Davis thinking about as he stood on the line with the game tied?

"I'm thinking I'm about to make these," said Davis, who was 2 for 6 at the line up to that point. "It was the least I could do."

Riley led all scorers with 17 points, Brewer had 16 while Joe Zaletel and Veal each had 14.