Guard's shot gives Olson 500th victory

By Patrick Klein
Arizona Daily Wildcat
February 12, 1996

Katherine K. Gardiner
Arizona Daily Wildcat

Arizona head coach Lute Olson raises his hand because he's sure about securing his 500th victory, which came courtesy of Miles Simon's 70-foot heave as the buzzer sounded.

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PHOENIX - Everyone else at Veterans' Memorial Coliseum was preparing for overtime, but no one told Miles Simon.

Instead, the sophomore guard ended the proceedings in regulation, hitting a 70-foot bank shot at the buzzer to give No. 16 Arizona a 79-76 win over fifth-ranked Cincinnati.

The shot, in front of 11,112 as part of the 7-Up ShootOut, also gave UA head coach Lute Olson his 500th career victory as a college coach.

"As it left my hand I wasn't sure, but it looked on-line," Simon said amid the pandemonium on the court after the shot. "I shot it off one foot, but I was balanced. I was trying to make it."

"I've never seen one like that," UA assistant coach Phil Johnson said. "We were waiting for overtime."

The shot completed a 20-8 Wildcat run to end the game, and overshadowed the ability of Arizona (18-4, 7-3 in the Pacific 10 Conference) to neutralize Cincinnati's pressure defense and the Bearcats' size advantage in the middle. UA committed only 13 turnovers - UC's opponents average 18.3 turnovers a game - while forcing the Bearcats into 18 turnovers of their own.

"We were up by seven with the ball, we should have put them away," UC heda coach Bob Huggins said. "But we missed foul shots and turned the ball over. It's pretty elementary."

While it is said you never forget your first, Olson found out his 500th was pretty memorable too. He was presented on the court with a six-foot cake after the game.

"I've been a coach for 38 years and had some great wins, but never from that distance," Olson said. "I don't think a lot of people would've thought the five-hundreth would have come here."

That was because with 6-foot-7, 260-pound Danny Fortson and 6-9, 250-pound Art Long in the middle, UC had a big size advantage over Arizona. That was compounded when Ben Davis picked up his second foul just 3 minutes and 51 seconds into the game. He sat for the remainder of the half and played just 24 minutes in all.

His absence showed up in the box score, as the Bearcats outrebounded the Wildcats 46-32, including 26-16 on the offensive end. But Fortson, who averages 21.6 points and 9.8 rebounds, was held to only 11 points and had just five rebounds. Much credit for that has to go to an unlikely source, UA forward Joe McLean. McLean, all 6-6, 217 pounds of him, was matched up on Fortson for most of the half, although he received a lot of help from Corey Williams.

"He's a big horse, without a doubt one of the best big men in the country," McLean said of Fortson. "But I had a lot of fun banging around with him, although I'm sure I'll feel it tomorrow."

"They got every rebound they wanted to get tonight," Williams said about the Bearcats. "But Fortson didn't have as big a game as he usually does."

Cincinnati (18-2) led 68-59 with six minutes to play but then made several costly errors. An Art Long offensive foul led to a couple of Simon free throws, and a 5-second violation on a inbounds play led to a Reggie Geary 3-pointer that cut the Bearcat lead to 68-66 with four minutes left. Michael Dickerson hit a pair of 3-pointers and Bearcat guard Keith LeGree missed 3-of-4 foul shots down the stretch.

UA took the lead 74-73 on a Ben Davis put-back with just under two minutes to play and tied the score at 76 with a baseline jumper with 14 seconds left.

After Davis' basket, LeGree drove the lane but Davis blocked his shot out of bounds with 3.8 seconds left. UC inbounded the ball, but it became loose and was deflected out toward center court. Simon picked up the ball at the foul line, dribbled and let it fly from the 3-point stripe.

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