Derrick Williams first postgame tweet: Triple OT!!!! Let’s go! Good win y’all! Love all my teammates for stepping up when it counted the most!! Ahhhh I’m hype right now!
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Kevin Parrom on 1290-AM: “I never knew the definition of leaving it all on the floor until tonight.”
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Miller postgame interview: “I don’t think Cal will get near the attention or accolades that they deserve with they level they are at right now. I mean, it is a very difficult team to defend. Allen Crabbe has emerged as a really special player as a freshman. We didn’t have a lot of answers guarding them.”
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Sean Miller on postgame radio interview on KCUB 1290-AM: “It was just a true team win. A lot of resiliency throughout the game.”
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Kevin Parrom had 13 points in the overtime periods. MoMo Jones had 12.
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MoMo Jones: only one turnover in 39 minutes.
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That was Arizona’s first triple-overtime game since 1973.
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Cal makes the first free throw, misses the second, but Arizona’s Kevin Parrom comes flying in for the rebound to secure the 107-105 triple-overtime victory.
A thrilling game, with Parrom and MoMo Jones — the team’s New York duo — making a series of big plays, especially with Derrick Williams having fouled out late in regulation.
Jones with a career-high 27 points. Parrom with a career-high 25.
Whew.
Arizona goes to 20-4 overall and 9-2 in the Pac-10, leading second-place UCLA by 1 1/2 games.
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Arizona fouls Cal with 1.8 second left, leading 107-104. MoMo Jones fouls out.
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Kyle Fogg can’t ice the game. He misses the second free throw after giving UA a 107-104 lead with 4.8 seconds left.
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Harper Kamp makes one free throw but misses the second. Cal gets the rebound with a chance to tie or take the lead, but Kamp misses a jumper. Arizona up 106-104 with less 4.8 seconds left.
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Kevin Parrom has a career-high 23 points. Arizona leads 102-101 with 2:25 left.
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Arizona is the first team to 100 as MoMo Jones makes 1 of 2 free throws with 3:06 left. Cats lead by two points.
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MoMo Jones makes it happen, popping for a 3-pointer with 5 seconds left in the second overtime to tie the game at 98. Anybody up for some bonus, bonus, bonus basketball?
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Cal freshman Richard Solomon gets the putback for a 98-95 lead with 20.7 seconds left.
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Arizona turnover. Cal has the ball and calls timeout with 31 seconds left.
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Kevin Parrom is big again with a 3-pointer with 1:18 left, but Harper Kamp responds with a spin and a one-hander in the lane. That gives the Bears a 96-95 edge with 57.5 seconds left.
Remember early in this thread when I said first one to 100 wins?
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Cats just can’t stop Harper Kamp. He goes back to the line and makes two free throws for a 93-90 lead with 2:46 left.
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Cal regains the lead on a three-point play by Harper Kamp, who draws the (very questionable) blocking call against Solomon Hill. The Bears lead 91-90 with 3:27 to go.
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Jesse Perry fouls out with 4:37 to play in the second OT. Who’s next? It’s Brendon Lavender, as the Cats are going really small.
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On we go. Solomon Hill misses a 3-pointer but the rebound bounces out to MoMo Jones. With time running out, Jones puts up a 25-footer that banks off the glass and nearly goes in.
But it doesn’t, so it’s double overtime at 87-87.
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Cal freshman Allen Crabbe (26 points) has been superb late in the game, hitting a spinning jumper in the lane to tie the game at 87. There are 36.2 seconds left.
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MoMo Jones and Kevin Parrom have the been the Arizona heroes so far, as the Cats try to pull out the victory in overtime without Derrick Williams. UA leads 87-85 with 1:27 to play, and it has the ball.
Jones and Parrom have nine of the team’s 11 points in OT.
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Lots of good action… MoMo Jones makes a great defensive play by drawing a fast-break charge on Jorge Gutierrez with 2:13 left. Gutierrez fouls out. Tied at 83.
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Cal’s Harper Kamp can’t ask for a much better look than what he got — a shot from a couple of feet from the rim, but the ball bounces around and out … so, we have overtime at 76-76.
The Wildcats are going to have to win this without Derrick Williams, who has fouled out. What a confidence boost that would be if they can do it.
(Perhaps Williams can tweet from the bench?)
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Arizona goes for a quick two with MoMo Jones driving … but he not only makes the basket, he gets fouled and has a chance to tie the game with 16.6 seconds left.
And he makes it.
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Cal’s Brandon Smith makes 1 of 2 free throws to give the Bears a 76-73 lead with 21.9 seconds left. A quick two and a foul? Or shoot for the 3-pointer?
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Derrick Williams fouls out with 21.9 seconds left.
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Kevin Parrom keeps Arizona alive with a 3-pointer to make it 75-73 with 29.9 seconds left.
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Cal’s Allen Crabbe — the Pac-10 Freshman of the Year? — hits a couple of big jumpers down the stretch. He is keeping Arizona at bay as the Bears lead 73-70 with 1:30 to play.
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Arizona is enduring one of its worst offensive stretches of the season. The Wildcats led 56-47 with 15:19 to go. Now, Cal leads 69-66 with 3 minutes to play.
So, Arizona has only 10 points in more than 12 minutes.
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Derrick Williams with a HUGE 3-pointer with about 3:22 to go. Brings UA within 69-66.
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Cal center Markhuri Sanders-Frison picks up his fourth foul with 4:44 to play.
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Gutierrez now 8 of 8 from the field. Pac-10 Player of the Week?
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OK. Looks like its headed to another tight road finish. That’s what you get in the Pac-10. Arizona isn’t good enough to really roll over teams away from home. The Wildcats led by nine at one point in the second half, but the Bears have rallied for a 62-61 edge with less than eight minutes left.
Cal guard Jorge Gutierrez is 7 of 7 from the field for Cal and has 22 points.
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Cal takes the lead at 61-60 with 8:41 to play. Cats completely discombobulated on offense at the moment.
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Derrick Williams winces with some leg pain after being a one-man fast break and picking up the foul. He misses both free throws, though.
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Game getting chippy. Crowd getting into it. Key stretch for both teams. Cal within one point with 10:12 left. Timeout, Arizona.
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Cal guard Jorge Gutierrez going for the Emmy trying to sell that offensive foul call on Solomon Hill. No doubt, the arm to the face was a foul … but intentional?
Officials look at and say it is. Technical foul on Hill with 11:12 left. Gutierrez makes both shots to cut the lead to 59-56.
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The Bears came out of their zone defense for one possession to mix things up but then went back to it. The Wildcats, with their deep array of 3-pointer shooters, have mostly done a nice job of stretching out the zone and finding open looks.
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Cal hanging around. Arizona leads 56-51 with 12:25 to play, although the Wildcats should have the freshness edge down the stretch against Cal’s much-used starters.
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After all the nice things I write about Kevin Parrom, he shoots an air ball from 3.
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On the strength of back-to-back 3-pointers by Jamelle Horne, Arizona leads 56-47 with 15:07 to play. Cal’s bench hasn’t scored.
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Entry pass from Jordin Mayes puts Kevin Parrom in position to score down low. Rare player who can muscle down low on one possession and sweetly hit a 3-pointer on the next possession and then be a one-man fast-break the next time.
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Crowd always wants the intentional foul. Hard foul by MoMo Jones on the break-away, but it wasn’t intentional. Officials got that one right.
Arizona leads 48-45 with 17:08 to play.
After a slow start to the second half at Stanford on Thursday, this looks like another post-break lull for the Wildcats. This kind of lack-of-focus stretch seems to happen at some point in every game for UA.
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MoMo Jones opens the second half with a steal and a layup, tying Jordin Mayes for the team-lead with nine points. Not bad — 18 points from the point guard position in 20 minutes and a handful of seconds.
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Arizona whiffs on the final possession of the half, not playing with enough urgency to get off a good shot, but the Wildcats are in great shape at the break. A late surge gives them a 44-38 edge, and that’s with Derrick Williams contributing only five points. He does have eight rebounds.
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The game was tied at 35 but then Kyle Fogg and Kevin Parrom drilled back-to-back 3-pointers for the Wildcats, and MoMo Jones hit one free throw … and then a Parrom steal leads to a Jones’ fast-break basket.
The 9-0 run makes it 44-35 with 38.3 seconds left in the half.
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Arizona freshman point guard Jordin Mayes has nine points on three 3-pointers. His career high is 11 at Rice.
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Arizona had a 9-0 run en route to take the lead. An action-filled first-half is winding down with the Cats leading 35-33 with 3:44 to play.
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Shades of USC last season, Kyle Fogg is fouled while shooting a 3-pointer. He made all three against the Trojans to send the game into overtime. This time, he hits the trifecta again.
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Jesse Perry … rumbling, stumbling, bumbling all the way to the basket after picking up the loose ball at halfcourt. He has been very good lately, averaging 9.2 points and 5.2 rebounds in the past six games.
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Derrick Williams shot a UA-record 22 free throws vs. Cal in the first meeting this season. He takes his first attempt with 6:09 to play in the half.
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Jesse Perry goes inside to tie the game at 28 … but the Bears come right back with a 3-pointer. The season-long numbers say Cal can’t keep shooting this well from distance, especially against an Arizona team that has allowed opponents to shoot only 26.5 percent behind the arc (the Wildcats entered the week leading the nation in 3-point defense).
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Cal leads 28-26 with 8:47 to go in the first half. First team to 100 wins?
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Kyryl Natyazhko makes a jumper. It’s worth repeating. Kyryl Natyazhko makes a jumper. He hadn’t scored in the past seven games — more than a month. He hadn’t scored since Jan. 2 at Oregon State.
* * *
Jordin Mayes, scoreless in Thursday’s game at Stanford, drains a 3-pointer to tie the game. A little while later, Jamelle Horne, also scoreless at Stanford, makes his own 3-pointer. Depth.
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No assist on the air-ball jumper from Jesse Perry to Derrick Williams, who jams in the “rebound.” Cal leads 13-10 with 15:03 to play in the half. Arizona going to its bench; Cal doesn’t have much of one.
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Give Derrick Williams an open 15-footer? D-Will says, “Thank you very much” for two points.
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MoMo Jones gets the Wildcats on the board with a pair of free throws. In Pac-10 play, he has made 32 of 36 attempts from the line … that’s a Salim-esque 88.9 percent.
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Two turnovers for Arizona in the first minute. Cal opens in a zone defense.
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Usual starters for the Wildcats.
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Arizona State, which entered the day in last place in the Pac-10 by three games, loses at Stanford 83-75. The Sun Devils are off until next Sunday when they play host to Arizona.
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Blog from Gary Parrish at CBSSports.com: Did Washington just lose the Pac-10 title?
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The Oakland Tribune’s Jeff Faraudo has plenty of good info in his pregame notes, including this quote from Cal coach Mike Montgomery on Arizona’s Derrick Williams:
“He was pretty good last year. He’s stronger. He’s shooting the ball from the outside. He doesn’t shoot a lot, but he’s shooting a very high percentage (68.6 percent). He’s really explosive from the elbow area. He’s not a center, really, but that’s kind of where he plays for them so he gets matched up against other big players and he really has an ability to get angles to the basket and finish. He’s one of the better players in the conference, clearly.”
The only thing wrong with that quote is that Montgomery should have said “one of the better players in the COUNTRY” instead of conference.
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The Arizona Wildcats have a chance to take a 1 1/2 game lead in the Pac-10 tonight, following Oregon’s upset this afternoon of visiting Washington.
The Huskies, who looked like the clear favorite in the Pac-10 through eight games, has lost three in a row, all on the road. Washington dropped to 7-4 in the league.
Arizona enters the Cal game at 8-2. UCLA, which beat St. John’s today in coach Steve Lavin’s return to Westwood, is 7-3 in conference games.
As for the game against Cal, Javier Morales of WildAboutAZCats.com and TucsonCitizen.com, examines the matchups and makes his prediction.
The Wildcats have been surging, but Cal has been playing well, too. I wonder if Arizona is good enough to maintain its hot streak and pull off a Pac-10 road sweep. The Cats are 2-point favorites.
Tweets UA star sophomore Derrick Williams (@DWilluofA23) at about 4:25 p.m. — Time to get that road sweep!! #beardown ! #WeNeverLeft