The tale of two halves...

In the Stands Report by Bookemdano: Well, I won't tell you I told you so. Then again...maybe I will. In my previous post I did say the first one to forty wins the game. I did get that part right. The Arizona Wildcats surprised ASU by reaching the 40-point mark with 12 minutes to go in the game at Tempe last night and went on to a 52-point second half explosion to put away the Sun Devils, 77-58.

ASU, on the other hand, could not build on its 27-25 lead at halftime and didn't hit the 40-point mark until late in the second half. In fact, the Sun Devils had a dismal night from the field as they scored their 41st point with just six minutes remaining and managed to score just 17 points down the stretch. I had envisioned this scenario: The Wildcats would have trouble scoring on the Sun Devils, who went into the game as the Pac-10's best defensive team. I was worried my Wildcats would turn the ball over, get just one shot at the basket...and miss. In short, I thought Arizona would be in for a tough night against the first-place Sun Devils. I'm so happy to be wrong about that.

Instead, the Wildcats committed just 11 turnovers in the game and shot over 75 percent from the field in the second half to run over the Sun Devils in front of 13,966 screaming (mostly hostile) fans. The first half went as I had anticipated: A dull, low-scoring, first-one-to-twenty takes the lead. At halftime I went to the frig, got all the fix-ins out and made me a ham sandwich. I went back to the sofa, sat down and prepared for more of the same in the second half. Boy, was I wrong. Chalk one up for the Wildcats. Sean Miller got it done from the sidelines. Kyle Fogg (21 points), Derrick Williams (20 points) and Nic Wise (16 points) got the job done on the court. The result: A 4-3 Pac-10 record, leaving the Wildcats just one game out of first place in the conference as they head into next week's home encounters against California and Stanford.

Go Wildcats!