The Arizona Wildcats led the Utah Utes 41-25 at halftime of Thursday night’s game in Salt Lake City. It seemed that the night would be short and the drama would be nonexistent. How wrong those assumptions turned out to be in the world of Pac-12 basketball.
Arizona stumbled through an ugly second half, Utah made a big surge, and a late 3-pointer by Gabe Madsen enabled the homestanding Utes to tie the score at 76, sending the crowd into a frenzy and the game into overtime. It would take three overtime periods for Arizona to finally put away Utah. Arizona led for most of the second overtime and dominated the third overtime period to finally put the game away, 105-99. Utah, though, had a good chance to win late in the first overtime, leading 82-80 with 42 seconds left and having a free throw for a chance to push its lead to three. However, Utah missed the foul shot. Arizona’s Caleb Love tied the game at 82. Then Utah had a chance to win in the final seconds of the first OT period, but the Utes turned the ball over. The two teams scored nine points each in the second overtime sequence. Arizona then scored 14 points in the third overtime to pull away.
We have some notes on the Pac-12 bubble and the NCAA Tournament forecast for the league, plus other scores and takeaways from Thursday night in the conference: