Good morning. As time allows for the rest of this season, I’ll whip up some quick thoughts on the previous night’s game.

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In what was quite possibly Arizona’s final trip to Pullman, the Washington State Cougars sent the No. 8 Wildcats (and their football team’s worth of staffers) back to Tucson as losers with a 73-70 victory on Saturday at Beasley Coliseum.

The victory was noteworthy not just because it was, well, a victory (kenpom.com gave the Cougs about a 15% chance of winning the game), but also because WSU led for the vast majority of the contest, pushing the lead up to 11 early in the second half, while not even really playing an A+ game.

The Wildcats were constantly fighting to get over the hump, and as you would expect, they walked down the lead until finally taking a two-point lead with five minutes to go. But even as Arizona finally overtook them, the Cougs refused to fold, seizing the lead back two minutes later on a Myles Rice three. Despite Caleb Love’s best efforts, the Cougs never gave the lead away again.

The Cougs improved to 12-5 overall and 3-3 in the Pac-12 — and most importantly, have played themselves back into a position where a legitimate NCAA tournament push is in the realm of possibility.

In A Minute

• CougCenter recap

• Stats

• Line o’ the night: Isaac Jones with 24 points, 13 rebounds, 2 blocks and a steal … and somehow that doesn’t seem to do justice to the impact he had on the game.

• One stat to tell the tale: Arizona is the top team in the Pac-12 at making 2s, coming into the game over 55%. WSU held the Wildcats to 18 of 48 — 37.5%.

Highlights

Three Thoughts

1. Players make plays

Kyle Smith’s teams have developed a bit of a rep over the years — fairly or unfairly — for struggling to finish games. But down the stretch of this one, the Cougs simply made play after play after play after play. After Arizona took that two-point lead, WSU had nine possessions — and scored on all of them for a total of 18 points over the final five minutes. The only shot they took that didn’t go in was a Rice free throw. (The Cougs made their other five attempts from the line.)

And it wasn’t like it was a free throw parade as Arizona played the foul game; most points came on legit buckets as the Wildcats continued to come at the Cougs. There were free throws, but it was the result of Arizona trying to pressure the Cougs into a mistake, and WSU refused to yield.

Most of the damage in that final stretch came from Jones (6 points, 2 rebounds — including the one that iced the game) and Rice (8 points), but Jaylen Wells also had a huge midrange jumper and a pair of ice-cold free throws. When you’re playing a team like Arizona, you know they’re going to have the Dudes to make a hard push at the end. Yesterday, it was Love, who scored 11 points over the final six minutes. The question is, do you have guys who can make a play when you need it?

This team does, with Jones. He’s able to exert his will on a defense on the interior, which is a potent weapon. I’m not sure Rice and Wells are at “exert their will” levels (yet), but they both definitely have That Dog in them and are unafraid of the moment.