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Pac-12 Tournament: Arizona Survives Scare; USC Faces UCLA in Semifinal

Wildcats point guard Kerr Kriisa injured. Stanford AD announces coach Jerod Haase will be retained for 2022-23 season
Jake Curtis|
Pac-12 Tournament: Arizona Survives Scare; USC Faces UCLA in Semifinal
Pac-12 Tournament: Arizona Survives Scare; USC Faces UCLA in Semifinal

Arizona will face Colorado and USC will play UCLA in the two semifinal games of the Pac-12 tournament on Friday, after those four teams advanced on Thursday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

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Arizona 84, Stanford 80

Top-seeded and second-ranked Arizona advanced to the semifinals, but it wasn't easy and wasn't without an incident that might affect the Wildcats in the games to come.

Ninth-seeded Stanford led by a point with 3:25 left, but Arizona made just enough plays at the end to eke out an 84-80 victory over the Cardinal on Thursday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

However, with 1:10 left in the game, Arizona point guard Kerr Kriisa suffered a severe ankle injury and had to be helped off the court.  His status for Friday's game and the NCAA tournament is uncertain. Arizona officials said Kriisa's availability for Friday's game against Colorado will be a game-day decision..

Arizona survived this one without him. But barely.

Stanford coach Jerod Haase has survived too, because Cardinal athletic director Bernard Muir announced after the game that Haase will be back next season. The Cardinal will be left out of the NCAA tournament for the sixth time in Haase's six years as head coach, and the team faded down the stretch of the regular season. There was speculation that Haase would be fired after this season, and you have to wonder whether Stanford's strong showing in its two conference tournament games saved Haase's job.

One day after scoring a career-high 26 points in Stanford's remarkable comeback win over Arizona State on Wednesday, the Cardinal's Spencer Jones scored a career-high 28 points on Thursday while making 12-of-18 shots, including 4-of-7 three-pointers.

Stanford (16-16) shot 54.2 percent for the game against an Arizona team that ranks sixth in the nation in field-goal percentage defense (38.18%). More significantly the Cardinal made 11-of-20 three-point shots for the game, and two minutes into the second half the Cardinal was 9-for-11 from beyond the arc and held a four-point lead.

The Cardinal led by one when James Keefe hit a pair of free throws with 3:25 remaining, but Pac-12 player of the year Bennedict Mathurin, who finished with 20 points, put the Wildcats (29-3) ahead to stay with a dunk at the 3:17 mark.

Arizona center Christian Koloko scored a career-high 24 points, and his follow shot at 1:59 made it a three-point game. Stanford freshman Harrison Ingram scored with 1:38 left to reduce the margin to one, but that's as close as the Cardinal could get. Two free throws by Arizona's Pelle Larsson with eight seconds left set the final four-point margin.

One question remains for Stanford: Will Harrison Ingram will be back next season?

Midway through this season Ingram was pegged as a first-round choice in the 2022 NBA draft, but recently most sites place him as a second-round pick of their mock drafts after Ingram's production dropped significantly over the final weeks of the regular season. He will have a tough decision on whether to enter the NBA draft or return to Stanford for another season.

Friday's matchup: No. 1 Arizona vs. No. 4 Colorado, 6 p.m.

The teams split their two regular-season games. Arizona beat the Buffaloes 76-55 on Jan. 13 in Tucson, Ariz., and Colorado beat the Wildcats 79-63 on Feb. 26 in Boulder, Colo.

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Colorado 80, Oregon 69

Oregon's hopes of getting an NCAA tournament bid ended with this loss, but Colorado still has a chance to get into March Madness. The question now is this: Will the Buffaloes get at-large NCAA tournament bid if they win Friday's semifinal game against second-ranked Arizona, a team Colorado beat by 16 points on February 26 and which may be without starting point guard Kerr Kriisa?

The answer presumably is "no." Colorado, with a NET ranking of 74 entering Thursday's action, is not even on the bubble in any reputable projections of the NCAA tournament field. The Buffaloes (21-10) probably need to win the conference tournament to get in, but they seem capable of doing that based on recent performances. They have won eight of their last nine games.

All-conference forward Jamari Walker had 18 points and 16 rebounds while frontcourt mate Evan Battey added 19 points and 12 boards as Colorado dominated the final eight minutes of the game after leading by just two points with 8:49 left in the second half. Colorado pushed its lead to 13 points with three minutes remaining and cruised in from there.

Oregon (19-14) again played without second-team all-conference guard Will Richardson (unspecified non-COVID-related illness), but got a season-high 25 points and 13 rebounds from Quincy Guerrier and 18 points and seven assists from Jacob Young.

Although Oregon stayed close for most of the game, Colorado never relinquished the lead after taking a one-point lead with 3:49 left in the first half. Oregon shot just 34.3% from the field.

Friday's matchup: No. 1 Arizona vs. No. 4 Colorado, 6 p.m.

The teams split their two regular-season games. Arizona beat the Buffaloes 76-55 on Jan. 13 in Tucson, Ariz., and Colorado beat the Wildcats 79-63 on Feb. 26 in Boulder, Colo.

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UCLA 75, Washington State 65

Jaime Jaquez continued his recent run of big-time productivity to help second-seeded UCLA advance to the semifinals without much trouble.

The Bruins (24-6) were led by Jaquez, who scored 30 and 27 points in UCLA's final two regular-season games and followed that up with 23 points, 11 rebounds, four assists and two steals against WSU (19-14). He was 9-for-15 from the floor on Thursday and was 30-for-48 (62.5%) over the past three games.

This apparently is not a good matchup for Washington State, which lost to the Bruins by 20 points in Pullman, Wash., in their only regular-season meeting, and the Cougars were easy meat for UCLA on Thursday. The Bruins led by 20 points with 1:48 left before the Cougars make it look a little closer in garbage time.

UCLA took control with a 21-2 spurt in the first half that staked the Bruins to a 40-23 lead, and UCLA controlled things from there, leading by double digits for the final 18 minutes.

WSU depends on three-point shooting, but it was just 8-for-29 from long range against UCLA, which outscored the Cougars 40-22 in the paint.

The Bruins need more from Johnny Juzang, a preseason All-American and the star of UCLA's run  to the Final Four last year. Hampered by foul trouble against WSU, Juzang had just six points on 3-for-8 shooting.  Over his past four games, Juzang has scored 10, seven, eight and six points while shooting 31.6% in that span. 

Friday's matchup: No. 2 UCLA vs. No. 3 USC, 8:30 p.m.

The teams split their two tight regular-season meetings. USC beat the Bruins 67-64 on the Trojans' home court on Feb. 12, and UCLA defeated the Trojans 75-68 at Pauley Pavilion on March 5.

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USC 65, Washington 61

USC knows how to win close games. The Trojans are now 10-1 in games decided by five points or fewer.

Third-seeded USC (26-6) overcame an eight-point deficit with 18 minutes remaining in the second half, then nearly let a five-point lead slip away in the final minute before surviving despite committing 23 turnovers.

Terrell Brown Jr., the Pac-12's leading scorer, scored 23 points for sixth-seeded Washington (17-15), but he did not score in the final 18 minutes of the game, missing his final nine shots from the field.

Boogie Ellis had 17 points for the Trojans, who led 63-58 after Isaiah Mobley hit from close range with 1:01 left. He missed the free throw that went with it, and Washington's Cole Bajema made one free throw to make it a four-point game.  Washington forced a turnover with its press that led to a PJ Fuller bucket that reduced the Huskies' deficit to two points with 34.7 seconds remaining.

Drew Peterson committed an offensive foul in the backcourt to give the ball back to Washington with 27.5 seconds to go and a chance to tie or take the lead. But Brown missed a contested layup with 12.1 seconds left. After a long review to determine that Washington would retain possession after the ball went out of bounds, the Huskies' Emmitt Matthews Jr. missed badly on a driving 9-foot shot in the lane. 

Freshman Reese Dixon-Waters, the Trojans' best foul shooter at 87.3%, then made two free throws with 6.1 seconds remaining to ice the USC win.

Friday's matchup: No. 2 UCLA vs. No. 3 USC, 8:30 p.m.

The teams split their two tight regular-season meetings.  USC beat the Bruins 67-64 on the Trojans' home court on Feb. 12, and UCLA defeated the Trojans 75-68 at Pauley Pavilion on March 5.

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Cover photo of Stanford's James Keefe by Stephen R. Sylvanie, USA TODAY Sports

Follow Jake Curtis of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jakecurtis53

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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