Jan. 6, 2000

Box Score

Center Loren Woods scored a game-high 23 points to lead fifth-ranked Arizona to a narrow 65-61 victory over California Thursday at Haas Pavilion in the Pac-10 opener for both schools.

Arizona improved to 12-2 with the win, while Cal fell to 9-4.

The Bears, who outrebounded the Wildcats, 46-31, in the game, led for most of the contest until Arizona took the lead for good, 60-58, on a running jumper by Luke Walton with 2:31 left. Two jumpers by Woods, the second with 52 seconds remaining, put the Wildcats up by six at 64-58.

Brian Wethers hit an off-balance three-pointer with 41 seconds to go to narow the gap, but a free throw by Jason Gardner clinched the game. Cal missed several shots in its last possession to keep the final score, 65-61.

In the first half, Cal led by as many as nine points at 40-31. Freshman center Nick Vander Laan scored 10 of his team-high 14 points in the opening period, while Dennis Gates added three three-pointers.

But after intermission, the Bears shot just 24 percent from the floor and committed 14 turnovers (21 for the game).

Vander Laan finished with 14 points and a personal-best 10 boards for his first double-double. Sean Lampley and Gates added 12 points each.

Cal-Arizona Postgame Quotes

Arizona Coach Lute Olson:

"I thought that we did what we needed to do to get things done. We played better basketball and smarter in the second half, especially in the last eight or nine minutes."

"Cal played very hard and there was no question on the amount of effort they put into the game. In the end they played like a young team and made bad decisions and had too many turnovers."

"Cal killed us on the inside boards and went to the glass relentlessly each time underneath."

California Coach Ben Braun:

"What I take away from this game is simple, we really played harder than Arizona. I talked to Lute after the game and he even told me that."

"This is a tough game to swallow, because we feel we were definitely good enough tonight to get the win. We just didn't do good job moving the ball around, we took too many quick shots."

"The things we did in the first half we couldn't duplicate in the second half."

"Turnovers killed us. We get 7 in the first half which I can live with, but with 14 in the second half we can't win playing give away basketball. We are very disappointed with our turnovers tonight and my players took credit for them."