11/27/1987

UA opens Shootout with 133-78 romp

Cats set tourney scoring mark

By Jay Gonzalez
The Arizona Daily Star

The new great Alaska Shootout scoring record lasted only as long as it took the University of Arizona to play its first game in the tournament.

The Wildcats rode their fast break 133-78 victory over Duquesne University, breaking the tournament team scoring record set by Michigan in the game played immediately before the Wildcats and the Dukes.

Arizona advances to face Michigan, 109-76 winner over Miami, Fla., in a winners bracket game today at 5 P.M., Tucson time. The game will be broadcast on KNST radio, (940-AM). There will be no live television broadcast.

The Dukes will play Miami immediately following the Arizona-Michigan game.

“Tomorrow night (tonight) will be as tough a game as will have all year,” Olson said of Michigan. “They are really strong team, as our guys all saw. They have big people who can jump.”

“We wore them down in terms of them being able to get up and down the court,” Arizona coach lute Olson said.

And there he was only talking about the first half, where Arizona led, 63-40.

Olson promised and up-tempo offense in preseason, and he let it loose in the first half when the Wildcats raced to a 63-40 halftime lead.

Arizona was even with Duquesne at 13, 5 ½ minutes into the game. After that the Wildcats unleashed the fast break and pulled away.

Leading, 32-28, Arizona went on 812-0 run, including three consecutive fast-break baskets — a lay-in by Craig McMillan, a steal and a lay-in by Ken Lofton, and a three-pointer by McMillan.

When Arizona stretched his lead to 20 points on a lay-in and a dunk by Joe Turner, Duquesne coach Jim Satalin called a timeout to regroup. After the timeout, Tony Petrarca hit a 17-foot jumper shot ending another eight-point UA spurt, by Tom Tolbert made one of two free throws, and scored on a dunk off the fast break for a 59-38 lead.

Jed Buechler gave Arizona its biggest lead of the half when he followed a mess by Sean Elliott at the buzzer.

Tolbert finish the half with 17 points. Elliott scored 14, and McMillan had 11, including 33-point baskets.

The Wildcats went to the outside in the second half where Steve Kerr hit a pair of three-point baskets and Lofton hit another as Arizona built its lead to 40 points.

Buechler gave the Wildcats their 100th point with a 16-foot baseline jump shot with 10:17 left in the game. Arizona went over the tournament record with 6:53 left on a dunk by Turner.

Aside from the scoring record, the Wildcats’55-point victory margin top the record for largest victory margin which stood at 33, by Michigan earlier in the evening and by Missouri in 1985.

Arizona also set school records for most points in a game and in the half (70). The old game record was 122, and 69 for a half, both set against Utah in 1974.