The Washington men’s basketball team targeted Saturday’s rematch against No. 6 Arizona as a chance to rekindle their flickering NCAA tournament hopes.
And for about 25 minutes, the Huskies kept pace with the fleet-footed Wildcats.
However, midway through the second half, Arizona shifted its high-octane offense into another gear that sparked a 19-1 run and Washington never recovered.
The Huskies’ 95-72 defeat left the sold-out crowd of 9,268 at Alaska Airlines Arena moaning and tempered enthusiasm around a team that had won four of its previous five games before its latest setback.
Washington’s 23-point loss resembled blowout defeats at home against No. 23 Auburn (84-61) and No. 11 UCLA (74-49).
The Huskies have lost 15 straight games against Associated Press Top 25 ranked opponents and seven in a row against the Wildcats.
Keion Brooks Jr. scored a game-high-tying 25 points, Keyon Menifield had 20 and Noah Williams 10 for UW, which fell to 13-10, 5-7 Pac-12.
The Huskies controlled the game early and led for 15 minutes in the first half despite allowing the Wildcats to shoot 51.9% from the field. UW had nine more shots than UA before the break thanks to eight offensive boards and a 19-14 rebounding edge.
Brooks flushed a putback dunk over Kylan Boswell that sent a jolt through the capacity crowd and gave UW a 30-25 lead with 5:17 left in the first half.
Washington was up 34-29 when Arizona scored nine unanswered points, which included baskets from its Big Three (Azuolas Tubelis, Oumar Ballo and Kerr Kriisa).
Langston Wilson stopped the run with a putback flush as time expired in the first half and UW trailed 38-36 at halftime.
Early in the second half, Braxton Meah flushed an alley-oop dunk off a feed from Menifield that put the Huskies ahead 44-42.
That’s when Arizona ripped off a 14-0 run that included three Kriisa three-pointers to go up 56-44 with 13:07 left.
Jamal Bey sank a free throw that briefly interrupted the Wildcats’ offensive assault, but they added two more baskets during a spellbinding 19-1 run for a 61-45 lead at the 11:28 mark.
The Huskies never got closer than 10 points the rest of the way.
Whenever the Huskies pulled close, Ballo (21 points) flushed a dunk, Tubelis (25 points) converted a contested layup or Kriisa (18) drained a jumper.
Arizona (19-3, 8-3) shot 52.3% while UW was 43.5% from the field.
Washington travels to Los Angeles next week for a couple of games starting with Thursday’s matchup against No. 8 UCLA.