HOUSTON — Anthony Dell’Orso tied a season high with 22 points, and No. 4 Arizona toppled second-ranked Houston 73-66 on Saturday to move into sole possession of first place in the Big 12 Conference.
Arizona (25-2, 12-2), which opened the season 23-0, won its second straight game after consecutive losses to then-No. 9 Kansas and then-No. 16 Texas Tech, a skid that knocked the Wildcats out of the No. 1 spot in the AP Top 25 poll.
The Wildcats trailed by two before scoring the next 12 points to make it 60-50 with about five minutes remaining. The Cougars missed eight consecutive shots and had three turnovers in that stretch to allow Arizona to build the lead.
“We’ve had some great battles with Arizona. And they’re really good. I’d say that’s a good team. They’ve got an outstanding team, really well-coached,” Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said. “They remind me of a lot of the teams that we’ve had around here. And they came in here with the right mindset. And maybe we didn’t have the right mindset as much as we needed to.”
Houston (23-4, 11-3) hadn’t scored in about eight minutes when Emanuel Sharp made two free throws with 4½ minutes to go. Kalifa Sakho made two more free throws to cut the lead to 60-54 with less than four minutes remaining.
It had been more than 10 minutes since the Cougars made a field goal when a 3-pointer by Kingston Flemings got them within 61-57, but Jaden Bradley scored four straight points for Arizona to pad the lead with just over a minute left.
Flemings had 17 points, and Sharp added 14 for the Cougars, who lost consecutive games for the first time this season after falling 70-67 at No. 6 Iowa State on Monday night to end a six-game winning streak.
The Cougars struggled to take care of the ball, committing 12 turnovers that led to 16 points for the Wildcats.
“I don’t know what my coaching career’s going to end up at. But I do know one thing: I’ve become a better coach coaching against Kelvin Sampson,” Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd said. “One hundred percent. You look at coaches that kind of set the benchmark.”
Arizona led by as many as 10 in the first half and was up by four early in the second half before the Cougars used an 8-2 run to make it 44-42, giving them their first lead of the game with about 14 minutes left.
“Obviously, we want to win the Big 12,” said Lloyd, who called Saturday “a great day” for the program. “But you know what’s really cool about being in the Big 12? You can take second or third in the conference and still win the national championship. The conference is that strong. So, we put ourselves in position to be in position. Now, you got to go take advantage of it.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
