DEAN KNUTH / arizona daily star

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Arizona Wildcats defeat Oregon 67-52

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There was one player Arizona coaches kept a particular eye on while they prepared for Oregon on Thursday.

Their own.

So in the Wildcats' 67-52 victory over the Ducks, slump-ridden Chase Budinger was given the ball in perfect position for dunks, layups and short jumpers.

He finished with a team-high 20 points, enough to lead the Wildcats offensively in a mostly sloppy game that only allowed partial recovery from Arizona's 0-2 trip to the Bay Area last week.

"One of the things you want to do when you have a scorer like that who's struggling is get him some stuff," UA interim head coach Russ Pennell said. "I thought he did a really good job of reading the screens we set for him. We got him a post-up early, got him right around the basket and to the foul line. I kind of expected that from Chase."

Over his previous four games, Budinger was 12 of 50 from the field, including 2 of 17 from three-point range. On Thursday, he was 8 for 15, although he was 1 for 5 from three-point range, and the one three was his only shot made from beyond 8 feet.

But they were eight shots made, nonetheless.

"I felt good," Budinger said. "I say I'm a shooter. I'm a pretty good shooter. It'll turn around. I just keep getting my confidence up, and my shots will come."

Pennell said it wasn't so much that he drew up different plays for Budinger as much as he just tried to get him to realize what he could take advantage of.

His teammates helped, too.

"Our guys did a good job of finding him, and he used it really well," Pennell said. "We didn't really do anything different. It was just a case with Chase of maybe identifying some things that maybe he'd forgot about. Kind of a get back to basics."

So Budinger remembered. He moved more aggressively, cut more aggressively and took the ball to the basket more aggressively.

He also, at one point, even created his own shot by bouncing an inbounds pass off the backside of Oregon's Michael Dunigan and turning it into a layup.

More so than his reverse dunk, that was what Budinger spoke most excitedly about after the game.

"I was waiting for this every game, when a guy would turn around (on defense)," Budinger said. When Dunigan turned around "I was like, 'Yes, easy bucket.' Right off his butt. I was ready for that."

Budinger wasn't the only beneficiary Thursday. When his teammates weren't finding him, they also found Jamelle Horne.

With Jordan Hill heavily guarded inside, able to complement his 12 rebounds with only nine points, Horne found five shots and made all of them, scoring 15 points. He added four rebounds and two blocks.

"Like Chase I kind of fed off what teammates gave us," Horne said. "Throughout the game, we all had decent shots. They focused on Hill and really sagged on him so thankfully I came in and shot nice shots."

It was the kind of effort Pennell would like to see more often from his talented but inconsistent sophomore forward.

"When he's on, we're good," Pennell said. "He's still learning to sustain every play on the floor. That's hard for young players sometimes, and it's one of the things we really want from him."

In the second half, Horne's three-pointer put Arizona (10-5, 1-2 Pac-10) ahead 39-22 with 16:02 left. Oregon did not hit a single three-pointer until Matthew Humphrey connected from long range with 12:40 left to go, with the Ducks (6-9, 0-3) having missed their first 10 threes. By then, Arizona led 41-29, and the Wildcats easily held on the rest of the way.

Pennell even had a chance to rest his top three players for Saturday's game with Oregon State, going with a lineup of mostly reserve players over the final 2:13.

"We just can't get lulled into any kind of security before (Saturday's) game," Pennell said. "This is a two-part job, and we've got job one done. We got job two to go."