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Save for another Jerryd Bayless record-breaking shot, there was really no other appropriate way for this one to end.

In another typically physical game between the Arizona Wildcats and the No. 7 Stanford Cardinal, the UA lost 67-66 on Saturday after rallying to force a final minute full of tense hand-to-hand combat.

First, with the Wildcats clinging to a 66-65 lead at the 19-second mark, Stanford's Brook Lopez drew a foul from Kirk Walters near the basket. Lopez hit both free throws to give Stanford the lead, while his twin 7-foot brother then held off Chase Budinger on the other end of the court.

With a little help from a finger and Finger, that is. Budinger tried to drive off a screen for a last-second shot to win the game but was defended first by Stanford's Taj Finger — to the point of fouling, Bayless said — and threw up a shot that was stopped by Robin Lopez's finger.

"It was an amazing block," Budinger said.

But it shouldn't have gotten to that point, the way Bayless saw it. Bayless said he thought Budinger drew a foul from body contact before his shot, irritated at any suggestion that the UA failed to get off the play it wanted with 12 seconds left.

"It did work," Bayless said. "We just didn't get the call. It was either me or Chase get to the rim. Chase got to the rim and just didn't get the call."

Instead, on the immediately preceding possession, the Cardinal took advantage of the last of 38 foul calls.

When Walters tried to block Brook Lopez's shot near the basket, he was whistled for contact with Lopez, then Lopez hit two free throws that turned out to be game-winners.

"I felt like I had a lot of the ball but it wasn't called that way, so what can you do?" Walters said, adding of the frequent whistles, "If they call it that way, you have to adapt to that."

At the end, all they could do was walk out of McKale Center having suffered a season sweep by the Cardinal, and just missing a chance to grab another résumé-building top 10 win.

"The only thing I told our guys is 'final score,' " UA interim head coach Kevin O'Neill said. "It doesn't matter what officials do. It doesn't matter what the crowd does. We're one point shy of them at the end of the game."

The loss dropped Arizona to 16-9 overall and 6-6 in the Pac-10, entering a road swing to Washington. Seventh-ranked Stanford improved to 21-4 and 10-3.

The Wildcats are now 2-4 against teams rated in the top 10 at the time of the game and now have only 15 Division I wins entering the final six games of the regular season.

But, after O'Neill saw the effort the Wildcats put together Saturday with starters Nic Wise and Bret Brielmaier again in street clothes, he sounded confident that there will be more UA wins.

"I told our guys that I was extremely proud of their effort in every way," he said. "And if we play like that, although we're a little short-handed, we'll have a chance to win some games and have a chance to keep playing at the end of the year. That's what our goal is."

The Wildcats never did let up. While they trailed most of the game, it was never by less than eight points, which is actually less than the number of points Bayless scored in 85 seconds Saturday when he had to.

For much of the game, that kind of output was a must.

With Budinger off for most of the first 32 minutes, and nobody else making more than one basket in the first half, Bayless scored 13 by halftime. He then scored all but one of the UA baskets over the first 12 minutes of the second half, finishing with 31 points and a school-record 16-for-16 mark from the free-throw line.

Bayless blew by the Lopez twins for one layup that cut Stanford's lead to 40-37, and later scored nine points over a 85-second span, the last a pair of free throws that pulled Arizona to within 50-46 with 8:12 to go.

The Wildcats finally received some offensive help from Budinger down the stretch, as he hit a three with 7:21 left to make it 53-49 and another with 3:12 left, to pull the UA within 62-59.

Jawann McClellan then hit a three-pointer from the right corner to tie the game at 62 with 2:41 left and Brook Lopez put Stanford up by two with a jumper at the minute mark, before Budinger gave the UA its last lead on a three-pointer with 45 seconds left.

But while the rest of the UA perimeter offense started picking up, it suffered a hole in the middle when Jordan Hill fouled out with 5:27 left while guarding Brook Lopez.

That may have been as critical as anything that happened in the final minute.

"It was unfortunate that Jordan fouled out," O'Neill said. "That put us in a position where we didn't have a real inside scoring option at that point, and they executed down the stretch."