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CORVALLIS, Ore. — Before Arizona guard Nic Wise played his first game in more than a month Thursday, his coach told him to ease into things.

Then UA interim head coach Kevin O'Neill kept Nic Wise in for every minute of the first half during the Arizona Wildcats' much-needed 81-45 win over Oregon State at Gill Coliseum.

Wise was not complaining. He used the time to test his injured knee, which underwent surgery on Feb. 6 for a torn meniscus, and wound up collecting 14 points and three assists while the Wildcats assembled their biggest halftime lead of the Pac-10 season, 40-18. Wise finished with 15 points, six assists and four turnovers.

"I wanted to get myself back in playing shape," Wise said. "You never know with KO. Before the game, KO said, 'First game back, don't force anything.' But the game was coming to me."

With all that rhythm — and the Wildcats' needing to walk away from Gill with a definitive win heading into a Saturday showdown at Oregon — O'Neill was not about to pull him.

"I would have liked to have played him a little bit less," O'Neill said. "But once he got going, I kept asking him in timeouts if he was OK, and once I saw that he wasn't having any real problems moving or anything like that, I did want him playing."

O'Neill's reasoning: As much as Thursday's win kept the UA's NCAA tournament hopes very alive, moving it to 18-12 overall and 8-9 in the Pac-10, for O'Neill, it was really a proving ground for things to come.

For the UA to have a chance Saturday to knock off the Ducks and earn a first-round bye in the Pac-10 tournament, and to have success in the Pac-10 tournament and (possibly) NCAA tournament, Wise simply must shoulder a heavy load. And screen-setting whiz Bret Brielmaier simply must be able to use his shoulder, period.

"Nic's going to have to play 35 minutes a game so I wanted to see how he'd hold up over long period of time," O'Neill said. "Bret, we didn't have to use as much because Jordan (Hill) didn't get into the usual two fouls in the first half. We could be a little more cautious with him."

Brielmaier played 12 minutes, having also been out a month with recurring shoulder pain from a sprain he originally suffered Dec. 22 against San Diego State. Wise finished with a team-high 34 minutes while O'Neill also sprinkled minutes throughout his sparingly used bench in the final minutes of the second half.

Had he not wanted to test his returning players, O'Neill could have gone to the bench earlier. The UA led by 22 at halftime and was up 60-26 just six minutes into the second half.

Still, O'Neill gave "only" 30 minutes to the heavily used Jerryd Bayless, who led all scorers with 20 points despite having to get five stitches under his right eye because of a first-half collision, and gave just 29 to Chase Budinger, who scored 17 points on 7-for-13 shooting.

Then there was Hill, who logged only 25 not because of foul trouble but because he wasn't really needed after throwing down 10 points over the first eight minutes of the second half.

Hill's 10, combined with Budinger's eight points in the first three mintues of the second half, helped the Wildcats run away with a game that O'Neill, frankly, didn't think they would run away with.

After all, the Beavers had given rival Oregon a close game on Sunday before losing 80-68, and the UA hadn't beaten anybody by more than 26 points all season — even Division II Adams State stayed within 24 points of the Wildcats in November.

Besides, Oregon State led the UA by six points at halftime in January, before OSU fired Jay John as head coach and continued its downward spiral.

"I came into this game thinking this would be a tough game," O'Neill said. "They just played Oregon well here and they're desperate for a win. Nobody wants to be 0-18."

Only briefly at the beginning did the UA have trouble. The Beavers took early leads of 6-4 and 10-6 before Arizona woke up, outscoring them 31-6 over the final 11:45 before halftime.

O'Neill said the slow start was mostly a matter of turnovers and the team's timing being off, since it has only had a few days of practice to re-incorporate the four-perimeter-men offense with Wise back.

But Hill said the Wildcats weren't focused enough, either.

"We started off the game kind of sluggish," Hill said.

In the second half, the UA had no such problems, racing to its 34-point lead after just six minutes while Hill wreaked havoc.

Because Hill's defenders have to help off him when Wise penetrates the lane, it is Hill whom O'Neill says benefits the most from having Wise back. More so than Bayless, who is freer offensively but can still get his shot off even as a point guard, O'Neill said.

"Jordan goes 8 for 9. He has a dunk and two open layups," O'Neill said. "I'm not slighting anybody on our team but here's a guy (Wise) who's just valuable to everybody else. He just makes us go a lot better."