Oregon State beats Arizona 67-64 with a 3-pointer at the last second

The Wildcats had put themselves in a hole early, trailing by 13 points in the first half against the OSU zone defense, before rallying to take leads of up to nine points in the second half behind a zone of their own.

The loss dropped Arizona back under .500 at 8-9 overall and 2-3 in the Pac-10 entering a game at Oregon on Saturday afternoon. OSU improved to 8-8 and 2-2.

OSU’s Roeland Schaftenaar tied the game at 64 with a basket inside 2:06 left and then made two blocks on successive UA possessions to keep the Wildcats from scoring again.

With 53.8 seconds left, Schaftenaar blocked a shot by Derrick Williams but neither player could gain sole possession of the ball and a jump ball was declared. UA retained the ball because of the possession arrow, and Jamelle Horne threw a 10-footer off the backboard.

Horne collected the rebound to reset the clock, and Nic Wise dribbled off 10 seconds on the next possession before UA ran a play that eventually had Kyle Fogg driving to the basket. Schaftenaar blocked Fogg and the Wildcats then lost the ball when they could not get a shot up before the shot clock expired.

Schaftenaar led OSU with 22 points while Wallace and Seth Tarver each had 14 for the Beavers. Williams led UA with 20 points.

Coming out with a full-time zone defense in the second half, Arizona turned a four-point halftime deficit into a 41-37 lead when Williams scored five minutes into the second half.

OSU tied it up at 45 on a three-pointer by Wallace with 13:08 to go, but UA went on a 12-3 run to take a 57-48 lead when Brendon Lavender hit a three-pointer with 8:55 to go.

Oregon State pulled to within 64-62 when Schaftenaar hit two free throws with four minutes left and the game remained close from there.

At the start of the second half, UA coach Sean Miller opted to go with Kevin Parrom in place of Solomon Hill. Parrom had two points, three rebounds and a steal in 12 minutes during the first half, while Hill had two points and three rebounds. Both players had an assist and two turnovers.

Stuck in a rut early against Oregon State’s unconventional zone defense, Arizona rallied from a 13-point deficit to trail the Beavers 33-29 at halftime.

OSU raced to an early 14-3 lead, tearing the Wildcats’ offense apart with its 1-3-1 defense featuring Tarver at the top.

Arizona had four turnovers in the first five minutes and could not get the ball to Williams for the first eight minutes.

The Wildcats went on to trail by as many as 13 points, the last time 24-11 when Kevin McShane scored inside for Oregon State with nine minutes to go, but three-pointers by Wise and Fogg put Arizona back in the game at 24-17.

Later, Hill scored inside to cut OSU’s lead to just 30-27, the closest UA trailed after the initial minutes.

UA received an early break when OSU coach Craig Robinson was whistled for a technical foul with the Beavers leading 2-0 with 17:41 left in the first half. However, Wise made only 1 of 2 resulting free throws.

Williams rebounded to lead the Wildcats in first-half scoring with 10 points as Arizona shot 50 percent from the field. OSU was led by Tarver’s 10 points.