LOS ANGELES — Third-ranked Oregon completed a weekend sweep in Los Angeles, getting comfortable wins over seventh-ranked UCLA and Southern California to extend its 12-game winning streak.
The Ducks (24-2, 13-1 Pac-12) are atop the league standings by a game over No. 8 Stanford.
“We want to win a Pac-12 championship and we look at some of these games as elimination games,” Ducks coach Kelly Graves said. “We wanted to eliminate UCLA. There’s one more team we’ve got to eliminate from this thing.”
That would be Stanford, which hosts Oregon on Feb. 24.
The Ducks finished off their dominant weekend with a 93-67 win on Sunday over USC. Erin Boley scored 25 points, Ruthy Hebard added 22 and Satou Sabally had 18 after the team’s slow start.
The Ducks pulled away to lead by 28 points in the fourth after USC kept it close early in the game.
“We played a little bit like the December Ducks and not the January, February Ducks that we’ve been seeing,” Graves said, “but when we needed to put the hammer down we did.”
No. 22 Ariz. St. 72, Washington 68
TEMPE, Ariz. — Reili Richardson scored 17 points and became Arizona State’s all-time assists leader as the No. 22 Sun Devils held off Washington 72-68 on Sunday.
Richardson’s record-breaking assist came on a layup by Ja’tavia Tapley with just over four minutes left and Jayde Van Hyfte added ASU’s final field goal with 3:28 to go. Amber Melgoza scored the Huskies’ final eight points over the last minute to get Washington within two with 15 seconds left but Iris Mbulito made two free throws with 13 seconds left and a contested Melgoza layup attempt missed the mark.
Melgoza scored 18 points and Darcy Rees and Missy Peterson 10 each for Washington (12-13, 3-11), which held the lead for about three minutes in the first quarter before a 9-0 run put ASU up for good.
Arizona 72, Washington St. 57
TUCSON — Pac-12 scoring leader Aari McDonald scored 21 points on 9-of-14 shooting and No. 12 Arizona beat Washington State 72-57 on Sunday.
McDonald, a junior who came in averaging 20.5 points per game, has scored in double figures in 62 consecutive games, the longest active streak in the nation.
The Wildcats (21-4, 10-4) reached 10 conference wins for the first time since the 2010-11 season.
Sam Thomas added 18 points and six assists for Arizona, which swept the season series from the Cougars (11-15, 4-10). The Wildcats shot 53 percent and made 10 of 19 from the arc.
Borislava Hristova scored 18 points and Jovana Subasic 11 for Washington State, which dropped to 0-11 against ranked foes this season.
No. 8 Stanford 69, Colorado 66
BOULDER, Colo. — Even 40-foot desperation shots take practice.
“We practice that play a million times in practice but I would say there was a little pressure,” junior Kiani Williams said after her amazing buzzer-beater allowed No. 8 Stanford to slip past Colorado 69-66 Sunday.
Williams hit a game-tying 3-pointer with 12 seconds left, then stole the ball from Mya Hollingshed and sank a 40-footer at the buzzer.
“Just another shot for me, but thank God it went in,” Williams said. “Thank God both those shots went in.”
Williams, whose 29 points and seven 3-pointers were both career highs, looked as stunned as the Buffaloes and their fans as her teammates swarmed her and celebrated in a pile in front of their bench while the officials went to the monitors to confirm the basket was good.
“It wasn’t our lucky day,” Colorado senior Quinessa Caylao-do said.
The Buffaloes (15-10, 4-10 Pac-12) were on the verge of their first win over a Top 25 team since 2016, but they were held without a basket over the final 3:06 after taking a 64-59 lead and they missed four of six free throws in the final 26 seconds with a chance to ice it.
The Cardinal (23-3, 12-2 Pac-12) won its fifth straight game, and just like its 76-68 overtime win against Colorado three weeks ago, last-second heroics were necessary to escape the Buffaloes’ upset bid.
