Rivera: Arizona played well; Cal played a little bit better

At some point Wildcat Nation will have to believe that other teams play better on a given day. Arizona will have to attest to it on Saturday night at California.

That's just like it was when it faced UCLA and USC. It happens and it'll happen again this season, especially on the road. Most with sensible minds - and realistic expectations - predicted a split would be the weekend's probability.

And it happened.

Arizona played well, but needed to play better. It's what the road requires.

And, California played its best game of the season (Arizona brings that out in most teams) to knock off Arizona 74-73 in the final seconds. UA's star on Thursday, Gabe York, couldn't come up with the magic on Saturday, missing a running lay-up (against three Cal defenders) in the end.

But it was the first 240 seconds of the second half that was the doom of Arizona. Much like it's been in every loss this season in the Pac-12, Arizona got down after a stretch of bad minutes and had to fight back.

That's commendable but it's also become predictable on the road. Solvable? We will see.

Arizona coach Sean Miller told reporters in Oakland "that's probably as bad as we can play" in that stretch.

The problems were Arizona's turnovers in the first four minutes when it had but two shots and six turnovers to allow California to gain a lead and confidence at home. And that's the last thing you want a team at home to get.

"Our turnovers led to 3-point shots," Miller said. "If you look at it on the stat sheet it's a dead-even game."

Well, a dead-even game that will go down as a loss. Arizona is now 16-4 overall and 4-3 in the conference with those three losses coming by a total of six points.

Realistically, Arizona could lose another game and still win the conference. It's been said and written often that the winner of the conference will have four or five losses because of the degree of difficulty of winning on the road.

Arizona isn't dead - its pulse just skipped a beat.

And all because Jordan Mathews couldn't be stopped. He had a game-high 28 points. But that too has been a problem for Arizona in losses: someone, somehow goes off and creates a problem.

Arizona's defense couldn't stop him on the perimeter just a game after playing one of its better defensive games against Stanford.

But California is more athletic than Stanford and there was more back story, given that one-time Arizona recruits Ivan Rabb and Jabari Bird were wearing gold Saturday night. It was the game within a game. Arizona lost this one.

"Both teams played hard, Cal played harder," Miller said. "We had 11 turnovers in the first half, but we had six in the first four minutes of the second half.

"In the first three minutes (of the second half) we may have had one shot at the rim."

Yet in the end, it had one shot at the rim -- and York missed it.

"Now we have to get back and play a team that may be the best team in our league in Oregon," Miller said.

Steve Rivera has covered the Arizona men's basketball team full-time since the 1991 season, filling in since 1988. He's the author of the Arizona Basketball Vault and "100 Things Arizona Fans Need to Know & Do Before They Die."

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