By Morris Phillips

With 137 college basketball games under his belt, as well as his undergraduate college degree earned in just three years, Chasson Randle could never be described as unprepared or inexperienced.

Yet, it wouldn’t be unfair to say that the Stanford senior leader appeared a bit rattled dealing with No. 5 Arizona, their sold-out McKale Center crowd and the gnat-like presence of Wildcats’ guard T.J. McConnell on Saturday afternoon.

In a game that Stanford had to win, they couldn’t even manage one lead.  And Randle needed to come up big, but more often looked spent, rattled and ineffective before fouling out with five minutes remaining.  Both circumstances had much to with Pac-12 regular season champ Arizona, who rolled to a 91-69 victory.

“You almost said to yourself, ‘This is going to be our day’ right after the first play,” Arizona coach Sean Miller said in reference to his team’s first basket coming just 19 seconds after the opening tip.

As anticipated, Stanford had their hands full just trying to score against stingy Arizona, who surely remembered that the Cardinal scored 82 points against them in a close-call win on the Farm in January.  The season-worst points allowed was out of character for the Wildcats, who have limited opponents to just 58 points a game. With McConnell hounding Randle, and Arizona’s big front line protecting the paint, Stanford was forced into one tough shot after another this time in shooting just 37 percent along with commiting 15 damaging turnovers.

After falling behind 21-8, eight minutes in, the Cardinal rallied to pull within 29-27 with six minutes remaining before halftime.  But the mental and physical fatigue of facing a bigger, formidable opponent may have already been showing as Arizona then surged to a 16-point lead at the break.

The final exchange of possessions before halftime said it all: Randle needed most of his ball handling tricks and more than ten seconds to get past McConnell and into the lane for a high-arching, short bank shot over a trio of defenders.  But Arizona’s Gabe York came right back, attacking the winded Randle in transition before burying a 3-pointer on the run, an answer that took less than five seconds to realize.

Coach Johnny Dawkins was already limited by the injury to and absence of freshman Michael Humphrey.  But foul trouble exacerbated things, forcing Dawkins to play his other young players for long stretches.  Needless to say, the attrition wasn’t the recipe to ending Arizona’s 37-game home winning streak, the nation’s longest.

“Those kids gave what they had, but in this type of environment and under these circumstances, it’s a little bit difficult,” Dawkins said.

Randle led Stanford with 16 points, despite missing nine of his 13 shots.  Stefan Nastic and Anthony Brown contributed 14 points each.  The Cardinal fell for the seven time in their last 10 games, erasing any NCAA at-large hopes they may have had.

Brandon Ashley led Arizona with 15 points, one of five Wildcats to score in double figures.

Two losses in Arizona dropped the Cardinal to a No. 6 seed in the conference tournament.  Instead of earning an opening-round bye, Stanford will open play on Wednesday against No. 11 Washington.  The Huskies provide their own unique challenge as a downtrodden team that’s capable of pulling an upset.  Washington beat ranked Utah on Saturday, the third time this season they’ve beaten a Top 25 opponent.