TUCSON, Ariz. — Anthony Dell’Orso scored a season-high 22 points after coming off the bench, Ivan Kharchenkov added 18 and No. 4 Arizona bounced back from its first two losses of the season by beating No. 23 BYU 75-68 on Wednesday night.
Arizona (24-2, 11-2 Big 12) started with 23 consecutive wins and spent nine straight weeks as the nation’s No. 1 team before losing back-to-back games to No. 9 Kansas and No. 16 Texas Tech.
Dell’Orso, a 6-foot-6 Australian, helped the Wildcats get back in the win column by shooting 8-of-15 from the field, including 4-of-8 on 3-pointers.
Arizona played without starting forward Koa Peat and backup guard Dwayne Aristode.
The school said Peat also will miss Saturday’s game at No. 2 Houston because of a lower leg muscle strain. He’ll be reevaluated next week.
Aristode missed his second straight game with an illness.
“Gritty win by our guys,” Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd said. “We knew it was going to be tough. Obviously, we’re going through injuries right now. It’s just that point of the season where sometimes you hit a little struggle, and if you don’t embrace it, you’re not built for it. So, our guys have done a good job embracing it.”
BYU (19-7, 7-6) was led by freshman star AJ Dybantsa, who finished with 35 points on 13-of-28 shooting. The 6-foot-9 forward topped 30 points for the sixth time this season.
The Cougars were playing their first game without starting guard Richie Saunders, who suffered a season-ending torn ACL in a 90-86 overtime victory at home against Colorado on Saturday.
Arizona never trailed in the second half and slowly pulled away, taking a 66-50 lead on Dell’Orso’s 3-pointer with 6:40 left. BYU cut the deficit to 73-68 with 1:05 remaining but couldn’t get any closer.
“I knew it wasn’t going to be aesthetically pleasing every second of the game,” Lloyd said. “But you know, to be able to kind of control the game in that second half — I wish we were able to close it out a little better, but if you watch college basketball, it seems to be a theme.
“And to withstand a player like AJ, who had 35 points easy, and come out on top was a great effort by our guys.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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