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No. 22 UCLA outlasts No. 5 Arizona 84-75 despite Ivan Kharchenkov’s 38-point night
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- No. 22 UCLA outlasts No. 5 Arizona 84-75 despite Ivan Kharchenkov’s 38-point night
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Trent Perry scored 21 points for No. 22 UCLA, which opened the season Monday night by overcoming a career-best 38 points from Arizona's Ivan Kharchenkov to beat the No. 5 Wildcats 84-75 in a matchup of former Pac-12 Conference rivals.
Kharchenkov, who also had 10 rebounds, topped his previous best of 20 against Denver last Nov. 24. Derek Dixon added 18 points for the Wildcats.
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Jaylen Petty and Eric Dailey Jr. each scored 13 points for the Bruins.
This was the teams' first meeting at T-Mobile Arena since Arizona beat UCLA in the 2023 Pac-12 tournament final for the second year in a row. They had split the previous 14 meetings, with the Wildcats winning the most recent a year ago at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California.
Arizona rallied to win that game and nearly pulled off another comeback Monday. Trailing by 16 points, Arizona came within a point when Kharchenkov made two free throws with 3:11 left.
That set up a somewhat tense final stretch, with UCLA doing just enough to hold on.
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UCLA took early charge, breaking a tie by going on a 14-point run to go up 27-13 and eventually take a 43-29 lead into halftime.
The deeper Bruins' bench outscored Arizona's reserves 17-4 in the first half, the Wildcats' production largely limited to Kharchenkov, who had 18 points. The Wildcats struggled from outside in making just 1 of 13 3-pointers in the opening 20 minutes.
They appeared to badly miss RJ Godfrey, who is ineligible after a lawsuit he took part in to be able have a fifth season of eligibility was recently denied.
Arizona played much better in the second half, but could not overcome the early hole.
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Arizona: Host Cal Poly on Thursday night.
UCLA: Host North Florida on Friday night.
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