Brayden Burries, Motiejus Krivas pace unbeaten Arizona past Kansas State

Arizona’s first season in the Big 12 Conference saw it beat 13 of 15 opponents. Add Kansas State to that list.

Brayden Burries matched his career high with 28 points and Motiejus Krivas scored a career-best 25 to lead No. 1 Arizona to a 101-76 win over the other Wildcats on Wednesday night at McKale Center. The win avenges last season’s 73-70 loss in Manhattan.

Burries was 12 of 16 from the field, adding nine rebounds to miss out on a second straight double-double. Krivas was 7 of 10 from the field and 11 of 13 from the line, adding 12 rebounds for his third double-double of the season.

Koa Peat had 15 and 10 and Tobe Awaka added nine points and 11 rebounds as the UA (15-0, 2-0 Big 12) shot 49.3 percent and outrebounded Kansas State 55-32.

Arizona struggled from 3-point range, going 3 of 16, but K-State was even worse at 8 for 36 and 33.8 percent overall.

It was the 10^th consecutive game Arizona has won by at least 19 points, topping a mark Michigan had earlier this season of 10 straight by at least 18. That had been the longest stretch since 2003-04.

Arizona led 51-36 at halftime, shooting 51.4 percent despite missing its final six shots and going 0 for 8 from 3. The UA missed its first three shots of the second half while K-State started 5 of 7 and got within 58-49 with 16:09 left.

K-State employed a matchup zone defense in the second half, which was effective at first on the perimeter but not in the paint. That allowed Krivas to score seven of the UA’s first nine points after halftime.

A steal by Jaden Bradley led to a Burries dunk to get the lead back to 15 with 13:48 to go, and a 3-point play by Awaka made it 69-53 with 12:55 left. Arizona finally hit a 3 with 11:32 left when Burries drained one from the top of the key.

Krivas achieved his career high with a putback dunk for a 76-60 edge with 9:43 remaining and after that Arizona started to pull away. Back-to-back dunks by Burries and Peat made it 84-65 with 5:53 to go, part of a 14-0 run.

A 10-0 run gave Arizona a 14-4 lead before the first media timeout, with K-State going more than four minutes without points. A couple 3-pointers got K-State within 21-12 before the UA started turning it on.

A transition dunk by Peat made it 34-17 with 8:19 left in the first half, but Peat was hit with a technical foul for saying something to one of the K-State players he dunked over. That was one of several strange calls in the first half, including when Ivan Kharchenkov appeared to get hit in the face by K-State’s Taj Manning and crashed to the ground only to have officials rule no foul after stopping the game to review.

The first half saw 24 fouls called, three onAwaka, leading to 50 free throw attempts.

Arizona hits the road next to play TCU on Saturday. The Horned Frogs (11-4, 1-1) lost in overtime at Kansas on Tuesday after leading by 15 points with less than five minutes remaining.