March 7, 2004

Box Score| Quotes

By BOB BAUM
AP Sports Writer

TUCSON, Ariz. - Chris Rodgers scored a career-high 20 points and No. 22 Arizona wrapped up its regular season with a 106-81 victory over Arizona State on Sunday.

Salim Stoudamire and Hassan Adams added 21 points apiece for the Wildcats (19-8, 11-7 Pac-10), who beat Arizona State for the 18th time in 19 tries.

Channing Frye scored 20, Andre Iguodala had 12 points and 11 rebounds and Mustafa Shakur had a career-best 11 assists with just one turnover for Arizona. The freshman point guard's previous best was seven assists.

The game had no bearing on the Pac-10 tournament seedings. Arizona wound up third, its lowest finish since 1997. Arizona State (10-17, 4-14) finished last and didn't qualify for the tournament.

The Wildcats will play Southern California in the first round of the conference tournament on Thursday.

Freshman Kenny Kruger scored a career-best 22 points for the Sun Devils. Ike Diogu, the Pac-10 scoring leader, had 19 points and 14 rebounds. The sophomore center has scored in double figures in all 59 of his college games. Stevie Moore also scored 19 for ASU.

Arizona's 18-4 run put the Wildcats up 26-13 on Rodgers' 3-pointer with 11:20 left in the half. But Diogu scored the first four in a 10-0 spurt that cut the Wildcats' lead to 26-25 on Stevie Moore's 3-pointer 7:34 before the break.

Rodgers followed with a 3-pointer and Arizona was off and running again. Rodgers scored eight in 20-2 outburst that gave the Wildcats a 46-27 lead with 1:01 to play in the half.

Arizona State scored the last five points of the half to make it 46-32, but Arizona turned it on again to start the second half. The Wildcats made nine of their first 11 shots. The Sun Devils were down 60-47 after Diogu's two free throws with 16 minutes to play.

Arizona scored the next 13, the last two on Stoudamire's steal and no-look pass to Rodgers for a layup, to go up 73-47 with 12:13 remaining.

Arizona shot 57 percent in the second half (21-for-37) and 54 percent for the game (39-for-72).

Rodgers - the sixth man in what usually is a six-man rotation - made 8-of-10 shots, 3-of-4 3-pointers. His previous career-best was 17 points.