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No. 4 Arizona Blowsout Washington

Michael Dickerson, a streaky shooter mostly by comparison with the rest of No. 4 Arizona's veteran lineup, was on a hot spell against Washington.

Dickerson scored 18 of his season-high 30 points in the first 5:40 of the second half as the Wildcats beat the Huskies 112-81 Thursday night. He finished with 25 points in the second half on 11-for-11 shooting and was 13-of-16 for the night.

It was the best one-half performance in school history, topping a 10-for-10 effort by Larry Demic nine years ago against Oregon State.

"At halftime I had five," said Dickerson, whose 13 field goals were a career-high. "I thought I could end up with 10."

The Huskies' Dan Dickau said nothing worked once Dickerson found the range.

"He's such a great shooter, and when he gets on a roll like that, it's hard for anyone to stop," said Dickau, a backup guard who had all 12 of his points in the first half.

Mike Bibby had 22 points, five rebounds, five assists and five steals for Arizona (20-3, 10-0 Pac-10), which won its 13th straight and reached the 20-win plateau for the 11th consecutive season.

Coach Lute Olson's teams have won 20 or more 13 times in his 15 years at the school, and he joined a circle of six other coaches with 20 20-win seasons in NCAA history.

Todd MacCulloch had 26 points and 15 rebounds for Washington (13-6, 6-4), giving him 1,007 points for his career. He is the school's 25th player to reach that milestone.

"I don't know what to say about tonight," MacCulloch said. ``They played a hell of a lot better game than we did. Allowing them to get all those `3's' and dunks doesn't help your cause."

The Huskies couldn't match Arizona's speed for the second straight game. The Wildcats beat Washington 110-91 last month in Seattle.

"They stayed in the game, but the press started working, and we got hot," Dickerson said. "I just came out hitting. My teammates were getting me the ball in the right places, and a couple of them (shots) had some luck."

The Huskies shot 58 percent in the first half, with MacCulloch hitting 9-of-10 from the floor, but Arizona scored the last five points to open a 50-43 halftime lead.

"He was killing us in the first half," A.J. Bramlett said. ``But in the second half they were tired. You could see MacCulloch was puffing."

The Wildcats started the second half with a 26-5 run that put the game out of reach.

Dickerson gave Arizona a 74-48 lead when he dunked after a steal with 14:20 to play, and Bramlett capped the sustained spurt with a dunk on an alley-oop from Miles Simon 16 seconds later.

After a tip-in by the Huskies' Patrick Femerling, Bramlett made another basket and Bibby hit a 3-pointer, and Arizona led 81-50 with 13:22 to go. Both coaches used reserves much of the final 10 minutes, although it was Dickerson's last field goal with 6:40 to play that boosted Arizona to triple digits for the fifth game this season.

Dickerson san two 3-pointers and an 18-footer in the first 2:15 of the second half, and Bennett Davison had a putback to complete a 10-0 run and lift Arizona to a 60-43 lead with 17:14 to play.

©1998 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

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