By Janie McCauley
The Associated Press

STANFORD, Calif. - No opponent has pushed top-ranked Arizona this season like Stanford has - yet the Wildcats still weren't completely satisfied with their three-point win over the Cardinal.

This perfectionist Arizona team clinched another Pac-10 title this weekend with little fanfare, but the way the Wildcats did it was what mattered most. The 72-69 win at Stanford on Saturday avenged Arizona's lone conference loss, a five-point defeat to Stanford on Jan. 30 in Tucson.

"I wish we would have won by more, but a victory's a victory," said star sophomore Salim Stoudamire, who scored 38 points in two games as Arizona completed its fourth straight sweep in the Bay area.

The team's only other setback this season was by one point at Louisiana State on Dec. 21.

"Both of our losses stick with us," Stoudamire said. "We don't feel we should lose any game."

Had Stanford shot even a little bit better, however, Arizona (23-2, 15-1) might have had to wait to give coach Lute Olson the school's 10th conference title in his 20-year tenure.

But like it has done much of this season, the Wildcats' defense made the difference. Coming into Saturday's game, Arizona was limiting teams to a conference-low 40.7 percent from the field, and the Wildcats held Stanford to 35.4 percent, including 29 percent in the first half.

"People never quite give Arizona the credit on defense they deserve," Stanford coach Mike Montgomery said. "They switched out their big men often in this game, which surprised us."

With the two wins last week, the Wildcats not only increased their winning streak to eight games, they made Pac-10 history. Arizona joined two other teams to go unbeaten on the road in conference play since the conference expanded to 10 teams in 1978-79. Oregon State went 9-0 in 1980-81 and Stanford was perfect in 2000-01.

Arizona won Saturday without making a significant run, too, and the Wildcats did it shooting only 42 percent.

"We just were telling ourselves all night, 'Oh man!' because they were getting so many open shots," center Channing Frye said. "But they were bouncing away. At the end of the game, I thought a 30-pound weight had come off my chest when (Julius) Barnes missed the (3-point) shot. We really needed to have this kind of game on national television against this opponent. We really showed what we were made of."

So how did Arizona drop that first one to Stanford?

"I don't know, I don't even try to answer that question anymore," Olson said. "Four or five of Mike's starters are guys we tried to recruit, so that tells you where Stanford is these days. They're getting as good of talent as anybody. They never beat themselves. They play within themselves and they're always in the game at the end."

Sounds a lot like Arizona.