Arizona tops cold-shooting Stanford

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Despite a chilly shooting night, Stanford made it tough for No. 12 Arizona until about eight minutes into the second half.

Then the Wildcats took the wind out of the Cardinal’s sails behind an old Stanford nemesis, guard Gabe York, and rolled to a 71-57 win at Maples Pavilion on Thursday night. It was their 12th straight victory over Stanford.

The largest home crowd of the season, 5,275, including Stanford football greats Jim Plunkett and Andrew Luck and Warriors owner Joe Lacob, saw the Wildcats outscore the Cardinal 32-17 over the final 14:19. Stanford went 8½ minutes without a field goal and 6:19 without a point.

“You can’t have an extended drought against a team like Arizona,” coach Johnny Dawkins said. “Offensively they have so much firepower that you can’t keep sustaining empty possessions. But give them credit defensively for putting us in that position.”

The defending conference champions had a 42-29 rebounding advantage, and the Cardinal shot just 31 percent (19-for-62), going 4-for-21 from three-point range.

“It might have been our best overall defensive performance,” said Arizona coach Sean Miller, who is 11-0 against Stanford.

York scored 19 points and Ryan Anderson 18 to lead Arizona (16-3, 4-2 Pac-12). Kaleb Tarczewski added 11 and USF transfer Mark Tollefsen 10.

Freshman Marcus Sheffield led Stanford (10-7, 3-3) with 17 points, matching his season high, and Dorian Pickens added 11. Rosco Allen, Stanford’s leading scorer this season, didn’t score his first basket until there was a little over five minutes left, and finished with four points on 1-for-12 shooting.

“They pushed him a little further out in the court than he wanted to be,” Dawkins said. “They paid a lot of attention to him.”

Stanford’s Michael Humphrey sank a free throw, then a layup off his own miss to tie the score 33-33 early in the second half. But the sophomore forward picked up his fourth foul just 2:31 into the half and had to head to the bench. He fouled out with 3:34 left.

“The game was teetering right there,” Dawkins said. “It was that close, and we didn’t want to lose the momentum. We didn’t want to dig a bigger hole for ourselves. So we elected to leave him in the game, and he picked up his fourth. That hurt us.

Reserve forward Grant Verhoeven converted two three-point plays as Stanford took its only lead at 40-39 with 14:19 left. Moments later, he drew an offensive foul on point guard Parker Jackson-Cartwright. A senior who hadn’t scored more than four points in any previous game, Verhoeven had eight against the Wildcats.

Tarczewski drew his fourth foul, too, with 11:48 left. The Wildcats, however, scored 12 straight, including a driving basket by York that banked high off the glass, then a line-drive three by York.

Tom FitzGerald is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: tfitzgerald@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @tomgfitzgerald