The Arizona Wildcats were able to end their prolonged losing streak on Friday by dominating the Houston Cougars to earn a much needed victory.

Their bowl game hopes are still alive, needing to win the final two contests of the season to reach the requisite six-win mark, but if they can perform the way they did this past week, then they will give themselves a great chance.

Unfortunately, this victory came a little bit too late when it came to holding onto their top-ranked recruit Terry Shelton.

The lone four-star prospect in their 2025 class decommitted on Nov. 13, delivering a huge blow to Arizona with him looked upon as the player who would replace Tetairoa McMillan whenever he declares for the NFL draft.

Other teams around the country continued to court him despite his commitment to the Wildcats, but when they had a hard time producing wins during the middle portion of this season, that was what ultimately pushed him to reopen his recruitment.

Well, the 22nd-ranked wide receiver in the country has decided on his new home.

The Texas native will now stay home and play for TCU.

“The first reason on why TCU is right for me is the development and Coach (Malcolm) Kelly’s resume. Coach Kelly has had three first round receivers in recent years and they were all my height and weight. Coach Kelly was also a big wide receiver his self and was a second round draft pick so he can teach me things other coaches can’t because he literally was like me,” Shelton said per Steve Wiltfong of On3.

Arizona has been able to rebound by landing a recruit of their own, but it will be hard to replace what the four-star could have potentially brought to the table.

Arizona made some headlines when it was revealed the struggling football program would be playing the first half of the basketball team’s game on the stadium’s video board in an attempt to motivate fans to show up for their matchup against Houston.

That strategy worked for the football team since they completely dominated the Cougars to snap their five-game losing streak and keep their bowl chances alive.

However, the basketball team wasn’t so lucky.

They suffered their first loss of the season, 103-88, on the road against Wisconsin.

The Wildcats never led at any point during the game, and despite making a run in the second half to tie things up following their 11-point halftime deficit, they weren’t able to sustain that level of play while the Badgers continued to score.

Defense has been an issue for Arizona on the hardcourt in the past, and that was on full display during this contest.

They allowed Wisconsin to shoot 48.1% from the floor and 44.4% from three (12-27), while also putting them on the foul line a staggering 47 times where the Badgers made 41 of those shots.

It was a recipe for allowing 100 points, and the Wildcats departed to Tucson trying to figure out how they can avoid that type of performance going forward.

For head coach Tommy Lloyd, his message was simple.

“We have to play smarter and we have to play better. I kind of warned our guys that they were adept at drawing fouls certain ways and we just didn’t play smart enough,” he said per Jason Scheer of 247Sports.

Fouls were the story of the game, with Arizona committing 32 of them, but it’s hard to argue the whistle was going against them when Wisconsin was also called for 31 fouls and allowed the Wildcats to shoot 40 free throws.

“You have to adjust to how the game is being called. We’ve probably had officials now 10 times and that was definitely the tightest we’ve felt it called. We’re getting officials from different parts of the country, I don’t know, but it was definitely the tightest. We have to adjust,” Lloyd added.

It’s still early in the campaign, so this road loss in a tough place to play isn’t going to ruin their season, but it was a bit concerning to see this type of performance, no matter if it was their third game of the year or not.

A pretty good Saturday just got a lot better for the Arizona State football team.

A little over three hours after finishing off No. 16 Kansas State 24-14, the Sun Devils watched No. 6 BYU fall to Kansas 17-13.

The loss dropped BYU to 6-1 in the Big 12, just one game ahead of Arizona State (5-2) with two games to play.

And the Cougars travel to Tempe, Arizona, next Saturday to play the Sun Devils.

Updated Big 12 Standings

It’s basically a four-team race between BYU, Colorado, Arizona State and Iowa State for the two berths in the Big 12 football championship game. After another Saturday of wild upsets, here’s a look at the top of the standings:

Every game is an elimination game for Arizona State, which is how they have been operating for weeks. But now the Sun Devils don’t need help. If they win their final two games they will, at worst, finish in a tie for second place in the Big 12. Then the crazy tiebreaker scenarios begin.

Big 12 Tiebreaker Scenarios

If the Sun Devils can beat BYU next week — and Colorado and Iowa State win — it would create a three-way tie for second place behind Colorado. And if all four teams win their finales, and the season ends in a three-way tie for second … well, good luck with the tiebreaker rules:

In the event of a tie between more than two teams, the following procedures will be used. After one team has an advantage and is “seeded”, all remaining teams in the multiple-team tiebreaker will repeat the tie-breaking procedure. If at any point the multiple-team tie is reduced to two teams, the two-team tie-breaking procedure will be applied.

a. The records of the three (or more) tied teams will be compared based on winning percentage in games among the tied teams:

Arizona State, Iowa State and BYU will not all play each other this season, so we move on to the next step in the tiebreaker:

In this scenario, Arizona State would win the tiebreaker. The Sun Devils would finish 4-0 against common Big 12 opponents, while both BYU and Iowa State would finish 3-1. That would land the Sun Devils in the Big 12 championship game against Colorado — with the winner claiming the Big 12 title and an automatic berth in the College Football Playoff.

With two weeks to go, Arizona State suddenly controls its own destiny.

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