TUCSON, Az. – In the weeks leading up to Saturday’s game with No. 1 Arizona, many Western basketball fans were hailing this year’s season opener as David Versus Goliath Part II.

Fans were hoping for a repeat ofthe Hilltoppers 64-52 upset win over Kentucky to open last season.

Well, in the sequel David apparently forgot his stones.? And unfortunately Arizona brought some boulders.

The Wildcats dismantled the Western mentally and physically en route to a 107-68 drubbing of the Hilltoppers.? They used a 21-2 run over a 4:30 time frame to put the game well out ofreach by the first half horn.

Western played a more even second half, but the damage was already done.

“The two biggest factors today was their incredible offense and their press,” said Coach Dennis Felton.? “Arizona is in another solar system than us athletically and talent-wise and our guys clearly didn’t play with enough poise.”

Arizona had seven players in double figures, led by freshman guard Hassan Adams who scored 22 points in just 17 minutes of action.?Senior forward David Boyden led Western with a career-high 26 points in a losing effort.

“We really dug ourselves into ahole in the first half,” Boyden said.?”We came out in the second half with more intelligent play and really slowed the game down.”

Olson was complimentary of Western in his comments.

“Today was a case of too much quickness and too much size at the wing spots at the wing spots for Western Kentucky to be able to handle,” Olson said. “Western Kentucky is a very good basketball team with a lot of experience.? We got a lot of pressure on them, and a lot of the turnovers we forced them into were the result of oursize and pass deflections.”

Even worse for the Hilltoppers than the crushing loss, its worst since a 124-65 loss at Georgiain November of 1990, was the injury of senior forward Tador Pandov after acollision in the second half which was being called a knee sprain afterwards.

Pandov shrieked as he was carriedoff by trainers and doctors, unable to put pressure on the injured left knee.

“It doesn’t look good, but we don’t know right now,” Felton said