PALO ALTO, Calif. -- They weren't exactly Norah Jones overwhelming the Grammys. Or Richard Gere convincingly charm dancing his way through Chicago. Or even Robert Blake chatting up Barbara Walters and scoring sympathy on every possession.

But after the Wildcats of Arizona had finished plundering the Bay area and grabbing the Pac-10 title as easily as if it was (excuse the expression) candy from a vending machine, they had re-established themselves as the undisputed No. 1 team in the land; clinched a top seed in the NCAA Tournament, and surely left future big-name opponents mumbling to themselves -- as Cal's Ben Braun and Stanford's Mike Montgomery undoubtedly did -- "I'm A Celebrity. Get Me Out Of Here."

	Luke Walton and the 'Cats scratched their way past Stanford and California to win the Pac-10 title.

And don't be Snickers-ing, either.

Case in point, A:

Cal had won 17 straight games in the noise box of Haas Pavilion when Arizona roughed up the home team Thursday night, 88-75, responding to the Bears' run after run simply by letting that familiar senior tandem of Luke Walton and Jason Gardner play what their teammates call "buddy ball"; or finding the lefthanded assassin, Salim Stoudamire, loose behind the three point line. Those three combined for 55 points, ignoring the boisterous Berkeleyites.

"We love the anti-screaming," said Walton (well, even Papa Bill could translate what he meant) -- just as they had when the team brushed off Oregon's 23-game winning streak in Eugene and Kansas' 25 home straight in Lawrence earlier in the season.

"They're No. 1 for a reason. You could see the poise in their faces," said Cal senior guard Brian Wethers.

"The best team I've ever seen in our league. Solid, versatile, relentless," said Braun.

Case in point, B:

After a very chichi late Saturday afternoon start -- enabling the local gentry to loiter over their abalone garlic omelets on University Avenue -- Stanford looked extremely good to go. And not down.

The Cardinal (which, after all, had upset Arizona in Tucson on Jan. 30) out-rebounded the visitors 46-41; outscored them from the free throw line, 19-10; held them to 43-percent shooting, only 4 of 19 trifectas and absolutely halted their fast break efficiency, giving up precisely zero run-out buckets. And yet, Arizona (now 23-2, 15-1 in the Pac-10) still won the rematch, 72-69.

Among all that other stuff, Arizona also laughed off usually dependable Rick Anderson barely drawing iron on a free throw with 18 seconds left, and then survived not just one, but a pair of clear Stanford looks at game-tying triples as the clock ticked off the final seven seconds.

While the Cardinal had engaged Arizona in the kind of foul-plagued, physical grind fest they prefer and cut a late 60-53 deficit to one point, the officiating so outraged the Arizona bench, freshman Hassan Adams drew a technical foul and Lute Olson almost mussed his silver locks. Almost. (If the Hall of Famer ever stops stalking past his bench and asking the manager for that blue clipboard less than 75 times a contest, we'll know he's ready for the Home.) Instead, of course, Cool Hair Lute merely pushed "Hot Sauce" Adams backward ... and then pulled him forward into the fray.

Good news for Arizona. Bad news for Stanford. Breaking news for Adams inasmuch as, of all the deep Wildcat legions -- 10 of whom average 12 minutes or more (for those without a scorecard, two have since left the team) -- Adams is only seventh in PT and seldom in a game at crunch time due mostly to his helter-skelter, trigger-happy ways.

And yet when the head-banded rookie was romping the floor on Saturday -- subbing for Walton or his classmate, Andre Iguodala -- he exhibited supremely improved defense, blanketing Stanford's most dangerous player, Josh Childress, so that for more than 12 minutes of the tense second half Childress virtually disappeared. (Although, with the college game's best Retro-Afro -- ancient TV viewers should think "Linc" from Mod Squad -- Childress is fairly difficult not to notice.)

Moreover, with just under five minutes left and the score 62-61 Arizona, the explosive Adams stole the ball from Childress and drove half the court for a dipsy-doodle lay-in. With 2:06 left and the score 64-63 Arizona, the 6-foot-4 Adams again muscled the baseline and simply overpowered the 6-8 Childress for another close-in bucket.

"Actually he elbowed me in the face. I should have prevented it, but he's tough and he was pretty pumped up to play," said Childress, who's known Arizona's former California Mr. Basketball from Westchester High in Los Angeles since both were in the eighth grade.

	“	The thing is we know (Arizona), we're used to them, we match up well, we're at home, and they still take us down. In the (NCAA) tournament, teams won't have much time to prepare for them. If you can't pick up on what they do and fast, you'll be in for a long night. ”
		— Julius Barnes, Stanford senior guard

"I'm going with a new intensity," said Adams. "Just trying to do the dirty work. Yeah, I was surprised I was in there at the end. But that time it was my shot. I'm not shy. If it's mine, I'm gonna take it."

"Hassan is 'Hot Sauce' because of his flair. But in practice we call him 'The Beast,'" said Arizona center Channing Frye. "That last drive he made, that's just normal for him. But to do it tonight, at that moment, that's gonna give him such confidence down the road. If he gets the ball anywhere near the basket ... he's going to the rim ... and you can forget about it."

When Arizona momentarily forgot about Childress at the 1:01 mark, the Stanford sophomore finally drilled a 3-pointer (he finished with a game-leading 20 points and 10 rebounds) to again cut the Arizona lead to one at 68-67 -- and the home partisans went to work.

The Stanford comedians nattily dressed up as M&M's and a Vending Machine -- harkening to that episode in Kansas where a few 'Cats were accused of looting candy from a hotel dispenser -- had long since faded into the crowd. But on the far side of Maples Pavilion the "Sixth Man Club" raised the decibel level, kept waving their signs -- for Walton: "Family Studies Is Such A Specious Major" -- and increased jumping up and down in a characteristically nifty maneuver that makes the 6,556-capacity building the loudest on campus (sorry, Duke doofuses) while actually causing the floor and stands to shake.

But at :44, Stoudamire (18 points) merely drifted off a Walton screen to nail a jumper, then grabbed a defensive rebound and at :25 swished two free throws to push the margin to 72-67. One last Stanford basket set up the ending in which first Anderson from the line -- "I can't believe it! I flat out choked!" he screamed amid hysterical laughter in the locker room -- then Stanford's Childress and Julius Barnes from tripleville each fanned on their chances. Which did not keep the Maples faithful from delaying their departure to reward Stanford (22-7, 13-4) -- picked to finish seventh in the league before the season -- with a prolonged ovation.

"This was the toughest game we've had all season," said an exhausted Anderson. "Because of the noise, the surroundings, the meaning. We didn't shoot well, we didn't rebound. We had to suck it up and grit it out against a really good team. But we probably needed something like this to help us down the line."

"All too typical," said Olson, who celebrated his 10th conference title in 20 seasons in Tucson. "We've won four in a row here now and every one of them seemed to go down to the final possession."

"(Arizona) is so tough," said the senior Barnes, one of the remaining victims of the quadruple atrocities. "It's very frustrating because you play them the best you can for 35 seconds in a possession, then somebody hits something out of nowhere."

Such as the end of the first half when, with the score tied at 30, Gardner dribbled out the clock, drove, was mightily pressured, jumped in the air and at the last possible millisecond flung the ball back out to Anderson? Who calmly stuck the three. Or the beginning of the second half when Stoudamire missed a long shot ... Walton missed a short one ... but the ball was grabbed and the basket converted by Anderson? Which set the tone for the remaining 20 minutes.

"That's what I mean," said Barnes. "You look at all their athletes and then you look at him. And he's the guy you think you can take advantage of. But I've known Ricky since high school" -- Anderson went to Long Beach Poly, Barnes to Rowland High in Rowland Heights (Calif.) -- "and he's always been overlooked. And then he kills you."

The poor Maples rim might have been thinking likewise -- until Anderson barely grazed it on that pressurized clinching (uh, non-clinching) free throw. If Walton and Gardner are the heart and soul of this congenial, attractive bunch, Anderson -- a questionably accomplished golfer, guitar player and surfer still searching for the perfect wave -- is the free spirit. When the Lutester walked out on the team and challenged the listless, lackadaisical Cats to run their own practice in Washington a couple of weeks ago in another strategic coup, it was Walton who wrote out the practice plan, but Anderson who was most vocal and ran the whole deal.

"Great fun," he said. "We didn't have to pay any attention to the coaches. They just sat on their asses and didn't make a peep."

Would he be hearing about his ridiculously choked foul shot? "Hearing about it? The guys are already all over me in here," he cackled in the locker room. "I'll only be hearing about it for the rest of my life. My dad (who played for Olson at Long Beach City College and later coached there), my mom, my whole family, my buddies at home. I don't even know if I can face my roommate (Ricky Barnes, the 2002 U.S. Amateur champion). I'll be so embarrassed, he may have to do without me at the Tucson Open."

Meanwhile, if the Wildcats can sustain their current upward curve -- "this is the fourth straight game we've played the best we've played all year," Olson said after the Cal game -- in which prior to their invasion of the Bay, they devastated UCLA, USC and Arizona State by a total of 83 points with scoring streaks of 21-0, 32-4 and 24-5, the NCAA Tournament may wind up being closed.

"I don't like to make comparisons, it offends some teams," said Stanford's Montgomery. "But these guys are solid through eight spots, and they can change on you so fast, it's tough to figure matchups.

"Stoudamire and Gardner are the long shooters, but they gain an awful lot when the freshman slashers (Adams and Iguodala) come in. Walton and Anderson are in the post sometimes, then they go to the three and shoot it in. When Frye is playing well ..." (Channing used to play like Carol, but has now turned into a sometime dominating presence in the lane, averaging a double-double and shooting 62 percent in the six games before last weekend.)

Confirmed Montgomery: "You have to play them right, play them straight up. No gimmicks, no double downs, no 'leave this guy', no 'help off that guy' because everybody on the team can play."

"The thing is we know (Arizona), we're used to them, we match up well, we're at home, and they still take us down," said Barnes. "In the tournament teams won't have much time to prepare for them. If you can't pick up on what they do and fast, you'll be in for a long night."

Lofty expectations have been routine for the 'Cats all season, in which they have been ranked No. 1 in 11 of the 16 weekly AP polls. And they are tired of hearing how they're college ball's "Atlanta Braves" (New York Times, 2/25/03), who've been to the Final Four four times since 1988 but won just one title ('97) and that perhaps tainted (Dicky V, Ad-Infinitum) by Kentucky's Derek Anderson being injured. Not to mention that they're annually "soft."

In reality, this time razing Arizona in the postseason might be as significant a "Get" as Pakistan nabbing Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

"We just laugh at that critical stuff now," says Anderson. "Clinching the Pac-10 here is sweet for a lot of reasons. (Careful of your choice of words, Candy Man.) We can have Senior Night next week without any pressure. (At least, if he stays off the foul line.) So that'll be fun. Then we can gear up for the rest of it, the whole thing."

"We've won just about everything else. Anything short of a national title will be a disappointment," said Walton.

Doubters of these seniors' toughness tread on ground as shaky as Maples Pavilion in full sway. And in floor leader Gardner, they have a point guard who earned his stars and bars leading the team to the NCAA championship game in 2001 as a sophomore. "The one, who in the final month, was the guy doing all the talking out of our timeout huddles," says Arizona associate head coach Jim Rosborough.

Last week, Gardner became the all-time leading Wildcat in minutes played -- "the most competitive player I've ever coached against," said Cal's Braun -- and with his classmates, he vows not to let the Wildcats lose this time.

Two seasons ago, Arizona rode an emotional roller coaster, dedicating their NCAA run to Olson's wife, Bobbi, who had died of cancer on New Year's Day. The suspicion is that this year the 'Cats want to desperately make amends and win it all in New Orleans for the 68-year old Silver Fox, himself. Two more regular season victories and three in the league tournament would give the Arizona coach 282 Pac-10 W's -- only 22 away from breaking the record held by Olson's role model and good friend, John Wooden.

Six more wins after that wouldn't count.

Then again, those games would be in the NCAA playoffs and, to the team's senior senior, they'd count the very most of all.

Curry Kirkpatrick is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at curry.kirkpatrick@espn3.com.