SEATTLE — The comeback boys were behind with just enough time left to call it possible. It’s where Oregon had been all year long. For 34 games, they’d made it work. For 34 games, it felt like a dream where the last shot always fell.

This time, finally, they couldn’t pay it off.

Maybe it was lost at the free throw line, where they shot 12-22 on the night after taking just two first-half trips. Maybe it was the failure when they finally had to miss from the stripe, did, and couldn’t snag the rebound. Maybe it was a season of returns from impossible deficits finally catching up. Whatever it was, it ran out at last.

Fourth-seeded Arizona (24-12, 14-6 Big 12) pushed past fifth-seeded Oregon (25-10, 12-8 Big Ten) 87-83 in an old-school Pac-12 battle that came down to the wire. The very best showed: Arizona star Caleb Love scored 29, including the final free throws that sealed the coffin shut. Oregon sophomore guard Jackson Shelstad had 25. TJ Bamba and Nate Bittle had 17 and 16 points, respectively.

It just wasn’t enough. 

“I did enjoy this group,” Oregon head coach Dana Altman said. “We did some good things, we had some downs, but we had a lot more ups than we did downs and this one’s going to hurt for a long time.”

“That last one, it always hurts,” he said.

Two hours earlier, it couldn’t have started better for Oregon.

You would’ve been forgiven for thinking it was still Friday night against Liberty when Brandon Angel and Shelstad hit two 3-point shots before the first media timeout. You really would’ve been okay believing it after Bittle dropped in a triple from deep and Kwame Evans Jr. followed it up with a tough and-1 layup. Up 15 points after five minutes, Oregon was cruising.

It took Altman calling a timeout and chewing out his five on the floor after Love snagged his own rebound and sunk a jumper to draw the Wildcats within six to bring Oregon back to Earth.

Arizona’s star, undeterred, continued to rise. Love hit his first 3-pointer from the corner out of the timeout, and the ball became kryptonite to the Ducks. A 3:38, three-turnover, scoreless Oregon run finally ended when Shelstad hit a stepback jumper, but the damage was done. Arizona was awake.

“When we got on that run in the first half, they started crashing the boards,” Bittle said. “They got a couple offensive rebounds, putbacks and…and started attacking us.  We weren’t building our wall, (and weren’t) getting back in transition defense.”

The Ducks sleepwalked through the next 3:12, where Arizona went on a 12-2 run and hit three straight field goals to drive into its first lead of the game. After the Wildcats missed three straight layup attempts but grabbed three boards and (eventually) two points, Altman, incensed, stalked so far onto the court he could’ve been a ball-handler.

By the end of the half, it wasn’t Friday night anymore. Shelstad had gone cold and hit just one jumper since the 12:47 mark in the period, and wouldn’t strike in the final 8:08. The free throw line was empty; Oregon took just two trips to the stripe in the first half — the Evans and-1 and a Bamba opportunity — and went 1-3. Arizona, meanwhile, shot 6-10 from the line and outrebounded the Ducks, 23-19 in the period.

Another 1:32, 6-0 run put the Ducks in a six-point hole ahead of the break. Shelstad, with the ball in his hands and five seconds on the clock, had the chance to draw Oregon closer but instead lost his handle on the drive.

“We kind of hit fool’s gold (in) that first half,” Altman said. “We hit those shots and then we just gave up easy baskets in transition and the game got too easy.”

Shelstad broke his slump two minutes into the second half, but it wasn’t the splash of ice water to the face that Oregon needed. Far from it — instead, the Wildcats surged into an 11-point lead (their largest of the game) courtesy of an 8-0 run and another Shelstad turnover.

The 1:33, 7-0 run a quarter of the way through the period could’ve brought the Ducks back to life. Instead, Love buried them with a stepback 3-pointer immediately out of the timeout.

In a year where the Ducks made their living surging late against new opponents, it was an old foe who finally stifled them.

Were the opportunities there? Certainly.

Oregon made it into the bonus with 8:40 to play, found itself within a possession with 7:38 to go, and immediately missed a layup before giving one up on the other end.

The Ducks were within two after Shelstad got his jumper to go with 4:34 left in Oregon’s season, but Love, once again, struck from deep. He flushed an emphatic dunk off the pick-and-roll 99 seconds and zero Oregon points later.

In the huddle, down two with 44.7 to play, Altman was finally calm. He doled out instructions before spending the final half-minute with his arm around Shelstad’s shoulder.

Oregon’s guard had the ball down three with 20 seconds on the clock. He spent 10 and could only lay it in to draw his team within one.

Love scored all 10 of the Wildcats’ final points from the floor. The Wildcats made seven of the eight free throws they earned within the last 21 seconds. 

Finally, down two with 1.8 to tick and a second foul shot on the way — when Shelstad had to miss — he did. Oregon couldn’t grab the board. The buzzer sounded, and they headed down the tunnel as Arizona broke into jubilation.

“Losses like this hurt a lot,” Shelstad said. “It’s going to hurt for a while. We were right there last year and this year and just a couple different plays or free throws, anything, rebounds, could have went a different way. It’s going to sting for a little bit.”

The final question for Altman, the players had left and he was alone with the microphone, was about his pitch to athletes who might eye the transfer portal on the other side of the night.

“There’s a business aspect to it, and I understand that,” he said. “But, man, if you’re not having fun playing ball, if you’re not having fun with your teammates, if you don’t enjoy the four years you get to play, I’m not sure you can put a price on that.” 

A dream run that saw the Ducks become one of the nation’s hottest teams over the final few months of their season finally came to a shuddering, sudden stop.

Goodnight.