McKale North remains a welcoming place for Arizona.

The Wildcats beat ASU 81-72 on Saturday afternoon for its fifth straight win at Desert Financial Arena, affectionally known by UA fans as “McKale North.” It was the ninth victory in the last 10 meetings with the Sun Devils and capped off a stellar first half of the Big 12 schedule for Arizona (15-6, 9-1).

Caleb Love had 27 points, six rebounds and seven assists, following up his heroic performance late in the overtime win over No. 3 Iowa State, but he was also ejected in the final minute after an altercation with ASU’s BJ Freeman.

Love was 5 of 9 from 3 and 8 of 19 overall while going 6 of 6 from the line as Arizona made 21 of 22 free throws. Jaden Bradley had 14 points, Henri Veesaar 11 (all in the second half) and Carter Bryant went for eight points, 10 rebounds, three blocks and four steals.

Arizona blocked nine shots—KJ Lewis also had three—and recorded eight steals while winning the rebounding battle 52-38 with an 18-11 edge in offensive boards. That made up for shooting just 37.1 percent, but ASU (12-9, 3-7) shot only 36.8 percent.

Arizona shot 33.3 percent in the first half but still led 35-34. ASU made its first three shots and five of its first six to build a 47-42 lead, but a 6-0 UA run fueled by a pair of Bryant steals put it back in front.

Another Bryant steal came in between Love 3s, the second putting the Wildcats up 54-49 with 14:25 left. The margin grew to six only to see ASU tie it at 60, but back-to-back dunks by Veesaar put Arizona up 68-62 with 5:37 left.

ASU took its first free throws of the second half with 3:50 to go, with Jayden Quaintance making both to cut it to 70-67. It was still a 4-point game when Love drained a wide-open 3 on a kickout from Veesaar on an offensive rebound, making it 76-69 with 2:36 remaining.

Love’s feed inside to Veesaar for a layup, which came after three offensive rebounds, gave Arizona a 78-72 edge with 1:22 left.

Then things got heated in the final minute, as ASU’s Freeman appeared to headbutt Love under the basket with 30.7 seconds left. A double technical was called, and that was Freeman’s fifth foul, but then Love ended up getting hit with a second technical and was ejected.

After the play was reviewed with no additional penalties ASU coach Bobby Hurley sent the rest of his team to the locker room and he himself left before the final whistle.

Arizona jumped out to an 8-point lead less than nine minutes in before promptly going into a prolonged funk on both ends of the court. That enabled ASU to score nine in a row, all by Freeman, and go up 18-17 on Freeman’s 3 with 7:53 left in the first half.

The next four minutes saw both Bradley and Hurley get technicals, first Hurley for his reaction to a foul and Bradley for looking toward the Sun Devils bench after a layup off a transition spin move.

Bradley became the third UA player with two first-half fouls, leading to sophomore Conrad Martinez logging early minutes. Martinez responded by hitting the first 3 of his career in a conference game, part of a 10-5 UA run to end the first half. The Wildcats managed to take the lead into the locker room thanks to a long 3 from Love with 20 seconds remaining in the half.

Arizona heads back out for another road game Tuesday at BYU, making its first trip to Provo since 1998.