TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) -- The last two times Arizona played at Arizona State, the visiting Wildcats escaped with a one-point victory.

This time, it was an 82-55 rout that fell one point short of the most one-sided road victory ever for the Wildcats (No. 4 ESPN/USA Today, No. 5 Associated Press) in their 86-year series against their arch-rivals.

It was a blind-side blowout Wednesday night in front of a rare capacity crowd of 14,203 and against a young Arizona State team that thought it had a legitimate chance to end Arizona's eight-game winning streak against the Sun Devils.

"Needless to say, I didn't see this coming," Arizona State coach Rob Evans said. "It was just one of those games where they beat us in every phase of the game."

Freshmen guards Gilbert Arenas and Jason Gardner led the victory.

Arenas scored a career-high 24 points on 10-for-13 shooting and Gardner added 16 points as the Wildcats (17-3, 6-1 Pac-10) broke the game open in the final six minutes of the first half, then turned it into a a full-fledged blowout in the second.

Arenas also had a game-high eight rebounds and seven turnovers, five in the first half. He also was the principal defender against Arizona State's Eddie House, who struggled through his third consecutive subpar shooting night, going 4-for-14 for eight points. He was 0-for-6 from 3-point range.

"I was not focusing on my offense," Arenas said. "I was just concentrating on defense because if you stop Eddie House, you stop their team. I didn't do anything special against him. He just had an off night."

House blamed himself, using strong, unprintable language to describe his and his team's performance.

"I didn't think I gave the team anything in any way," House said. "I usually come in and give the team a spark and I didn't do anything. I take full blame for this."

Only a late spurt by Arizona State prevented the Wildcats from recording their most one-sided road victory ever in the series. The biggest win for Arizona in Tempe was 101-73 in 1988. The largest margin in the series is 40, a 99-59 Arizona victory in Tucson that same season.

The Sun Devils (11-7, 3-4), who feature six freshmen in their regular rotation, lost their third in a row and shot just 33 percent, compared with Arizona's 56 percent. Tanner Shell and Tommy Smith each scored 10 points for the Sun Devils.

Luke Walton, Loren Woods and Rick Anderson each scored 10 points for Arizona, which bounced back from Saturday's loss at Southern California. Walton's total was a career high.

Arizona coach Lute Olson credited the 7-foot-1 Woods for causing Arizona State's poor night.

"Loren's presence in the middle totally changed the game," Olson said. "He got a couple of blocks early and then I think they started looking for him."

The Wildcats outscored the Sun Devils 16-3 over the last six minutes of the first half to take a 39-22 lead, then went on a 22-7 run to start the second half and made it 61-29 on Michael Wright's inside basket.

Anderson and Gardner were the big players in the late first-half outburst.

"When I made a 3 and Jason hit four straight shots I think, I said, 'We are going to blow them out,' " Anderson said.

The lead reached 70-33 when Anderson, one of two reserves in Olson's seven-man rotation, made a free throw, missed the second, then grabbed the rebound and scored with 8:12 to play.

Both teams were sloppy. Arizona had 26 turnovers and Arizona State 22.

The Sun Devils, who haven't beaten the Wildcats since 1995, shot 28 percent in the first half (9-for-32), compared with 57 percent (17-for-30) for Arizona.

Arizona State last beat Arizona March 11, 1995, in Tucson.

The game got so out of hand that both teams sent football players onto the court -- Arizona's Peter Hansen and Arizona State's Todd Heap. Heap just joined the basketball team on Monday.