Arizona never bothered me because we're 3-0 against them in March. Kansas had so much luck going for them in '88, I don't think anyone was going to beat them. Even KU fans admitted for several years that they had to pay back the college basketball gods for that title. They got karma #1 handed to them in 1997 when KU was clearly the best team in America even though Arizona took them down in the Sweet 16. I remember watching that game thinking there was no way a team that good could lose that early. '84 NC and '97 KU were the best teams in my lifetime to not make the Elite Eight.
I didn't care for them in '88 even before we played them, after hearing about how they self-promoted their "St. Lute and His Leaping Apostles" nonsense. I have relatives in the Seattle area with UW ties, and they were telling about how smug and arrogant that program became within the Pac-12 ranks. They had these dancing buffoons at the end of their bench called "The Gumbies" - and the national media started loving them. When OU's guys invented the late-game victory shuffle, the same media types ripped us for being showboats.
I moved to Albuquerque that summer ('88) and read some stories about their loss to us and the shocker to UNM and the Pit on Jan. 2. Let's just say they weren't too big on giving credit where credit was due. It was especially absurd about how they almost seemed like the Lobos should have apologized to them for winning.
They had a local writer in Tucson who took shots at OU back then, especially in '89 when OU played football out there (and lost, unfortunately). That whole week was filled with garbage about how trashy OU was, and it also included a blatant lie about a game the same writer covered in Norman in '74 when OU played Utah State and won, 72-3. The clown actually said OU ran it up, when the truth was that Switzer had his starters out of the game quickly after halftime. They also played up the OU-UofA non-conference rematch at the LNC (Stacey and Mookie's senior year) as a battle of their good to OU's evil.
Arizona really had a bad attitude towards the state of New Mexico, sort of like how UT people look down on the entire state of Oklahoma. It was especially obnoxious when Lute (or Loot, as I call him) was their coach and they had that entitled, KU-like attitude. It does make me proud that St. Loot had a losing record against OU, despite being one of the ESPN golden boys of college coaching.
