Against UCLA on Feb. 21, WSU made believers out of those who enjoy up-tempo basketball.

A high-scoring, hot-shooting 82-81 victory will often do that to people, but coaches and players don’t expect to return to the style that got them a win at Pauley Pavilion.

Against Arizona tonight, the Cougars will venture back to their methodical – but not slow – offensive strategy.

“I think sometimes we get a bad rap,” Head Coach Tony Bennett said, referring to the idea that WSU plays slow.

“Our goal in our offense is to get quality shots. Certain guys have the green light – if they can get their shot, and they’re open, they shoot it.” WSU won’t always run the shot clock down, but if that is what it takes to get a quality shot, then that’s what the Cougars will take.

“We work to get open shots,” Bennett said. “There’s certain times you have to be patient and grind people out, but for us it’s about quality shots.” When Arizona ventures onto Friel Court tonight at 6 p.m., it will bring another up-tempo offense that WSU will have to slow down. Although WSU got a win at UCLA, it didn’t exactly slow the Bruins down.

Arizona averages 69 points a game in Pac-10 play but has been most impressive in its last four games. In those games – three of which were wins – Arizona averaged 80.5 points a game. Its highest-scoring affair of the season came on Jan. 29 against Washington, when Arizona scored 106 points.

“We really want to try and make them play at our pace and slow them down,” senior Caleb Forrest said. “If we can get them to play in the half court the whole time, that would be the way we’d like. If we can get them out of their press early on, that will be even better for us.” The pressure Forrest mentioned is something Arizona used to beat WSU 66-56 on Jan. 31. In that game, WSU kept the score close until the Wildcats began using their full-court press. That defensive strategy disrupted WSU and created too many turnovers for them to recover from.

Arizona’s press isn’t something it used only against WSU, and the Cougars can expect to see the same defense tonight.

“It’s more of a philosophical thing,” Arizona Head Coach Russ Pennell said. “We do that just about every game we play in. It’s part of our defensive package. The thing this time is Washington State is a little bit older, a little bit mature, they’ve seen (the press), they’re playing good basketball.” With only three games left in the regular season and at least one game in the Pac-10 Tournament, this game is of great importance to WSU with its 14-13 overall record (6-9 in the Pac-10).

The Pac-10 Tournament matches up the bottom four teams in two opening round games, pitting the seventh-place team against the 10th-place team, and the eighth-place team against the ninth-place in the first round.

Right now, WSU sits in eighth place. Getting to the sixth spot is important to avoid having to play in the opening round. But right now, seeding isn’t on top of Bennett’s mind. He said his players are focused on what is directly ahead of them, and that is the Arizona Wildcats.

“We just want to play good basketball,” Bennett said. “Wherever that puts us at the end of the year is going to be the case. I don’t know positioning (or) placing in the Pac-10 Tournament.”