When WKU head coach Dennis Felton was asked what went wrong Saturday, he only needed one word to answer ÷ "everything."

The Wildcats dismantled the Hilltoppers by 39 points and showed what a lineup full of athletic and talented players could do to a team that plays a slow, set offense.

"Arizona is in another solar system from us," Felton said. "In terms of athleticism and talent, it's not even close."

Western Kentucky can say that it was without its All-American center Chris Marcus, but there is no way that any 7-foot-1, 285 pounder could have kept up with the speed the Wildcats played with. Marcus could have made a difference rebounding and scoring down low, but he could also have been a liability at times during the Wildcats' full-court press that created 28 turnovers that led to 38 points in the game.

"If we want to win, we have to destroy whoever we play,'' freshman Hassan Adams said.

And that's exactly what Arizona did ÷ it scored and scored and scored, and never let up. One basket after another, the Wildcats just kept pouring it on, until UA head coach Lute Olson took the press off with under 12 minutes left and his team up by 35 points.

At one point in the first half, the Wildcats made three-pointers on five of six possessions, and the other time, senior Luke Walton hit a 15-footer. That led to a 24-2 run that included an 18-0 stretch where WKU had problems getting the ball up court. It also turned a game that was 10-point lead into a 32-point laugher.

"We love to do that all the time,'' Olson said about his team going on big runs. "We're going to have runs ÷ not necessarily 24-2 ÷ but I think we'll have runs as long as we keep that kind of defensive pressure on teams. When we did get turnovers, we did a great job converting them."

The main factor in the run was the full-court press which Felton called the best he has seen in his entire career. That is coming from a coach who has worked in both the Atlantic Coast Conference (Clemson) and the Big East (Providence), and saw the presses of both Maryland and Connecticut frequently.

"I saw fear," senior forward Rick Anderson said. "I think they lost hope. They are a little tentative. We jumped on them and kept the pressure on.''

Arizona also took its commanding lead with its preseason All-American point guard Jason Gardner being held scoreless. Gardner didn't score his first basket until almost 24 minutes into the game.

"I think the most important thing is to get everyone involved, and I don't think I need to go out and score right away," said Gardner, who scored all 12 of his points in the second half.

But the more telling sign of the dominance Saturday against the Hilltoppers was how many minutes Gardner did not have to play. After averaging nearly 38 minutes a game last year, Gardner played only 26.

"If I play 26 minutes and we win by 40, I think that's a great sign," he said.

What might have been more beneficial for Olson on Saturday was that by keeping the minutes down for Gardner, Walton and Anderson, nine players played more than 17 minutes, which allowed Olson to see his freshmen wings in action.

In his first college game, Adams led the Wildcats with 22 points, and Andre Iguodala got the start over sophomore Will Bynum.

Another demoralizing fact for Felton was that when UA subbed out a player, the player who came in was fresh and brought more energy off the bench, something WKU couldn't overcome.

"The guys they brought in off the bench might have been more talented than the guys who started," said Felton, referring to sophomore forward Dennis Latimore, Adams, Bynum and center Channing Frye.

The Wildcats had 55 points from their bench. All of this happened without the services of sophomore guard Salim Stoudamire, the team's defensive MVP last season and Pac-10 Freshman of the Year, who sat on the end of the bench and watched the game with an ankle injury.

If WKU was the No. 19 team in the nation, just imagine what Arizona could do to the 20th-ranked team, or how ugly Wednesday's game against Northern Arizona could be.