Home Cookin'

Nicholas Valenzuela Arizona Daily Wildcat UA junior forward Michael Dickerson will be heading home to his native Seattle on Saturday when the Wildcats take on Washington. Arizona will be in Pullman, Wash. tonight to face Washington State.

While Dickerson, a Seattle native, is still the Wildcats' top scorer with 21 points per game, he has been struggling from the field of late. In his last four games, Dickerson is shooting only 31 percent and has hit only one three-pointer in ten attempts.

"Michael Dickerson is as good a player as he is an aggressive player," UA coach Lute Olson said. "If he's not aggressive, he's not a good player. In the second half (in the Oregon game) he took the ball aggressively to the lane and was coming aggressively off the screens. But, frankly, the last couple of weeks he's been a very passive player."

Dickerson began the season as the hottest player in the Pacific 10 Conference. After the first 13 games, he was leading the conference in scoring (22.8 points per game) and shredding opposing defenses with 42 percent shooting from outside the arc. Four times he scored 30 points, turning himself into one of the most feared outside shooters in the nation.

Yet when Arizona left for USC in mid-January, Dickerson's shooting touch was nowhere to be found. Not only was he missing open 18-footers, but even two-foot layups were no longer automatic.

"I don't think the L.A. schools kept me down, I think I kept myself down. I just didn't make a lot of open shots," Dickerson said. "The shooting will come, I have no doubt I will get it back. This week I have spent some extra time concentrating on shooting."

Dickerson's teammates, however, still see him as a major threat on offense.

"Mike is a scorer, that's his role on this team," UA junior guard Miles Simon said. "He has had a couple slow games, but I think he is still a big part of our offense."

While his offensive punch has fallen off a bit, Dickerson has compensated by improving his defensive prowess. Over the last two games he has drawn the defensive assignment of controlling the opposing team's point guard. In the team's last game against Oregon, Dickerson held Kenya Wilkins to just four first half points and two assists.

"I always knew I could play defense. I just never got the chance to show anybody when I played the wing," Dickerson said. "When you guard the point, you are the focal point of the defense and it's easier to see how well you're doing."

As to the pressure of returning to his old form, Dickerson does not appear to be worried.

"I don't feel any extra pressure to score out there," Dickerson said. "I just have to make sure that I don't try and do too much sometimes. But, I don't feel any different out there."