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Seniors get final shot at ASU

Five seniors on the UA women's basketball team face Arizona State for the final time as Wildcats, tomorrow in Tempe, and say they will enter the affair as bloodthirsty as ever.

Those five have spent their entire careers at Arizona beating ASU - the UA streak is at 13 consecutive wins - and they said they are not about to stop now.

"We want this really bad, not only because it's my last year and last time to play ASU, but this game is really, really important for the rest of our season," Felecity Willis said. "It is pretty phenomenal that we've won that many games year in and year out, so hopefully, this year, we can keep the tradition going."

The Arizona seniors - guards Willis, Monika Crank and Lisa Griffith, and forwards Tatum Brown and Angela Lackey - have five games left in their regular season careers at UA and are trying to make up lost strides in the Pacific 10 Conference race.

The Wildcats (20-5 overall, 9-4 Pac-10) were swept last weekend by USC and UCLA, a feat the Los Angeles schools haven't performed since 1994. Arizona needs to rebound from those losses with a convincing win against the Sun Devils (13-10, 6-7).

"It is going to be a really big game, coming off of two losses that we wished didn't happen, but we can't be distracted with the whole rivalry idea and need to go out and just play basketball," Lackey said. "After UCLA and USC, this is a must-win situation for us."

The Wildcats' 13-game winning streak against the Sun Devils was nearly snapped in the last outing between the two.

On Jan. 30, Arizona narrowly edged ASU 60-58 in a game that came down to a call which ASU head coach Charli Turner probably would like to have had reviewed with instant replay.

With less than 10 seconds remaining, the Sun Devils trailed by two and put the ball in the hands of senior guard Kitch Kitchen. She took the ball up the court, only to miss a shot while being called for a charge on UA's Willis.

Wildcat fans cheered the call, but the small section of Sun Devil fans in attendance booed in disgust, thinking it should have been a blocking foul.

UA head coach Joan Bonvicini called the charge taken by Willis "the play of the game" and hailed it as vintage Willis basketball.

"She's taken so many (charges) that it's incredible, but that just changed the whole ball game," Bonvicini said after the game.

Arizona was given possession and ran out the final 0.7 seconds for the win.

Last season, when the Wildcats traveled to Tempe, Arizona needed overtime to finish off the Sun Devils 76-67, so ASU is certainly playing for revenge as of late.

"We have to come out and play aggressive," Willis said. "If we come out too passive, then ASU is going to take advantage of it. So we have to come out hungry, ready to play and ready to come out with a win."