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Wildcats seek revenge against Stanford

The UA women's basketball team's road trip to Northern California this weekend is far more than just their final regular season games of the year.

It is their final opportunity to compete for the Pacific 10 Conference title, to revenge an earlier loss to Stanford and to impress the NCAA Tournament selection committee.

The No. 20 Wildcats play Stanford (19-7 overall, 12-4 Pac-10) tonight at 8:30 and California on Saturday, needing a sweep of the two teams, along with an Oregon loss to Oregon State to attain the Pac-10 title.

Arizona (22-6, 11-5) is all but guaranteed an invitation to the tournament with an at-large bid if they don't win the conference crown, but would like to secure a higher seed with two wins.

"The team has a chance to finish the best ever since I've been here, which is second or hopefully, tied for first," senior guard Felecity Willis said. "All we have to do is come into this weekend and play hard while playing two good teams. We'll just see what happens come Sunday (with the NCAA Tournament Selection Show)."

Five seniors play their final regular season games as Wildcats this weekend to further complicate the weekend's subtext.

"After Saturday's game, it is all going to be over, so this weekend is going to be really special," senior guard Lisa Griffith said. "It is really important that we end our season on a good note and get some momentum heading into the tournament, so this weekend should be pretty exciting for us."

Stanford downed Arizona 98-95 on Jan. 8 in a game that featured hot streaks by both teams. The Cardinal hit 13-of-26 three-pointers and boasted four players scoring in double digits.

"We remember that game and think that we should have won it," Willis said. "It was defiantly within our reach, as we should have put them away earlier, but that was when we weren't playing any defense. Hopefully we can play better defense so that we can come out with a win."

After the game, UA players said they couldn't believe they scored 95 points and lost the game, but conceded they could have played better defense.

Now they are set for retribution and say their weapon of choice will be an impermeable defense.

"The number one thing we need to do is defend the three-pointer, have a good transition game, be tough in the post play and rebound aggressively," UA head coach Joan Bonvicini said.

Whether the game will be another high scoring affair, Griffith said, "Hopefully on our end, but not on theirs."