The difference between the President of the United States and a basketball team was made clear in Arizona's 84-60 win over Oregon State Saturday night. Even with a bad first term, a basketball team always gets a second one.

Such was the case for UA against the Beavers, when, with Republican presidential hopeful Bob Dole one of the 14,221 in attendance at McKale Center, the Wildcats recovered from a dismal first half and blitzed OSU in the second stanza for an easy 84-60 win.

The No. 13 Wildcats (21-5 overall, 10-4 in the Pacific 10 Conference) found themselves mired in OSU's slowdown game on their way to a season-low 25 first-half points. But coming out of halftime, UA forced the issue in the second half with a trapping, pressure defense that led to a season-high 59-point half.

"The key was to get them out of their stall offense, and we focused on the fact that they aren't athletic," forward Corey Williams said.

Williams was one of five Wildcats in double-figures with 11 points, the seventh time this season UA has had five scorers in double figures.

While the Beavers (3-21, 1-14) lost for the 13th straight time and are far and away the worst team in the Pac-10, their methodical, stalling offense had UA out of its rhythm, forcing the Wildcats into 20 turnovers and leading UA head coach Lute Olson on numerous occasions from the sideline to implore his players to move around more on offense. Perhaps even more startling was the fact that OSU - last in the conference with 28.3 rebounds - outrebounded the conference's best rebounding team (UA gets 38.9 a game) 32-31, including 15-8 on offensive rebounds.

"They played according to the game plan that they have, and I thought they did a fabulous job," Olson said about the Beavers. "Defensively they made us work for everything that we got. The only real easy baskets we got were off of steals and when we forced turnovers and they didn't have the opportunity to set their halfcourt defense up."

UA's pressure forced 23 Beaver turnovers and caused OSU to shoot 38.2 percent from the field. Arizona rebounded from 34.8 percent first-half shooting with a 66.7 second-half effort, finishing at 52.8 percent for the game.

"We were able to establish tempo, then they wanted to get us out of the tempo so they started trapping," Beaver first-year head coach Eddie Payne said. "Then you have got to make those basketball plays, reverse the ball out of those traps. Our team got exposed in those situations by not being able to make the plays."

Holding a 25-20 lead going to the second half, Arizona began to pound the ball inside to Ben Davis, who scored all 11 of his points in the second half. A 14-4 spurt to open the half gave UA a cushion for the rest of the game. OSU cut it to eight, at 45-37 with just under 12 minutes to go, but another Arizona run, this time an 18-4 burst, put the game out of reach.

"(Olson) told us at half that we were playing like we didn't want to be playing," Michael Dickerson said. "He said we'd lose in the first round (of the NCAA Tournament) if we played like that."

As for Dole's presence (he visited both teams' locker rooms after the game), Olson and the players said it did not affect their concentration. Neither did the fact that Dole began his undergraduate career at Arizona before finishing up at Kansas.

"He was a Wildcat before he was a Jayhawk. That shows good judgment on his part," Olson said.