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College Basketball Tonight

Arizona at Washington State

The Cougars (8-6 in the Pacific-10 Conference and 14-9 overall) open their final homestand of the season by entertaining the 12th-ranked Wildcats (11-4 and 21-6) in a 9 p.m. Friel Court showdown that will be televised live by ESPN.

At a glance

WSU probably needs to win at least three of its last four games to earn its second consecutive NCAA tournament berth. But three of those games are against teams ranked in the Top 25 and none is ranked higher than the Wildcats, who are alone in second place in the Pac-10 standings. Arizona has won 19 in a row from the Cougars and beat them 84-76 earlier this season in Tucson.

“And we played about as well as we can play … down at Arizona,” confessed WSU coach Kevin Eastman, whose team is coming off a devastating upset loss to Washington last Saturday. The Wildcats’ main weapon is senior point guard Damon Stoudamire, who leads the Pac-10 in scoring (22.2), assists (7.8) and free-throw percentage (84.5). The Cougars did a good job of containing Stoudamire the first time around, despite the absence of their point guard, Donminic Ellison, who missed the game with chicken pox. But they did not have to deal with the outside shooting of freshman guard Miles Simon, who missed that game with a dislocated right index finger.

“He gives them a different perimeter look, because he can really shoot the ball,” Eastman said of Simon, who is averaging 8.4 points a game. “Down there, we felt we might have had a chance to sag off a couple of players, but if he’s in the game, there are two guys you have to be concerned with on the perimeter.”

Arizona: Damon Stoudamire, 22.2 points per game, 7.8 assists; Ray Owes, 15.4 ppg, 8.0 rebounds; Joseph Blair, 12.3 ppg.

WSU: Mark Hendrickson 15.3 points per game, 9.1 rebounds; Isaac Fontaine, 17.4 ppg; Shamon Antrum, 14.2 ppg; Donminic Ellison, 7.0 assists.

Radio

KXLY (920 AM) Spokane, KWSU (1250 AM) Pullman, KORD 870 AM) Tri-Cities, KCLX (1450 AM) Colfax, KCVL (1240 AM) Colville, KWWW (1340 AM) Wenatchee, KBSN (1470 AM) Moses Lake, KNSN (97.1 FM) Walla Walla, 8:30 p.m.