Other articles by Bruce Pascoe:

UA's 3 of a kind beats Jacks Arizona Wildcats Basketball: UA beats NAU 74-57 NAU coach happy to take his lumps, play at McKale Cats catch break with mediocre schedule 4 games into season, Budinger displaying clear leadership skills Cats on brief break from hoops, but not mentally Arizona 69, Santa Clara 66 Loss is Santa Clara's fourth close one this year Judkins, in starting debut, blossoms as forward option Horne plays, sounds fine in Georgia

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First, Arizona set itself up to be dropped from The Associated Press Top 25 on Monday for the first time this season by losing to USC and UCLA at home last week.

Then, USC went out Sunday and lost to Arizona State, which slightly damaged the Wildcats' remaining shred of respectability: their RPI.

Arizona, which lost five of its seven final home games, still hovered last week in the top 10 of the RPI rankings, which the NCAA tournament selection committee uses to help judge a team's true strength. The Wildcats did so because they had the No. 1-rated schedule in the nation and not a single loss to a team carrying an RPI of 51 or lower.

But when USC lost at ASU, the Trojans' RPI slipped to No. 60, and the Wildcats suddenly had two losses against 51-and-lower teams, USC each time. That moved UA to No. 11 in the RPI, and the number figures to decrease regardless of how Arizona does Sunday at ASU because the Sun Devils hold a No. 230 RPI.

The Wildcats have two other remaining games that will probably not help their RPI, either: At California (66) and at Stanford (38). But those are games that could help UA's record down the stretch: The committee also weighs a team's record during the final 10 games of the season, and the Wildcats are 3-4 so far down the final 10-game stretch.

"My stance on it is, all we need to do is get some wins to get the committee to reward the team that plays the toughest schedule in the country," UA associate head coach Jim Rosborough said Monday. This Sunday's game at ASU "is the one game we all need to be focused on."

The Wildcats began the season ranked No. 10 in the AP Top 25, held the No. 7 spot for two weeks (Dec. 26 and Jan. 1), then began gradually slipping after a Jan. 6 loss at Washington State.

The Wildcats, fell this week from No. 19 to No. 33 in total overall votes, behind five other Pac-10 teams: UCLA (No. 4), Washington State (No. 9), Oregon (No. 23), USC (No. 26) and Stanford (No. 30).

Arizona spent more than half of last season out of the rankings. The Wildcats broke a string of 312 consecutive regular-season appearances when they dropped out on Dec. 19, 2005, and, after a two-week reappearance in early January 2006, stayed out of the poll the rest of last season.

Reserve forward Mohamed Tangara joined the Wildcats on the court Monday for the first time since breaking a sinus bone Jan. 24 against ASU, Rosborough said. His status for Sunday's game is unclear.

The Wildcats did shooting drills and conditioning work for about 55 minutes Monday, Rosborough said. They will take today off and return for a full practice Wednesday.

Tip-off times for Arizona's final two regular-season games were set Monday by the Pac-10: Arizona's March 1 game at California will begin at 8:30 p.m. and the Wildcats' March 3 regular-season finale at Stanford will begin at 1:30 p.m.

The Cal game will be televised on FSNAZ, and the Stanford game will be on ABC.

After totaling 17 points and 15 assists in UCLA's 81-66 victory over Arizona, Bruins guard Darren Collison was named the Pac-10 Player of the Week.

Collison's 15 assists were the second-most ever by a UCLA player, behind the 16 Earl Watson had against Maryland in the second round of the 2000 NCAA tournament.

Collison also had a career-high 18 points in the Bruins' 67-61 comeback win at ASU on Feb. 15.

"I don't think there's a better point guard in America than Darren Collison," UA coach Lute Olson said after the UA-UCLA game. "Collison is a great, great point guard."