Arizona guard Mustafa Shakur (15) and other Pac-10 playmakers are finding tougher defenses in conference games these days.

dean knuth / arizona daily star 2007

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The USC-UCLA weekend has forever been the most anticipated homestand on the McKale Center basketball calendar. Even the Zona Zoo fills up.

And not just because, from 1988 to 2004, Arizona went 31-3 here against the L.A. schools, but because the Trojans and Bruins buckled up and played fast. They almost needed to wear protective helmets.

That is so Hollywood. Entertainment Tonight.

From 1988 to 2004, the Wildcats averaged 90.8 points on the UCLA-USC weekend. That's gotta be a record, don't you think? They beat the Trojans by scoring a yearly average of 92 points and trounced the Bruins by averaging 89.

Everybody run and dunk. It was more whoosh basketball than swoosh basketball.

In 19 of those 34 games, Arizona scored a minimum of 90 points. Oh, baby, were those the good, old days.

Alas, we suspected it could not possibly last. Sooner or later, the athletic directors at USC and UCLA would wise up and hire coaches who did not play to Arizona's strength, but rather tapped the brakes and — I can hardly stand to type the following words — implemented half-court basketball.

What's next, a 57-55 Arizona-UCLA game?

When Tim Floyd brings the Trojans here Thursday, he will do so with the most fun-killing statistic known to college hoops: USC is ranked No. 3 nationally in field goal percentage defense, 36.9 percent.

The Trojans value every possession the way Floyd's mentor, the take-it-slow Don Haskins of UTEP, used to do it in Arizona's WAC days. USC actually plays defense now.

Worse, when Ben Howland's Bruins arrive Saturday, they will manifest their 59.8 points-per-game scoring defense. Howland is more defensive minded than F. Lee Bailey.

In the five years before Howland's arrival at UCLA, Arizona averaged 95.2 points in home games against the Bruins. In its last two home games against Howland, Arizona has not broken 80.

This is the same coach who produced an almost unwatchable 50-45 victory in last year's Elite Eight against Memphis. Yet it was a thing of beauty. Impressionable coaches everywhere have decided that if the Bruins can do that, anybody can.

This put-on-the-brakes trend has unfortunately taken root in the once wide-open Pac-10.

In its last three games, Washington State has scored 59, 58 and 48 points — and won all three, by an average margin of 9.0. The abysmally slow Cougars have vaulted into the top 10.

Stanford plays slow. Arizona State plays slower. Half of the league now prefers to walk it up, work the clock and drop three players into coverage so Arizona cannot run the fast break.

Did you realize that only four of 63 Pac-10 games this year have resulted with both teams scoring at least 80 points?

"You run through a lot of screens,'' UA forward Marcus Williams said Monday. "You don't see many teams get in a rush.''

Tradition be damned.

Fifteen years ago in the Pac-10, 1991-92, there were 16 games in which a team scored 90 or more points. Ten years ago the total was exactly the same, 16.

This year there have been seven. Arizona had that many by itself in 1987-88.

About the only man happy about this dreadful style of play is Lute Olson himself.

"I hope (USC) doesn't change,'' he said Monday. "I hope UCLA stays a half-court team. It gives us a better shot at (recruiting) kids. Kids like the wide-open style. … I'd encourage (USC and UCLA) to stay half-court oriented.''

Of the 325 Division I college basketball teams, a mere 14 are averaging at least 80 points a game. That means 311 prefer to walk it up, dribble, pass, cut and screen.

It's maddening. We are overwhelmed with 61-58 games. Incredibly, Arizona, averaging 81 points a game, has become something of a freak offense.

Howland came upon his defensive nature by playing guard at Weber State from 1978 to 1980, a two-year stretch in which the Big Sky team went 26-3 and 25-9 and never averaged more than 75 points a game. He then coached, 1982-94, at Cal-Santa Barbara under Jerry Pimm, a strategist of considerable success whose UCSB teams never averaged more than 75.4 per game in that period.

No wonder Howland has changed the way UCLA plays. Defense is what he knows.

In 1991, Arizona beat UCLA 105-94 at Pauley Pavilion. Now it might require two UCLA games for the Wildcats to score that much. The Bruins averaged 92.3 points that year and didn't even win the Pac-10.

Oh, how the game has changed.

Washington State has shot into the top 10 by overcoming its lack of athleticism and big names by playing smart, getting back on defense and working the clock.

It is not pretty, but it is working.

UCLA could simply out-man most teams with its available cache of Southern California recruits — and USC should soon be in that category — but both prefer to push, bump, play defense and make 70 points a high-scoring game.

It is enough to make you watch an NBA game.