Bruins know Cougars are still dangerous

It's tougher near the top.

After Washington State achieved its highest national ranking ever earlier this season when its 11-0 start earned a No. 4 perch in both major polls, the Cougars aren't overlooked any more.

"Teams are not only fired up to play us but they are giving us their best every night," Cougars point guard Taylor Rochestie said. "They know we're for real. I guess we know how it is for UCLA now."

The fifth-ranked Bruins (20-2 overall, 8-1 in Pacific 10 Conference play) travel carefully to Pullman, Wash., to start the second half of the conference season, aware that the 17th-ranked Cougars (17-4, 5-4) have been wounded by a two-game losing streak.

Washington State lost at home to California, 69-64, and Stanford, 67-65 in overtime, last week.

On the weekly Pac-10 coaches conference call, Washington State's Tony Bennett was asked only two questions -- and one was about new Texas Tech Coach Pat Knight who is, like Tony, the son of a coaching great.

"Drop a couple of games and nobody wants to talk to you," Bennett joked.

UCLA players wish the Cougars had won a game or two last week.

Freshman center Kevin Love said he and Bruins Coach Ben Howland agree Washington State is "definitely more dangerous now."

A perennial Pac-10 doormat even as recently two seasons ago -- the Cougars were picked to finish last in the conference before last season, then finished second -- Washington State has built a program by finding overlooked, under-recruited players such as Rochestie.

The 6-foot-1 junior from Santa Barbara began his college career at Tulane. After being selected to the Conference USA all-freshman team in 2004-05, Rochestie was in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina struck.

He drove to Houston to escape the storm, spent the fall semester at Texas A&M with his displaced team, then decided to transfer.

Rochestie said that as soon as he officially withdrew from Tulane, Bennett was on the phone. It took that phone call and a quick visit to Pullman in January -- "Dead of winter, sleeting and snowing," Rochestie said -- and the guard was sold.

Now Rochestie averages 9.2 points and has found a way to repay Bennett's belief in him.

In October, Rochestie said he would give up his scholarship for next season so Bennett could sign a recruit, swingman Marcus Capers, and still remain at the NCAA limit of 13 scholarship players.