WSU women’s basketball will travel to the desert to face University of Arizona on Friday after dropping two home games in three days last weekend.

Despite the defeats, junior guard Alexys Swedlund said she saw improvements on the team.

“I feel like it was a huge step for our team,” she said. “Not only did we play more aggressive, we ran the floor better. It was huge for us.”

In the loss to University of Southern California last Friday, the Cougars (9-13, 2-8) turned the ball over 17 times, with seven in the fourth quarter. The turnovers lost WSU the lead late in the game.

“We now understand that every possession counts,” Swedlund said, “no matter if it’s the beginning of the game or the end of the game.”

Junior center Maria Kostourkova said she felt the team came together over the weekend.

“It was really important to us to prove to everybody in that gym that we can fight against the No. 13 in the country team,” Kostourkova said. “That should give us the mentality we need that we have to compete every game, because we can actually win them.”

She said she wants the Cougars to take the momentum of last weekend’s games and continue to grow.

“I think we improved our mentality,” Kostourkova said. “We shouldn’t go with the mentality that we just need to have a competitive game. We should go with the mentality to kill them, because we have proven that we’re good enough.”

WSU is 11th in the conference in rebounding margin, while Arizona (5-16, 1-9) is last. Swedlund said rebounding is going to be a focus in preparation for Arizona.

“We were minus 20 at least against [University of California, Los Angeles]. I think that’s going to be a huge attribute for our games this weekend and for the rest of the season,” Swedlund said. “We really have to stomp down on the rebounds. Once we get those rebounds, that’s when we’ll start winning more games.”

Kostourkova said she is confident in WSU’s ability to rebound against Arizona.

“We should win the rebounding war,” she said, “because if we don’t against them, then we’re going to have issues.”

The Wildcats are second in the Pac-12 in free-throw percentage, but that won’t change how the Cougars play on defense, Swedlund said.

“I think we still play aggressive,” Swedlund said. “We definitely don’t want to get to the point where we’re relying on free-throws at the end of the game. So, I think play aggressive, but also be smart about it.”

Another key for the Cougars against Arizona is better execution on offense, Swedlund said.

“Taking it possession-by-possession, not turning the ball over, and converting our defense into offense,” Swedlund said, “that would be huge for us this weekend.”

WSU has a word of the week in preparation for Arizona.

“Finish,” Swedlund said. “We have to close and we have to be able to finish those games so we can get the wins and not the losses.”

The Cougars will test to see if they can finish at 5 p.m. Friday in the McKale Center. The game can be viewed live on Pac-12 Networks.