After splitting wins on the road this past weekend, the WSU women’s basketball team begins a two-game home stretch against No. 23 Arizona State and Arizona with a chance to get back to .500 in conference play.

After a tough loss last Friday in Colorado, the Cougars (10-13, 5-7) responded with a difficult road win, narrowly escaping against Utah late in the fourth quarter to split last weekend’s matchups.

“It felt probably like déjà vu for our team,” WSU Head Coach June Daugherty said. “We just kept the focus on being really positive.”

The Cougars played a sound game in the win against Utah on Sunday, only turning the ball over 10 times, compared to the 27 they had Friday night against Colorado.

“On Sunday, we were aces,” Daugherty said. “It’s neat to see young people being leaders.”

Junior guard Pinelopi Pavlopoulou has been playing well as of late, scoring double-figures the last four games. She has been getting more playing time lately due to other players’ injuries, and has been taking full advantage of it. She said it is important for her to be consistent for her team, but she doesn’t want to take too many shots, only good ones.

As far as the matchup tonight against ASU (15-8, 6-6), the Cougars feel that if they play tough and physical, they will have a good chance to win.

“The game’s going to be very physical,” Daugherty said. “Don’t be surprised by it, just play through it, part of that is Pac-12 basketball.”

ASU won the first meeting in Tempe by a score of 68-49, snapping a three-game win streak for the Cougars at the time. WSU also lost two freshman guards to injury that game, Cameron Fernandez and Chanelle Molina.

“They hurt us inside quite a bit the first time that we played them and of late we have done a much better job defensively in the interior,” Daugherty said.

The outlook for the rest of the season still involves a potential postseason berth if things fall the Cougars’ way. WSU sits at a tie for sixth-place in arguably the best conference in the nation and could move up to a tie for fifth place with a win tonight.

“If we can get it done and get to the postseason, that’d be awesome,” Daugherty said. “That’s definitely doable with this group.”

Junior guard Caila Hailey is pumping the brakes before thinking about postseason, and said the team needs to keep its focus on upcoming games.

“(The team needs to) focus on the present, focus on the game ahead of us … and do the little things to be successful,” Hailey said.

The Cougars will sport pink uniforms in support of the Play4Kay game tonight, which raises awareness for breast cancer. Kay Yow was the women’s basketball coach for N.C. State for over 20 years and coached the U.S. Women’s National Team to a gold medal in the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul. She died in 2009 to stage four breast cancer after a couple previous bouts with the disease.

“She was a great ambassador for women’s basketball,” Daugherty said. “There’s a lot of people walking around with ‘survivors’ on their shirts and we want to see more of that.”

Tonight’s game against ASU tips off at 7 p.m. in Beasley Coliseum.