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.

“Basically, I’m giving back to a coach and program that took a chance on me when I was kind of undeserving,” Rochestie said. “It was almost an easy decision for me, more a blessing than a curse to pay for one year of college.”

It has been more a curse than a blessing lately for the Cougars to live up to their suddenly lofty national reputation. Starting with an 81-74 loss to UCLA at Pauley Pavilion last month, Washington State has lost four of its last seven games and fallen three games behind the two-time defending conference-champion Bruins in the Pac-10.

Washington State is in danger of its first three-game home-court losing streak since 2003-04 and the Cougars will also be trying to buck a trend: They are 1-69 against opponents ranked in the Associated Press top five.

Last season, after finishing second to UCLA in the conference, Washington State made the NCAA tournament for only the fourth time since 1941 and lost to Vanderbilt in double overtime in the second round.

“We have something to live up to now,” Rochestie said. “We’re still learning how that goes.”

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TONIGHT

at Washington State, 7:30, FSN West

Radio -- 570.

Site -- Friel Court, Pullman, Wash.

Records -- UCLA 20-2, 8-1; Washington State 17-4, 5-4.

Update -- UCLA has won its last 14 games in Pullman. In the Bruins’ victory over the Cougars last month, UCLA opened a big lead then withstood a rally in the final 1 minute 46 seconds as Washington State made seven consecutive three-point shots. Only Love and junior Josh Shipp have started all 22 games for the injury-plagued Bruins, who will be without forward Luc Richard Mbah a Moute. Alfred Aboya will start in place of Mbah a Moute, who has an ankle injury.

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diane.pucin@latimes.com