When Chase Budinger played somewhat listlessly in his first-ever Arizona game, an exhibition in Canada over Labor Day weekend, his coaches asked him to toughen up.

Turns out, he had an excuse.

Although Budinger rebounded to play well in the first game following that pep talk, he remained sick the rest of the weekend. Upon returning home, it was determined he had tonsillitis.

Budinger doesn't have an easy excuse this time.

Judging by the high standards he set out of the gate this season, Budinger has been off for five of the last six UA halves. He scored just eight points on 3-of-7 shooting at Washington State, scored just two points after halftime against Oregon State last Thursday and struggled to a season-low four points on Sunday against Oregon.

Of course, offensive numbers don't reflect the entire game. UA coach Lute Olson said Budinger did well defensively against diminutive Oregon guard Tajuan Porter, whose size and speed make for a difficult matchup.

But the fact is that the Wildcats have become accustomed to getting 15 to 20 points a game from Budinger, along with five or six rebounds, and in both games the past two weeks when that hasn't happened, they've lost.

"What can I say?" Budinger said. "Hopefully in the future I won't have games like this. I'll just try to assert myself a little bit more. I think it's more mental than anything else."

That's also what Olson says. Already he has cut practice time for starters back to late-season levels, giving them most of Mondays off and working them about only half of the time on the Friday between Pac-10 games.

So the idea that Budinger is hitting a freshman-year, midseason wall of some sort is a mystery to Olson.

"If it is, it's all mental," Olson said. "It's mental because we've cut back on the amount of time we're practicing. We can't do anything about the mental. He has to do something about the mental."

The problem for Budinger is that it's hard being mentally tough when he's aching — or at least feels like he's aching.

Budinger said after the Wildcats' win over Oregon State last Thursday that he felt his body "breaking down a little bit,'' and appeared to be fighting through something on Sunday, whether it be physical, mental or some of both.

"I looked at him and thought maybe I saw in his eyes a little bit of tiredness,'' said UA associate head coach Jim Rosborough, who works with the UA wing players. "You're going to have to play through that. As good as high school kids are, they don't understand the difference."

At the same time, Rosborough is sympathetic. He noted that Budinger is the most heavily used freshman at the UA since Jason Gardner, who defined his college career with mental toughness and clutch play.

"Chase has played a lot of minutes and it's at a different level," Rosborough said. "We've played a pretty difficult schedule, now we're down to about 10 guys in practice, and I'm sure it's wearing."

It won't get any easier, either. The Wildcats will face USC, UCLA and North Carolina over the next 11 days. Then comes play in the second half of the Pac-10, possibly the toughest conference in the country, and the postseason.

Rest is not really an option at this point, and Budinger knows it.

"Every game is a tough game," Budinger said. "Coming from Thursday to Saturday, you don't have much time to rest. On Friday, your body gets a little worn down from the night before. But once again, you've got to be mentally tough."

Rim shots

● Stanford's Anthony Goods won the Pac-10 player of the week award Monday over UA's Marcus Williams, who scored 61 points in two games last week, and Oregon's Aaron Brooks, who led the Ducks to their first-ever sweep in Arizona. Goods averaged 24.5 points and 3.5 assists in Stanford's sweep of the Washington schools.

● Because of the Sunday game with Oregon, Arizona took its required weekly day off Monday. The Wildcats will practice at home today and Wednesday before leaving Wednesday afternoon for Los Angeles, where they will face USC on Thursday and UCLA on Saturday afternoon in an attempt to stay in the thick of the Pac-10 race.

"If you lose one at home then you've got to get an extra one on the road," Olson said. "We have our work cut out for us this week in L.A."

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©The Arizona Daily Star, 2006