Tia Jackson was not pleased.

Her team had just lost 65-51 to a mediocre Arizona team — then winless in the Pac-10 — and fell into a school-record seven-game losing streak that would expand to 12 games before a win over UCLA last Friday.

“The way we lost this game was disheartening,” Jackson said after the Jan. 29 loss.

Now the UW women’s basketball team heads down to the desert to face No. 24 Arizona State (20-6, 12-2 Pac-10) and Arizona tonight and Saturday, respectively, looking for redemption against a Wildcat team that the Huskies (6-19, 2-13 Pac-10) let get away at home.

“Arizona’s playing much better basketball late into the season and ASU [is] always competitive on their own floor,” Jackson told reporters of the Huskies’ upcoming opponents.

If the Huskies are to get revenge against Arizona (10-15, 3-11 Pac-10) or come close to pulling off an upset at ASU, they will need to address their recent mistakes.

“Number one, we’ve got to clean up our rebounding … especially against a more athletic team; we’re going to face that again this weekend,” Jackson said.

Jackson specified what the Huskies need to do against both Arizona schools.

“Some areas we need to clean up on — primarily for ASU — is making sure we can contain their guards in the open court,” Jackson said.

It is likely that due to new defensive pressures, however, Washington will have to get some of its offensive production from someone other than Sami Whitcomb or Kristi Kingma — the team’s top two scorers.

“I’m surprised that it took this long for teams to get in on them and lock them up,” Jackson said of Whitcomb and Kingma. “I got a feeling you’re going to see those two getting a lot of attention for these last few games here because they’ve earned it, it’s just a credit to them and a compliment to their play this year.”

Jackson said the Huskies could counter opposing defenses by passing the ball to an open player when either Whitcomb or Kingma get double-teamed. This is something Kingma still needs to work on, said Jackson.

“[Kingma’s] going to have to learn to play with that attention and [not] let it bother [her],” Jackson said.

Jackson also gave reasons as to why she keeps fiddling with the starting lineup. The Huskies unveiled their 13th different starting lineup this season against USC Sunday.

“The best players are going to start, those who deserve it will start,” Jackson said.

But after suffering through the worst stretch in school history, the Huskies are looking to build on any positives.

“We’ve kind of had this philosophy of the last five games [being] a season within a season,” Jackson said. “Our goal is to be above .500 [in the last five games before the Pac-10 tournament].”

Reach reporter Honsen Lin at sports@dailyuw.com.