kelly presnell / arizona daily star

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Except for the stress of making a tightly scheduled flight home, Kevin O'Neill was in about as good a mood Saturday afternoon as he has been all season.

Arizona's interim head basketball coach had survived past the midway point of the regular season relatively intact, despite early uncertainty about absent coach Lute Olson's status, a shallow bench and a four-game injury to standout freshman Jerryd Bayless.

After a 85-71 win at Houston on Saturday afternoon, O'Neill spoke of successfully defending Houston and sharing the ball offensively, two subjects dear to his heart, and, of course, about how Bayless' return served to lift all the Wildcats.

"I thought our whole team played well," O'Neill said. "Jawann (McClellan). Chase (Budinger). Fendi (Onobun). Zane (Johnson) only played three minutes but came in and gave us good minutes. Daniel (Dillon) came in and gave us good minutes."

But it was a brief moment of sunshine. The Wildcats (11-5, 1-2 Pac-10) resume conference play Thursday, taking a potentially difficult trip to face Stanford on Thursday and California on Saturday.

Then there's headache-inducing Washington State next week at McKale Center, and the following week, a trip to Los Angeles to check out the two most hyped freshmen in the country, UCLA's Kevin Love and USC's O.J. Mayo and then … the second round of conference play.

There are no breaks.

"We can honestly say now that our nonconference schedule was No. 1 in the country, and to go 10-3, that's very impressive," O'Neill said. "Now, we've got a long road in the Pac-10, having lost a couple games in a row without being at full strength. Now that we're at full strength, we have to make sure we play good basketball."

Well, almost at full strength. O'Neill says he's expecting forward Bret Brielmaier to be available Thursday, but Brielmaier missed the Houston trip after reinjuring his sprained right shoulder on Jan. 9 at ASU.

Considering his penchant for matching up defensively with opponents, O'Neill likely will use Brielmaier and possibly even Kirk Walters often against the Bay Area schools.

The reason is obvious: Stanford has twin 7-footers Brook and Robin Lopez, while Cal has two of the conference's best big men: 6-10 Ryan Anderson and 6-11 DeVon Hardin.

If nothing else, the pressure will again be on center/forward Jordan Hill to stay out of foul trouble and produce inside.

"It'll be a tough matchup for me," Hill said. "We've just got to go after them, like any other big men, just go ahead and handle them."

Likewise, O'Neill wasn't considering these matchups any more critical than others since all the matchups are conference games the rest of the way.

"Every week is a big week; every game is going to be big," O'Neill said. "We're going to have to make sure we go in and steal some other games down the line."

How many they can steal, the Wildcats don't know. They just know they have momentum.

"We still got to get guys healthy and keep getting better," Budinger said after the Houston game. "I think this was a huge game for us. Hopefully, this will turn the tide for us."

Head to azstarnet.com/ wildcats this evening to watch a video from Kevin O'Neill's weekly press conference.