• With the Stanford Cardinal, the nation’s No. 1 team, making the trip to Tucson on Sunday, some might think that that’s where the Arizona volleyball team is focusing this week. Not so fast – No. 8 Cal will be in Tucson on Friday night, too. Senior Paige Weber said that the most challenging thing about Pacific 10 Conference play, which opens this weekend, is that the team spends the entire week preparing for the Friday night game and only a day for the Saturday game.

• The good news for Arizona is that neither team is overly tricky with what they are trying to do — they are just very, very good at it. Something that might help the Wildcats is that they face a similar style every day in practice. All three teams on the court this weekend are pretty predictable in what they do, it’s just up to the defense to stop it.

• The bad news for Cal is that Arizona has defeated it at McKale Center during its last two trips to Tucson, and took Stanford to the fifth set last year. So neither team will take UA for granted — and Cal might have the revenge factor working in its favor.

• Even though the team is downplaying the fact that they’re hosting two top-10 teams this weekend, there has to be some sense that they have the opportunity to make a huge statement.

• Slow starts are something that has plagued Arizona so far this season. Both of the Wildcats’ losses have been in the first match of a tournament, but they know that if they start slow this weekend, they’ll lose.

• With middle blocker Tarryn Luafalemana back from her foot injury, that gives head coach Dave Rubio another body to rotate in the middle. Since Luafalemana is going to be a mainstay in the rotation — assuming she is healthy — that means Rubio will have some tweaking to do in order to find room for her on the court. Finding room for Luafalemana might not be that difficult. Rubio told said that Maddie Lozano — who has started at middle blocker all season — wasn’t even recruited at the position. Rubio and his staff originally intended to redshirt Lozano, but had to play her out of necessity.

• Now, they are talking about the importance of little things, like recognizing offensive and defensive sets. This gives the impression that they are starting to focus on what separates good teams from great ones.

— Alex Williams