A Two Pack For Thursday

After you're done watching the Gators and Sooners, you can catch the second half of these two key Pac-10 games:

Stanford at Washington
LSU's blowout loss at Utah opens up a spot in next week's bracket, and it very well could be filled by the winner of this game. The Cardinal bounced back nicely from their Arizona State debacle by beating Arizona last time out, and now they get a shot this weekend to pick up a pair of nice road wins. Tonight's game certainly won't be easy, though, against Jon Brockman and a Washington team that has quietly won nine in a row (albeit against some less than stellar competition). The Huskies usually start slow in the Pac-10, but they have a golden opportunity to erase that trend this weekend. A home win here coupled with a home win against a red-hot Cal team on Saturday will give the Pac-10 four bids and could net Washington a single digit seed.

Oregon at Arizona
There are a lot of people trying to figure out how an Arizona team that is so talented could already have five losses and be 0-2 in the Pac-10. The reason's actually pretty simple - the Wildcats aren't allowed to play every game at home. Two more road losses last week dropped Arizona to 0-4 this year away from Tuscon and dropped them for now onto the wrong side of the bubble. They return tonight for what should be a relatively easy weekend series against the Oregon schools - that's assuming Jordan Hill keeps up his stellar play and Chase Budinger snaps out of a four-game, 12-for-50 shooting funk (yikes). If a couple other bubble teams lose, a pair of wins this weekend might be enough to get the Wildcats back in the field. At least until they hit the road again.

Also receiving votes: Minnesota at Iowa, California at Washington State