Crunch time begins this week

Tanith L. Balaban Arizona Daily Wildcat Washington freshman point guard Senque Carey (3) goes up for a shot against the Wildcats Jan. 9 at McKale Center. Carey will lead the Huskies against the Stanford Cardinal tomorrow at Washington. If the Huskies win, the Pac-10 race would be open for any one of four teams to win, including UCLA and Arizona.

The Huskies stand at 15-8 overall, 8-5 in the Pac-10 and already have wins over two of the top three teams in the conference in UCLA and Arizona. But UW lost by 13 to Oregon Saturday and also has losses to Boise State and Gonzaga on its record.

"There are only five games left and we're coming off a loss," Bender said. "We have to come back and play much better Thursday night."

The Huskies could consider themselves lucky to be in the race at all considering they started the conference season with three consecutive losses. They also lost starting point guard Dan Dickau to a broken foot early in the season.

Pac-10 Standings through Jan. 15 Pac-10 Overall Stanford 10-2 20-5 Arizona 9-3 18-4 UCLA 8-5 17-7 Washington 8-5 15-8 Oregon State 6-7 12-10 California 5-7 10-3 Arizona State 5-7 13-11 Oregon 5-8 13-9 USC 4-9 12-10 WSU 3-10 9-15 Wednesday USC at UCLA, 8:30 p.m. Thursday California at Washington State, 8:05 p.m. Stanford at Washington, 8:30 p.m. (FSN) Oregon State at Arizona, 6:30 p.m. (KTTU) Oregon at Arizona State, 6:30 p.m. Saturday California at Washington, 4 p.m.(FSN) Stanford at Washington State, 8 p.m. Oregon at Arizona, 1:00 p.m. (KTTU) Oregon State at Arizona State, 2 p.m. Sunday Syracuse at UCLA, 1:30 p.m. (ABC)

Washington's reemergence can be traced to 7-foot center Todd MacCulloch, who averages 19.1 points and 11.5 rebounds per game and is hitting 68 percent of his shots, and Dickau's replacement, freshman Senque Carey.

Carey, while only scoring 13.5 points per game in conference, has been a steady compliment to MacCulloch and the two other Husky stars in Deon Luton and Donald Watts.

"What Senque has done for us is give us another scorer. It makes us harder to defend," Bender said. "Hopefully in the last five games, he'll continue to be as consistent."

Stanford, in the mean time, has lost three of its past six games and the backcourt has been the primary cause with poor outside shooting. The Cardinal have hit only 37 percent of its shots from the floor over the past five games.

Another problem for the Cardinal is a lack of depth, an aspect of the team that was considered a strength in the preseason.

But after losing Ryan Mendez and Jason Collins, Stanford's bench has been trimmed to just three players who can contribute offensively with Mike McDonald, Jarron Collins and David Mosely.

Mendez had been expected back this season after injuring his knee, but his progress has been slow and Stanford head coach Mike Montgomery isn't sure anymore if the junior forward will be back at all this year.

"I don't think we'll get Ryan back," Montgomery said. "He hasn't practiced since the first day he sat out. The depth we started off with was a big advantage. We just don't have that luxury anymore."

Return of the Quack Attack

Pac-10 Leaders Scoring Terry, Jason, Ariz 22.0 House, Eddie, ASU 19.6 MacCulloch, Todd, UW 19.1 Lazor, Bobby, ASU 18.0 Batiste, Mike, ASU 16.8 Rebounding MacCulloch, Todd, UW 11.5 Bramlett, A.J., Ariz 9.5 Lampley, Sean, Cal 9.0 Wright, Michael, Ariz 8.8 Lazor, Bobby, ASU 8.6 Assists Terry, Jason, Ariz 5.55 Davis, Baron, UCLA 5.05 Granville, Brandon, USC 4.91 Lee, Arthur, Stan 4.76 Wright, Darius, Ore 4.73 Field Goal Percentage MacCulloch, Todd, UW .680 Madsen, Mark, Stan .606 Miller, Eddie, WSU .571 Heide, Jason, OSU .564 Wright, Michael, Ariz .563

After languishing at the bottom of the standings for a majority of the season, Oregon has quietly pulled itself back to respectability with wins over Southern Cal, Washington State and Washington.

Going into this weekend's games against Arizona State tomorrow and Arizona Saturday, the Ducks are still in eighth place in the Pac-10 but stand only one game behind Oregon State for fifth place.

With an overall record of 13-9, Oregon would probably have to win four of their last five games to get on the bubble for the NCAA Tournament. After the road games against ASU and UA, the Ducks finish with three in a row at home against Oregon State, Stanford and California.

Oregon junior guard Darius Wright won the conference player of the week award after averaging 18 points, four rebounds and 3.5 assists per game in the weekend sweep of the Washington schools.

Pac-10 search for respect heating up

While Arizona, Stanford and UCLA are all assured bids to the NCAA Tournament, league coaches are arguing that at least two more teams from the Pac-10 should be invited to the Big Dance.

While Washington is a prime candidate for the fourth conference representative, it will take a hot streak by one of the next four teams in the standings to get the votes from the NCAA selection committee.

California has the best overall record at 14-8, including wins over UCLA, North Carolina and Rhode Island. The Bears are only 5-7 in conference, though, and will play four of their last six games on the road. The two home games are against Arizona and Arizona State.

Like California, ASU is 5-7 in conference and will need at least four wins over the last six games to impress the selection committee. After hosting the Oregon schools this weekend, the Sun Devils will go to the Bay Area before returning home to finish with USC and UCLA.

At 12-10, Oregon State still has games at Arizona tomorrow, at Arizona State Saturday, then at Oregon and at home against California and Stanford to finish the year.

The Beavers have been nearly unbeatable at home at 11-1, but have gone 0-6 in conference on the road.

OSU head coach Eddie Payne still believes, though, that if the Beavers can win four of their last five, they should be in good shape.

"If we can get to 10-8 (in conference) that would be great," Payne said. "It would certainly merit an NCAA bid."

Seth Doria can be reached at Seth.Doria@wildcat.arizona.edu.