And then there were four. After tough weekends in the Bay Area, both Washington schools will more than likely find themselves on the outside looking in when NCAA Tournament bids are announced in two weeks. That leaves UCLA and Arizona as locks for the tournament and some combination of Cal and Stanford for the third, and possibly fourth, spots. Here are the notes from the Pacific 10 Conference:

Cardinal on the wire: After two straight losses to Oregon and to Washington State (the loss to the Cougars was Stanford's first at Maples Pavilion this season), Stanford suddenly found itself facing the real possibility of giving up third place in the Pac-10 to cross-town rival Cal.

Trailing 38-37 early in the second half to a Washington team that had lost five of its last six games however, the Cardinal (17-7, 10-5) woke up, went on an 11-0 run, and quite possibly saved its season with a 71-56 win.

"This was a huge win for us," Cardinal head coach Mike Montgomery said. "Obviously, if we didn't get this one, we were in a tough situation. This was a must."

He's right. The fourth-place team in the conference, which will probably have eight to nine losses, is not guaranteed a spot this year. When the top three conference teams are all ranked in the bottom half of the Associated Press Top 25 poll, and conference teams keep knocking each other off, it's much better to be in third place at season's end.

"After our last loss, we had to refocus and ask ourselves if we really wanted to be in the NCAA Tournament or not," Cardinal guard Brevin Knight said. "We wanted to steer our own destiny."

No O'Bannon: It's tough enough to play at Duke, but UCLA tried it without the services of junior Charles O'Bannon, the Bruins' third-leading scorer and rebounder, in a 85-66 loss Sunday.

UCLA (19-7, 12-2) head coach Jim Harrick benched O'Bannon for the first 24 minutes of the game. Harrick did not say why he benched O'Bannon, but said it had nothing to do with his performance.

As for the Bruins' performance, well, it was the same old, same old. UCLA, the worst team in the conference when it comes to taking care of the ball, turned it over 16 times while forcing just six Blue Devil turnovers.

Still Golden: Despite the one-game suspensions of Jelani Gardner, Tremaine Fowlkes and Prentice MacGruder for violating team rules, Cal (16-8, 10-5) still swept both the Washington schools and solidified its position for a tournament bid.

The three all sat out of Thursday's Washington game, but it didn't matter as Ed Gray poured in 23 points, and Shareef Abdur-Rahim added 16 points and nine rebounds in the 67-56 win.

That victory, and Saturday's 71-67 victory over Washington State put a full two games between the Bay Area schools and Washington, which is slumping after a 13-4 start.