1. California: It’s a mega-huge game for the Bears against Washington on Thursday, because a win would give them two games of separation over the Huskies and would show how far they’ve come since losing to the UW by 15 in Seattle earlier this year. But they’d still have those four other second-place teams to deal with.

2. Washington: The Huskies easily had the best weekend of any of the teams occupying the second-place logjam, sweeping Arizona and Arizona State to propel themselves right back into the thick of the race. It means nothing if they can’t win on the road, though. But if they can find a way to beat Cal, you have to think that they really might be figuring things out at the right time.

3. *USC: The Trojans’ main function now is playing spoiler for the six other teams vying for the conference title. They did a good job of it, knocking off Cal to bring the race that much closer. Too bad they don’t have anything to play for other than that.

4. Arizona State: You had to figure that the Huskies would solve the zone at some point. They made things look easy the second time around against the Sun Devils, who just don’t have enough weapons to hold off more athletic teams. Defense can’t bail you out every time.

5. UCLA: Give Ben Howland credit. The Bruins keep finding ways to win games and stay in the race. But they’ve already lost too many games to get an at-large bid into the tournament, so you have to think that their focus is going to be on the Pac-10 tournament at this point.

6. Arizona: The Wildcats may have done more to hurt themselves than any other team in the country last week. Not only were they swept by the Washington schools, but they also self-imposed sanctions for recruiting violations committed by former coach Lute Olson. Kiss that tournament streak goodbye.

7. Washington State: The Cougars have played just well enough to make you think that they could possibly make a run but not well enough to really believe that they will. Klay Thompson isn’t half the player everyone thought he was when he was dropping 30 a game on the Sisters of the Poor.

8. Oregon State: The Beavers still suck but not as badly as they did, say, two months ago. Gotta love the sweep of Oregon.

9. Stanford: The only reason to watch the Cardinal play is to see if Landry Fields has a huge game. It’s been two consecutive years now with no tournament aspirations.

10. Oregon: How the hell did the Huskies lose to these guys? The UW gave up 90 points to the same team that struggled to score 40 against OSU. Unreal.

Reach Sports Editor Christian Caple at sports@dailyuw.com.