Away in the desert

The Cardinal begins the second half of the conference season on the road playing:

• Arizona State on Thursday, Feb 3 at 5:30 pm Pacific Time
• Arizona on Saturday, Feb 5 at 1:00 pm Pacific Time

Both games will be webcast by Fox Sports Arizona. Look here for the link on gameday. Mike's Sports Bar & Grill will show the webcasts on their TV monitors. Both games will also be broadcast by KZSU.

For a preview of the trip to Arizona, see Nate Adams' story in The Stanford Daily, Stanford prepares for trip to Arizona State.

  Arizona State Sun Devils

The Sun Devils were third in the Pac-10 when we last met, and they still are — hanging on by their fingernails, barely ahead of Cal and USC. This is what they've done since then:

vs Arizona vs Washington State   vs Washington at UCLA at USC

W 75-43 L 65-70 W 52-49 L 60-70 W 62-61

According to Jeff Metcalfe (Arizona Central), ASU doesn't expect to defeat the Cardinal on Thursday — their goal is to be more competitive than in the prior game.

To make matters worse, their top scorer, Dymond Simon, may not be able to play on Thursday. In the USC game last weekend, she ran into a screen and went down hard. She is showing concussion-like symptoms and has not yet been cleared to play.

ASU's win-loss record (13-7 overall, 5-4 conference) places them 3rd in the Pac-10, their RPI (37) places them 3rd, and their strength of schedule (27) places them 4th.

Here are ASU's 2010-11 statistics and their roster.

Arizona Wildcats

Since we last played them, the Wildcats have dropped from 2nd place to 6th place in the Pac-10 as a result of these games:

at Cal at Arizona State vs Washington State   vs Washington at USC at UCLA

L 60-80 L 43-75 W 61-58 W 64-58 L 72-81 L 60-70

In our prior game, the Wildcats lost the battle of the boards 35-50. Their defensive woes have continued since then. Although Ify Ibekwe is still the Pac-10's leading rebounder with 9.4 per game, the Wildcats have been out-rebounded in every one of their last six games by an average margin of 14.

Arizona's win-loss record (13-7 overall, 4-5 conference) places them 6th in the Pac-10, their RPI (61) places them 6th, and their strength of schedule (67) places them 9th.

Here are Arizona's 2010-11 statistics and their roster.