Next: The home stretch

The Cardinal wraps up the regular season at Maples this weekend with games against:

• Washington on Thursday evening at 8:00
• Washington State on Saturday evening at 7:30

Both games will be televised and live-streamed by Pac-12 Networks and broadcast by KZSU Live, with live stats here.

Saturday is also Senior Night, when we say goodbye to Toni, Sara, Chiney and (really, this time) Mikaela. They'll be honored after the game with the official Stanford Athletics ceremony, followed by an informal behind-the-bench session. Note that there won't be a chalk talk before the game.

The middle of the Pac-12 standings is up for grabs this weekend. Stanford stands comfortably at the top, three games ahead of the others with a 15-1 conference record. It's followed by:

• Cal at 12-4.
• Arizona State and Oregon State tied one game back at 11-5.
• Washington, Washington State and USC in a three-way tie two games further back at 9-7.

Cal plays the Washington schools and the Arizonas play the Oregons (the ASU/OSU game is in Corvallis on Sunday afternoon at 2:00).

At stake for the six teams in the middle is an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament and a first-round bye in the Pac-12 tournament.

At stake for Stanford this weekend is pride and confidence going into postseason play.

You probably remember that UW beat the Cardinal and that WSU came uncomfortably close to doing so three weeks ago. Since then, both of the Washington teams have beaten Colorado, Utah and Oregon and lost to Oregon State.

Since then, the Cardinal has, I'm sure, spent time studying the videos of those games in Washington and practicing winning strategies.