Roundup: Basketball starts, full football slate

Ready for the busiest and most fun time of the year? Men’s and women’s basketball start their regular seasons Friday, while we still have nearly another two months of college football (not to mention another month of women’s volleyball and three-ish weeks of men’s and women’s soccer and men’s water polo, for starters). To partly celebrate this, Colorado announced that fans with tickets to Friday night’s football game against USC (6 p.m. PT/7 p.m. MT, ESPN2) can come early to watch the men’s basketball team play No. 7 Iowa State (2 p.m. PT/3 p.m. MT, ESPN2) inside the Balch Fieldhouse beer garden.

Conquest Chronicles crunches some numbers and gives us an advanced stats preview of USC-Colorado.

As we turn our attention to Saturday, Stanford can clinch the Pac-12 North win a win against Oregon (4:30 p.m. PT, FOX). David Lombardi gives us five things to watch in the Stanford-Oregon game.

We know the Stanford-Oregon game is a pretty big deal on Saturday, but you know what else is a big deal? The Pac-12 announcing that Stanford men’s basketball will play Harvard in the 2016 Pac-12 China Game (November 11 at 7 p.m. PT on ESPN, so get your DVRs ready 364 days in advance).

Kevin Gemmell lets us know that Washington and Arizona State are fighting to keep their bowl streaks alive when they match wits in Tempe (12 p.m. PT/1 p.m. MT, Pac-12 Networks). ASU has gone to four straight bowl games, while U-Dub has five consecutive postseason appearances under its belt. Both of these 4-5 teams need to go 2-1 in their final three to get to bowl eligibility. Also, don't forget that Washington men's basketball plays in the Pac-12 China Game against Texas Friday night (7 p.m., ESPN).

As has become customary in the link roundup, here’s Doug Haller’s Washington-Arizona State scouting report and prediction. He has the Sun Devils holding off the Dawgs 23-20.

Utah plays its regular season road finale at Arizona with hopes of continuing to control its own destiny (7 p.m. PT/8 p.m. MT, FOX Sports 1), and Chantel Jennings notes that Utah center Siaosi Aiono will snap left-handed against Arizona due to an injured right hand (his strong hand).

Arizona men’s basketball opens this year with some mystery surrounding it, in the words of the Arizona Daily Star’s Bruce Pascoe. The Wildcats open the season Friday night against Pacific (6:30 p.m. PT/7:30 p.m. MT, Pac-12 Arizona).

Jeff Faraudo tells us that Cal football aims to become bowl eligible against Oregon State on Saturday in Berkeley (7:30 p.m. PT, Pac-12 Networks). The Golden Bears have lost four straight after a 5-0 start.

Let’s read the latest entry in defensive end Lavonte Barnett’s Oregon State football diary, courtesy of The Oregonian/OregonLive. In it, he writes, “a season like this builds character and character shows in times like these.”

UCLA-Washington State caps off the night (7:45 p.m., ESPN), and UCLA will be wearing matte black helmets that honor the Navy SEALs. They look pretty dope.

In case you haven’t seen him play, Wazzu fan, Josh Rosen is as good as the hype, notes faithful WSU beat reporter Jacob Thorpe.