Roundup: UCLA and Stanford women's hoops in preseason AP top 10

UCLA women’s basketball is No. 8 in the preseason AP Top 25 poll, leading the way of five ranked Pac-12 teams – No. 10 Stanford, No. 11 Oregon, No. 19 Oregon State and No. 20 Cal are also in the mix.

Washington football welcomes old pal Oregon to Seattle this weekend (alright, maybe they’re not “old pals”), and Steve Mims notes that the Ducks will kick the ball to Washington returner Dante Pettis. In fact, Willie Taggart said he will “absolutely” kick to Pettis – we’ll see how smart that turns out to be, as Pettis holds the Pac-12 career record with eight touchdowns on punt returns and is second in the nation with a 20.5-yard-per-return average.

Andrew Greif reports that Oregon quarterback Justin Herbert practiced with the first-team offense on Wednesday, but Willie Taggart would not say whether or not Herbert will play against the Huskies on Saturday.

It is unclear whether Oregon State linebacker Manase Hungalu will play at Cal on Saturday, reports Danny Moran. An Oregon State spokesman said Hungalu is dealing with an illness; he was also cited for violent conduct by the Corvallis Police Department last weekend (no punches were thrown and nobody was arrested).

In case you missed it earlier in the week, Washington State head coach Mike Leach announced that Luke Falk will start at quarterback against Stanford Saturday afternoon. Falk was benched in the first half of the Cougars’ loss at Arizona last weekend.

Stanford running back Bryce Love will probably be a game-time decision for the Washington State game on Saturday, reports Nick Bromberg of Yahoo Sports.

Colorado running back Phillip Lindsay is tearing it up heading into the home stretch of 2017, amassing 725 rushing yards on 5.5 yards per carry in his last four games. Brian Howell has more.

Here’s an Associated Press article telling us that USC has to stop Khalil Tate if it wants to beat Arizona. Winner of this one has first place to itself in the Pac-12 South.

Jeremy Cluff of The Arizona Republic gives us a national survey of Arizona State-Colorado game projections. Pretty much everyone is predicting an Arizona State win, outside of  Bleacher Report's Kerry Miller and SB Nation’s Bill Connelly, who thinks the game will somehow end in a 30-30 tie (it’s not a joke…I think he’s predicting Colorado to win and it’s a typo?).

Rusty Simmons features Cal wide receiver Jordan Veasy, who is coming off a career game against Colorado (seven catches for 111 yards).

Former Arizona men’s basketball standout Aaron Gordon is at the center of the Orlando Magic’s hot start to the season, writes Dan Devine of Yahoo Sports. Gordon is averaging 20.7 points and 8.7 rebounds and has hit two game-winning 3-pointers in the span of a week in helping lead the Magic to a 6-2 record (tied for best in the NBA with the Boston Celtics).

Amy Donaldson of the Deseret News writes about the Utah women’s basketball exhibition opener against Carroll College on Thursday morning. The game will probably be over by the time you read this link, but it’s a good 2017-18 season primer on the Utes.