Big road trip to Stanford

for the second consecutive game, a team with a cool mascot.

there are lots of people talking up this as an opportunity for a "program-changing win." i'm not so sure about that. it's not that i think NU will lose, but more so that if they win, how good of a win will it be? the Cardinal sits at 6-0 but every win has been over a garbage team. in fact, no team in the country has played less games than Stanford.

coming into the seeason, Blue Ribbon College Sports projected Stanford to finish with 17 wins with a 6-12 conference record. both Athlon and ESPN the Magazine picked them 9th in conference, ahead of only Oregon State. in collegehoopsnet's preseason national rankings, Stanford was 94 (NU was 128). clearly, expectations were not high for this team after losing their coach and two huge Disney fans.

that said, however, any time NU can pick up a road win is huge for the team's confidence. it will just be a little tough for many fans to follow the action, since apparently the Tribune Company wasn't kidding when it declared for bankruptcy. as they did with the Brown game, WGN is skipping the plane ride and not sending any announcers to Palo Alto, so the game's only broadcasts will be WNUR (and AM 860 in CA).