Altitude will likely play a key role in Thursday’s West Regional games at The Pit in Albuquerque, favoring the teams that can best deal with the 5,314-foot elevation and have more depth.  Just ask the top-seeded Washington Huskies, who saw vast improvement from their first to second round games after they grew accustomed to the elevation in Boise.   The Huskies failed to cover their first-round match-up with Montana as 20 1/2-point favorites in a 88-77 win but rebounded to crush Pacific 97-79 as a 6-point chalk play.  Head coach Lorenzo Romar also brought his team to Albuquerque a day early on Monday to prepare for the change.  Romar learned his lesson last season when his team trailed by as many as 30 points and failed to cover as a 5-point underdog in a 92-76 defeat at Wyoming (7,200-foot elevation) on Dec. 6, 2004.  

Both Washington and the fourth-seeded Louisville Cardinals still figure to run a lot and could threaten the 161.5-point total despite the altitude, which could see the team with the better bench emerge victorious.  The Huskies seem to have the slight edge there, as they have seven players who average at least 6.4 points per game and are led by 5-9 sparkplug Nate Robinson.   Slowing down Washington will be crucial for the Cardinals, who ranked third nationally in opponents’ field-goal percentage at 38.1 percent.  The Huskies average 86 points per game, ranked second in the country behind North Carolina.  Louisville has surrendered more than 67 points just once in its last six, holding the opposition to 63 points per game over that stretch.