Despite what you may have heard, the Pac-10 will be getting a basketball team in the NCAA tournament this year. That automatic bid will be earned by one very excited team this week.

It’s not going to be Arizona, right? No way a lowly 4-seed wins the tournament…right?

Did you know, since the Pac-10 tournament returned in 2002, a team seeded 4 or worse has won the tournament three times, or just as often as the #1 team has won?

#5 Oregon in 2003, #4 Oregon in 2007, and #6 USC last year. It can be done. It’s just a matter of who’s going to do it.

Here comes TWIT-Pac, Staples style:

Wed. Mar. 10 (all times Arizona/Mountain)

Game 1

#8 Oregon

#9 WSU

9:10 p.m.

FSN

Thu. Mar. 11

Game 2	#4 ARIZONA	#5 UCLA	1:10 p.m.	FSN
Game 3	#1 Cal	Game 1 winner	3:40 p.m.	FSN
Game 4	#2 ASU	#7 Stanford	7:10 p.m.	FSN
Game 5	#3 Washington	#6 OSU	8:40 p.m.	FSN

Fri. Mar. 12

Game 6	Game 2 winner	Game 3 winner	7:18 p.m.	FSN
Game 7	Game 4 winner	Game 5 winner	9:40 p.m.	FSN

Sat. Mar. 13

Game 8	Game 6 winner	Game 7 winner	4:10 p.m.	CBS

Wed. Mar. 10
#8 Oregon (15-15 / 7-11) vs. #9 WSU (16-14 / 6-12)
With Ernie Kent getting fired is Mike Dunlap going to coach the Ducks, or did he turn that down too?

Thu. Mar. 11
#4 ARIZONA (16-14 / 10-8) vs. #5 UCLA (13-17 / 8-10)
Remember in 2004 when the Cats lost twice to Washington in the regular season and then played a third time in the Pac-10 tournament? Yeah, we lost again. The UA is looking to be the three-peting team this year.

#1 Cal (21-9 / 13-5) vs. the Oregon/WSU winner
Mike Montgomery won one Pac-10 tournament while at Stanford, in 2004 when he was the #1 seed.

#2 ASU (22-9 / 12-6) vs. #7 Stanford (13-17 / 7-11)
The Devils finished second in this tournament last year, playing as the 4-seed.

#3 Washington (21-9 / 11-7) vs. #6 OSU (14-16 / 8-10)
Do the Beavers have one last stink attack in them?

‘Tis the season to survive and advance. Win on Thursday and the dream lives on.

Streak or die.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 at 6:00 AM and is filed under Sports. Tags for this post: Basketball, Beaver-stink, TWIT-Pac, UCLA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.