There could be plenty of basketball left for Arizona and Solomon Hill after Senior Day. Photo by Casey Sapio-USA TODAY Sports
The Arizona Wildcats stayed at No. 18 this week in the final AP poll of the regular season.
Arizona, coming off a win over Arizona State, is the highest-ranked Pac-12 team but will be the fourth seed in the conference tournament that begins Wednesday. Top-seeded UCLA is ranked 21st. Oregon fell from 19th to out of the poll after two losses last week.
The Wildcats, who were left off six of 65 AP ballots last week, appeared on all but two ballots this week. Their highest ranking was No. 10 (see the full list of voters here).
What’s important now is for the Cats to earn the highest seed possible for the NCAA Tournament and stay in the West region.
Being the 18th-best team translates to a five seed in the NCAAs, although at least one bracket projection — from Jerry Palm of CBSSports.com — has Arizona as a No. 3 seed. Joe Lunardi of ESPN.com puts UA as a No. 5 seed for now.
Arizona could have as few as two games left this season, or as many as nine.
Senior Solomon Hill was asked about his emotions on Senior Day on Saturday.
“When people said, ‘Are you going to cry or anything like that, I was like, ‘No, it’s not my last game, so I don’t think it’s anything to cry about,’” Hill said. “We have a lot more basketball to go.”