When the Pac-10 men’s basketball schedule reached the turn five weeks ago, picking a favorite was kind of like asking a child to point to the most delicious piece of broccoli on his plate. The oft-criticized conference was stuck in so much parity that each of the 10 teams could make a case for supremacy.
But now that the regular season is over and the conference tournament is set to begin — a play-in game between No. 8 seed Oregon and No. 9 Washington State will take place today — the haves have started to separate from the have-nots.
While the conference still has no team ranked among the nation’s top 25, the obvious favorite is Cal. The Bears (21-9 overall, 13-5 in Pac-10 play) overcame a shaky non-conference performance to win the Pac-10 title and have won seven of eight games heading into the tournament.
But the other eight teams — there are only nine teams in this year’s field because USC is on a one-year probation — have something that Cal is glad to have shed: the motivation of desperation. Second-place Arizona State (22-9, 12-6) and third-place Washington (21-9, 11-7) are still on the proverbial bubble when it comes to NCAA tournament bids, while the other six teams competing in Los Angeles this week won’t go to the Big Dance unless they win this week’s Pac-10 tournament.
“Everyone’s going to play at kind of a desperate mode,” said Stanford coach Johnny Dawkins, whose seventh-seeded Cardinal will face Arizona State on Thursday. “Because of that, you get everyone’s best shot, and that’s what makes the tournament what it is.”
Last year, sixth-place USC earned an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament after upsetting its way to the Pac-10 postseason championship. Two years earlier, Oregon finished in a three-way tie for third in the regular-season standings and went on to win the title.
During Tuesday’s Pac-10 conference call, several coaches made it sound as if this year’s teams were as close as ever.
Oregon State’s Craig Robinson, whose Beavers face UW on Thursday, said it was “open for business for just about anybody; whoever’s shooting well and playing well is going to have an opportunity.”
Added UW coach Lorenzo Romar: “There is not as much of a false hope. ‘Anything can happen, we’d better be ready to go,’ that’s kind of a false hope. I think there are more teams that really feel, legitimately, that they can win it.”
But the regular-season champions have certainly separated themselves from the pack and emerged as the odds-on favorite. Cal has beaten every team in the conference at least once and has won its last four games, each by double digits. After struggling with injuries early in the year, the Bears have gotten healthy and gone 10-3 in their last 13 games. And in Patrick Christopher, Theo Robinson and conference-player-of-the-year Jerome Randle, Cal has the best 1-2-3 punch in the league.
But Arizona State is chomping at the bit for another shot at the Bears, who beat the Sun Devils 11 days ago to move into the driver’s seat atop the Pac-10 standings. And UW has gone 9-2 in its past 11 games while seeing junior Matthew Bryan-Amaning emerge as a legitimate inside presence.
Both teams need a Pac-10 title more desperately than does Cal, which is almost certain to get into the NCAA field regardless of what happens this week. The Bears rose to the top of the conference over the past five weeks, and now they’re hoping not to get knocked off their perch.
As for the rest of the conference? They’re hoping parity returns this week in a big way.
“There are nine of us in it, and any one of us feel like we can win it,” Oregon’s Ernie Kent said, “so it’s just going to make for a very, very competitive tournament.”
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