Arizona rivals UCLA, Oregon could be playing well into March

If you watched any of UCLA’s season-opening basketball victory over Damon Stoudamire’s Pacific Tigers, you had to be impressed. I think the Bruins could get to the Final Four. Steve Alford has given control of his offense to dynamic freshman point guard Lonzo Ball, who operates a run-and-shoot offense similar to the Golden State Warriors; incredibly, UCLA took 30 3-pointers and has as much firepower as the Oregon Ducks. On Friday, Ball almost had a triple-double in his college debut, with 19 points, 11 assists and eight rebounds. The Bruins only drew a small crowd — 8,743, though it was closer to 5,000 — but by New Year’s I can picture sellout after sellout at UCLA. The Ducks drew a sellout crowd of 12,364 at Knight Arena for Friday’s opener against Army; it was the largest opening night basketball crowd in UO history in what looks to be one of the top years for Pac-12 basketball in memory. Even ASU drew 7,398 for Friday’s opener against Portland State.

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