The Arizona Wildcats will play a first-round game, possibly in the No. 8 vs. No. 9 Pac-12 Tournament matchup at noon Wednesday in Las Vegas regardless of whether they beat ASU on Saturday in their regular-season finale at McKale Center.
What also could be daunting: Their most likely first-round opponent is USC, which hammered the Wildcats 80-57 on Jan. 24 in Los Angeles. The winner of that 8-9 game would face No. 1 seed Washington in Thursday's quarterfinals.
Seven teams all remain within a game of each other in the Pac-12 standings heading into the final round of games Saturday, with four of them tied for the fourth spot at 9-8.
However, Arizona is a game behind that group and, even if the Wildcats beat ASU and many other teams lose to tie them at 9-9, UA wouldn't fare well in tiebreakers because it has lost to all the teams above them except Oregon State.
SCOUTING REPORT: Arizona Wildcats vs. ASU Sun Devils
Under the Pac-12 tiebreaker formula, multiple-team ties are settled by comparing every team's record within the group and then using head to head results if there are two teams with the best record.
If more than two have the best record, then all teams are compared on their records against the top team in the standings (i.e., who beat Washington, then ASU, etc.), and moving down until the tie is settled.)
As of how the standings are right now, UA would hold the No. 9 seed and play No. 8 USC in that first game. Both teams are now 8-9 but USC owns the tiebreaker because it beat the Wildcats.
But of course there are still several different ways it could play out during Saturday's game; most of them still point to UA in the 8-9 game.
Here's one of the more likely scenarios if UA beats ASU: Utah beats UCLA, Colorado beats USC, Washington beats Oregon, OSU beats WSU.
Then:
No. 1 Washington, 16-2
No. 2 ASU, 11-7 (ASU was 1-1 vs Utah but beat Washington)
No. 3 Utah, 11-7
No. 4 OSU, 10-8 (Beavers beat CU in only head-to-head game)
No. 5 Colorado, 10-8
No. 6 UCLA, 9-9 (Bruins 3-0 collectively against Oregon and UA)
No. 7 Oregon, 9-9
No. 8 Arizona, 9-9
No. 9 USC, 8-10 (USC 1-1 vs Stanford head-to-head but 1-0 against ASU, while Stanford 1-1 vs ASU, and neither team beat Utah.)
No. 10 Stanford, 8-10
No. 11 WSU, 4-14
No. 12 Cal, 3-15
If ASU beats UA and the rest of the favorites win as listed above, UA would be the No. 9 seed but would still play USC, which would be a No. 8 seed in that case.
Actually, UA would be No. 9 if it loses to ASU, in any scenario, unable to move down to No. 10 because it beat Stanford twice.
If UA and Stanford tie at 8-10, UA would be No. 9 because it has beaten Stanford twice. If USC also drops to 8-10 by losing to Colorado, the Trojans would be No. 8 and UA No. 9 because both UA and USC would be 2-1 in that three-team group but USC beat UA in their only head-to-head meeting.
Even in one unlikely scenario that would appear to favor the Wildcats, UA still can't move out of the 8-9 game:
If UA beats ASU, Oregon beats Washington, Oregon State beats WSU, Utah beats UCLA and USC beats Colorado, then:
No. 3 Utah, 11-7
No. 4 Oregon, 10-8
OSU, UCLA, USC, UA and Colorado are all at 9-9. But OSU and Colorado have the best records within that group at 4-3, with OSU winning the tiebreaker between them.
But even though UA was third in that group at 3-3, which might appear to give them the No. 7 seed, the tiebreaker rules say that the remaining teams start the whole process over again. In that case, UA would get No. 9 because it lost to both USC and UCLA (though the Wildcats would face UCLA in that case because USC beat ASU and would claim No. 7, bumping UCLA to No. 8.)
The 8-9 game will be on Pac-12 Networks on Wednesday at noon Arizona time (The game starts at noon Pacific but Daylight Savings Time will have kicked in by then). The winner will face Washington at noon Thursday.
Here's the blank Pac-12 Tournament bracket.
