Every year, the Pac-12 Tournament offers something for just about every team.
For some, it’s the chance to improve an NCAA Tournament seeding or geographic placement. For others it’s the chance to get off the NCAA bubble with a win or two.
And for otherwise unqualified teams, there’s always that fanciful hope of stealing the automatic bid by winning the whole thing, which actually happens every so often, as Oregon State did last season en route to its improbable Elite Eight run.
Except the Arizona Wildcats have none of these motivations.
Sure, of course, their fans will have fun, expected to rock T-Mobile Arena in “McKale North” fashion really for the first time in four years, since the Wildcats lost their first-round game in 2019, only played a first-round game in 2020 before COVID-19 hit and didn’t play at all last season because the school opted to self-sanction out of the postseason.
But at 28-3 overall after winning the Pac-12 regular-season title by three games, Arizona doesn’t need to worry about getting an auto bid or polishing up its résumé.
In fact, the Wildcats may not even be able to improve their NCAA Tournament seed at all: They’ll most likely be a No. 1 seed even with a loss Thursday to either ASU or Stanford, who will play each other Wednesday in a first-round game for the right to play the Wildcats in the quarterfinals.
The Wildcats don’t need to care. But they might want to.
Here are five reasons why:
1. They’re postseason rookies
Junior center Christian Koloko is the only current Wildcat to have played in a Pac-12 Tournament game, logging 13 minutes in UA’s 2020 win over Washington before COVID-19 concerns canceled the rest of the postseason. And reserve center Oumar Ballo is the only Wildcat to have played in an NCAA Tournament game, doing so only as a deep reserve for Gonzaga last season when the Bulldogs advanced to the title game.
The returning Wildcats might have qualified for NCAA Tournament play last season — they were 17-9 at the end of the COVID-shortened regular season — but the school banned itself from postseason play.
So as much as UA coach Tommy Lloyd likes to say the Wildcats need to act like they’ve been there before, they haven’t. But they will be now, in a do-or-die format that, for them, really isn’t that.
“It’s pretty cool to be able to win the Pac-12 Tournament and I think it’s an opportunity to play in a tournament environment, especially for a team that didn’t have that last year,” Pac-12 Networks analyst Matt Muehlebach said. “It’s an opportunity just to understand what it’s like, get the neutral court feeling, the elimination-tournament feeling and just grow as a team.”
Lloyd said he was looking forward to seeing how exactly the Wildcats react, knowing they can afford to lose if they happen to. If so, they can pick themselves up and try again next week in the NCAA Tournament.
It’s pressure, with training wheels.
“Obviously the objective would be to try to go win the whole thing. That’s what you’re always trying to do,” Lloyd said during his radio show Monday. “But if we fall short for whatever reason, hopefully it’ll be a great, intense dress rehearsal to prepare us for the for the NCAA Tournament. That’s how we’re going to approach it and I have a sneaking suspicion that our guys will be all right.”
2. Their side of the bracket is compelling
For its opening game in Thursday’s quarterfinal, Arizona will face Stanford or ASU, two of the most polar-opposite teams entering the tournament. ASU has won seven of its last eight games, and Stanford has lost five of seven.
Yet it’s not a gimme that the Sun Devils win this one. They split their regular-season series with Stanford.
“You probably have the hottest team and one of the coldest teams, but that’s why we love the tournament,” Muehlebach said, “because anything can happen and oftentimes does.”
Arizona swept both teams in the regular season but had tense moments against each. Also, there’s always that theory that it can be particularly hard to beat somebody three times in a row, although Lloyd indicated he’s not concerned about that one.
“I’d much rather try to beat a team three times than try to win the first one the third time, so you take that for what it’s worth,” Lloyd said. “it’s just the next game.”
If Arizona wins that quarterfinal game, the Wildcats will face either Colorado, Oregon or Oregon State in Friday’s semifinals.
All could be of particular interest.
Colorado handed the Wildcats their worst loss of the season just two weeks ago, pulling off a 79-63 win in Boulder after UA won 76-55 on Jan. 13 at McKale Center.
Oregon State rode last season’s surprising wave from the Pac-12 Tournament all the way into the NCAA Elite Eight, while Oregon has a long history of making deep runs in the Pac-12 Tournament, having reached the championship game five of eight times since the event moved to Las Vegas in 2013, with three titles.
This season, the Ducks have also underachieved relative to expectations, with its usual cast of talented transfers failing to mesh, but the lure of an auto bid can melt away chemistry issues for a week.
Oregon also gave Arizona a scare on Feb. 19 in McKale Center, playing a back-and-forth game that the Wildcats won just 84-81.
3. The Bruins could be waiting
If Arizona gets all the way to the championship Saturday, the team that was supposed to run away with the Pac-12 could be there with the intention of making up for some things.
After underachieving due to a rash of injuries and COVID-19 issues, the Bruins are starting to look more like the team that returned nearly everyone from the Final Four appearance last season.
They have won six of seven games, finally snapping a five-game losing streak to USC, and also happen to own a 16-point win over Arizona.
“I think UCLA is an interesting storyline in that they haven’t been healthy and it feels like they’re getting healthy,” Muehlebach said. “I think (Jaime) Jaquez is fine. I think (Tyger) Campbell’s fine now. I think (Cody) Riley’s fine now.
“I think this is going to be a great opportunity for them to kind of get everybody healthy, play three games under the lights and then make another run. They still have an incredibly dangerous team.”
4. Kriisa will be fired up
Kerr Kriisa, the UA’s swaggy point guard from Estonia, always plays with a chip on his shoulder. So just imagine how he might feel this week after being the only one of UA’s starters not named to any of the Pac-12’s postseason awards or honor-roll teams.
“LMAO,” Kriisa tweeted Tuesday, 59 minutes after the awards were announced.
While it’s not exactly clear that Kerr’s tweet was referencing the awards, it is pretty likely that he’s aware of them. Maybe he’ll incorporate that thought into his goals for the week, which might include, say ... leading his team to another Pac-12 trophy.
“Listen, Kerr’s my point guard,” Lloyd said. “To me, he’s very deserving to be on this all-conference list. And the one thing we all know about Kerr is I don’t think it takes much to motivate him. So he’ll respond great from this.”
5. Winning is fun
Less than four months ago, the Wildcats appeared at T-Mobile Arena to beat then No. 4-ranked Michigan for the championship of something known as the “Main Event,” after which the Wildcats celebrated at midcourt. Koloko was given a championship belt as the event’s MVP.
It was their first signal to the college basketball world that they were for real, that they were capable of playing well beyond the team that was unranked entering the season and picked to finish fourth in the Pac-12 race.
Those expectations have changed, but Lloyd hopes the Wildcats have not. He’s still looking for that aggressive, fun-loving, pass-happy team they have been all season. The one that still wants to prove everyone wrong, and to have a good time doing it.
Maybe that’s what the Wildcats have to accomplish this weekend.
“You always want to be the most excited team to play and, and there’s nothing wrong with having a little chip on your shoulder,” Lloyd said. “We have that chip in spades with some certain guys, and basketball is a game that’s played better when it’s played with emotion.
“I’m always trying to remind our guys that you have to walk that fine line and keep your emotion in check. But having that fire in your eyes and something burning in your belly, there’s nothing wrong with that at all.”
