They hardly resembled the team that Oregon easily handled in December and early January.
The No. 7 Arizona Wildcats won three games in three days in Los Angeles over the weekend to be crowned champions of the Pacific-10 Conference Tournament, which returned for the first time since 1990.
Arizona entered the season with a roster loaded with youth, and head coach Lute Olson said that the inexperience played a large part in the 105-75 and 90-80 losses to the Ducks.
Since those losses, the Wildcats have blossomed, with juniors Jason Gardner and Luke Walton stepping into their leadership roles and freshman Salim Stoudamire playing beyond his years.
Stoudamire, who went to Lake Oswego High, had a career-high 29 points in the Wildcats’ 81-71 victory over USC on Saturday in the Pac-10 Tournament championship game. Olson thought that his team’s three wins would earn Arizona a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, but instead, the Wildcats are a No. 3 seed in the West region.
“I’m sure the thing that made us a three was the two losses to Oregon because Oregon got a two seed,” Olson said Monday. “It’s probably unfortunate that we played them as early as we did with our young team, and then when we played them again we did not have Luke Walton.”
The Ducks, who are ranked 11th in the latest Associated Press poll, received the No. 2 seed in the Midwest and must only beat Montana and the winner of the Wake Forest-Pepperdine game to advance to the Sweet 16.
As a No. 3 seed, though, Arizona will most likely face a dangerous Gonzaga team in the second round, given that the Wildcats get past UC-Santa Barbara. Gonzaga, ranked sixth, qualified as the bracket’s biggest shocker with a No. 6 seed.
“I was surprised,” Olson said. “I thought Gonzaga would be one of the top four seeds in the West. But it shows that when you play in a league where there are not ranked teams, it’s out of your hands.”

And when you do play in a league with a lot of ranked teams, it obviously helps. Four Pac-10 teams were in Monday’s Associated Press top-25 poll (Arizona, Oregon, No. 18 USC and No. 24 Stanford), while unranked California and UCLA joined those four to give the league a strong presence in the NCAA tourney.
Those six teams would have probably been selected for the Big Dance regardless of the results of last weekend’s Pac-10 Tournament, but the overall consensus was that the conference tourney did a lot of good.
“I think it got our confidence going,” Walton said. “It helped our young guys to play in a one-and-done situation where you have to win.”
Even Olson, who has made no secret of his disdain for a league tournament, saw the positive side of the weekend in getting his team some postseason experience. But it still didn’t change his overall viewpoint; he said he thinks if the league’s going to continue with the conference tournament, then it must shorten its schedule.
“Let’s take a look at the athletes and make a decision based on what’s best for them for a change, instead of for the budget,” Olson. “It is ridiculous to go through 21 games in your conference.”

Isn’t it ironic?
Fox Sports Net signs were all around the Staples Center while the network extensively covered the first two days of the tournament.
But the cable channel could not be received at the hotel where the teams and the media stayed at.
“Somebody blew it on that,” Olson said.

Bring on Duke?
This Final Four prediction comes from the Los Angeles Daily News: Duke,Gonzaga, Oregon and Maryland.
As for the championship? The newspaper projects a final score of Duke 96, Oregon 90.