Arizona coach Lute Olson said it will take depth to win this weekend’s Pacific-10 Conference Tournament.
Stanford’s Mike Montgomery said the team that can keep its energy will win. Arizona State’s Rob Evans said that whichever team avoids injury could have the best shot.
They’re all wrong. All it takes is three wins over three days, against some of the most evenly-matched competition in the entire country.
Three wins. Three days.
Whichever team can do that will walk into the NCAA Tournament as the Pac-10’s automatic representative.
Four of the eight teams will be eliminated today in first-round action. Two more will be axed in the semifinals Friday.
Here’s a rundown of today’s games, by start time. All games will be televised on Fox Sports Net.

No. 1 Oregon vs.

No. 8 Washington, 1 p.m.
Pac-10 officials couldn’t have asked for a better opening-round game between the top and bottom seeds. Washington has a dismal 11-17 season record, 5-13 in the Pac-10. Oregon won its first outright Pac-10 title since 1939 by a full two games and holds a 14-4 conference record.
But one of those four losses came at the hands of the Huskies. Over the past three years, the Ducks and Huskies have split the series 3-3.
Get ready for the 2002 Northwest Battle, round three.
Washington always manages to have one loaded weapon reserved for the Ducks, and this season that weapon is sophomore forward Doug Wrenn. The transfer from the Connecticut notched 32 points in the Huskies’ 97-92 win in January, then scored 27 in Oregon’s 90-84 win in Eugene in February.
But other than Wrenn, Washington has little offense. Center David Dixon averages 8.3 points and 7.7 rebounds per game. Forward Grant Leep averages 7.8 points per contest. Meanwhile, Oregon has three starters averaging more than 15 points per game.

No. 4 USC vs.

No. 5 Stanford, 3:30 p.m.
The big-name players on the Trojan and Cardinal teams abound. Casey Jacobsen; Sam Clancy; Curtis Borchardt. But those big names have supporting casts, which should make this game a classic.
USC has gotten the best of Stanford in the series this season. The Trojans managed a 90-82 win in Los Angeles in January, then blew out the Cardinal, 77-58 at Stanford’s Maples Pavilion.
Clancy led the Trojan charge in both contests. The senior All-American candidate scored 24 points and grabbed 13 rebounds in the first matchup, then scored 17 points and added 11 rebounds in the second game.
That second USC-Stanford game was followed by the Cardinal’s 95-92 loss at home to UCLA. After dropping those two games, Stanford could have been in danger of heading to the NIT, but the Cardinal recovered and beat Arizona and Arizona State on the road to solidify their NCAA Tournament chances.
Now the Cardinal, like the Trojans, will be looking to improve their NCAA seeding by winning in the Pac-10 Tournament. The winner of the game will face the winner of the Oregon-Washington matchup Friday.

No. 2 Arizona v.

No. 7 Arizona State, 6:45 p.m.
This is a Duel in the Desert — if Los Angeles is a desert.
Arizona and Arizona State will square off in a battle of youth versus experience, and the game may come down to who wants it more.
So who wants it more? Probably the Sun Devils, who need to win the conference tournament in order to punch a ticket to the Big Dance. Arizona is riding the tide of a 19-9 regular season that included enough wins against top-25 teams to fill an ocean liner, essentially cementing a high NCAA Tournament seed for the Wildcats.
Arizona also has a coach, Olson, who is vocally opposed to the Pac-10 Tournament. Olson says that, among other things, the tournament is too brief and tiring, and too hard on academics.
Arizona State has already had success in the Duel of the Desert this season. The Sun Devils won on their home floor, 88-72, then played the Wildcats to a close
83-75 loss in Tucson, in a game that Arizona State led late in the second half.
Part of the Sun Devils’ success against the Wildcats could be due to Arizona State’s depth and experience matching up with Arizona’s youth and inexperience. The Sun Devils have three starters averaging more than 12 points per game but also have four other players averaging more than five points. Five of those seven players are juniors or seniors.
The Arizona schools will take their desert show to Los Angeles tonight at approximately 6:45. The time could change if other games run longer than expected.

No. 3 California v.

No. 6 UCLA, 9 p.m.
By 9 tonight, the floor of the Staples Center will have seen a lot of good basketball. But California and UCLA should light up the building once more, especially if all the Bruin fans in Los Angeles come to support their team.
But the Golden Bears have some factors in their favor as well. In the teams’ last meeting, California destroyed UCLA in Berkeley, 69-51. The Golden Bears are still looking for national respect even after a 21-7 regular season, and they need a good conference tournament showing to jump to a high NCAA Tournament seed.
The Bruins have two of the components necessary for a deep conference tournament run: experience and depth. UCLA coach Steve Lavin starts an all junior-senior lineup except for freshman guard Cedric Bozeman. The Bruins will also be looking to improve their NCAA seed with conference tournament wins, after finishing 11-7 in Pac-10 play.
The winner of the UCLA-California game will face the winner of Arizona-Arizona State on Friday.