At the halfway mark of the Pacific-10 Conference schedule, three men’s basketball teams are vying for one coveted spot.
From here on out, the intensity grows, the urgency mounts and the room for error shrinks.
Just three games separate these three teams in the standings, with the winner in the end being rewarded with an extension of their season.
What’s at stake is a spot in the Pac-10 Men’s Basketball Tournament from March 7-9 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. At the end of the conference schedule, only the top eight teams get to participate and compete for an automatic invitation to the NCAA Tournament.
So the race for No. 8 is on, and the three contenders are the three Northwest schools besides Oregon.
Oregon State (3-6) is currently in eighth place after sweeping the Washington schools last weekend, while the Huskies (2-8) are two games ahead of the last place Cougars (0-10).
For the Beavers, it was a weekend where they gained some much-needed confidence after losing their last five league games heading into the road trip. They almost lost to Washington State on Thursday, but some lucky breaks led to the 74-72 win.
And on Saturday, they dominated Washington, 68-53, just two days after the Huskies upended the Ducks.
So Oregon State is believing and is hoping to keep rolling this week against the Los Angeles schools.
“It’s a different Oregon State program,” guard Jimmie Haywood told the Corvallis Gazette-Times. “We came together as a team, and we decided that we ain’t gonna be losing no more.
“We want to win and make it to the Pac-Tournament — and the NCAA Tournament.”
While the Big Dance is indeed a long shot, playing in the Staples Center is certainly not.
“It feels like we’re in the right direction,” said junior center Philip Ricci, who was voted Pac-10 Player of the Week. “We’re setting all our goals right now. Unfortunately, we’d like to have that at the beginning of the season, but that’s the way it’s going.
“But definitely we’re starting on the right track again.”
Still, the Beavers will have to keep this newfound swagger with them throughout the season because the Huskies will be breathing down their necks.
Washington played its best game of the season against Oregon in a 97-92 victory last Thursday. But the Huskies were a completely different team in their loss to the Beavers, leaving the Washington players shaking their heads when trying to comprehend the difference between the two games.
“That is obviously unexplainable,” point guard Curtis Allen told the Seattle Times. “I don’t know what to say about that.”
As for those Cougars, their last win came on Dec. 7, in a 70-67 victory against Texas-Pan American. Since then, it’s been 12 straight losses.
If Washington State is going to make any kind of run at eighth place, it’s going to have to start on Thursday night when the Cougars host the Huskies.
Should the Cougars lose, they’d be three games back of their in-state rival and most likely watching the Pac-10 tourney from Pullman.

Ducks out of polls,

still in bracket
After two weeks of being attached to a ranking, Oregon dropped out of both the writers’ and the coaches’ polls due to their weekend split
in Washington.
But the Ducks only fell one seed in ESPN.com’s weekly “Bracketology,” where the entire NCAA Tournament field
is forecasted.
This week, the Ducks are a sixth seed and are projected to face 11th-seeded Iowa on March 15 in Pittsburgh, Pa.
For those keeping track, there are still 35 more days until Selection Sunday.