Talented teams enter Pac-10 Tournament
The Pac-10 usually finds itself down the list when conferences are being evaluated at this time of year.
Not this season.
The Pac-10 tournament starts Wednesday at the Staples Center.
Southern California's Tim Floyd said he couldn't imagine a better seventh-place team in the nation than Washington, prompting Huskies coach Lorenzo Romar to say: "I wouldn't say I disagree. If they had a tournament for all seventh-place teams, hopefully we would hold our own."
Six Pac-10 teams have played in the NCAA tournament only once before — in 2002. Five were chosen on four occasions, most recently in 2003. Three played in 2004, and four were picked in each of the past two years.
Also, seven of the league's 10 teams have at least 18 wins, and those seven went a combined 71-12 against non-conference opponents.
"Hopefully we'll be rewarded for being a very, very tough conference," Kent said. "We've kind of beaten up on each other."
Meanwhile, eighth-seeded California (14-16, 6-12 Pac-10) faces ninth-seeded Oregon State (11-20, 3-15) and seventh-seeded Washington (18-12, 8-10) meets 10th-seeded Arizona State (8-21, 2-16) Wednesday night to begin the tournament.
"I feel like we should be in the (NCAA) tournament — win or lose," said Stanford's Trent Johnson, whose team appears to be the only one of the top six that could be bypassed.
The prevailing sentiment is that UCLA is even better this season, but Floyd said he can see as many as seven teams winning the conference tournament.
Romar said he believes his team has to win the conference tournament championship to earn an NCAA tournament berth.
"Who knows what the committee will do? At this point, we can't rely on anyone else," he said. "We feel like we have to go out and win four, and that's how we're approaching it. You go in, you know the next time you lose, you're probably out of the NCAA tournament."
The Huskies beat USC and UCLA to complete the regular season, but both games were at home, where they won 17 games. Washington's only road victory was a 66-61 triumph at ASU.
