Pac-10 teams head to the NCAA Tournament

Despite what has been called a down year for the conference, the Pac-10 sends four teams to the NCAA Tournament.

Arizona (5 seed), Washington (7), UCLA (7) and USC (12) are all representing the “Conference of Champions” in March Madness.

Regular season Pac-10 champion Arizona earned the highest seed and will take on 12^th seeded Memphis out of Conference USA. A perennial powerhouse, Memphis has fallen on slightly lower times the past few seasons. However, the young and talented team will look to be this year’s annual 12^th seeded Cinderella of the first round. Arizona counters with likely lottery pick Derrick Williams, the 2011 Pac-10 Player of the Year. Should the Wildcats hold serve and get past Memphis, they will play the winner of the Texas-Oakland game.

In the East bracket, Washington takes on Georgia out of the Southeastern Conference. A bit of a surprise to even make the tournament, Georgia comes into March Madness fresh off a loss to tournament snub Alabama. On the other hand, Washington is playing arguably its best basketball of the season after winning the Pac-10 Tournament. UW took out rival Washington State in a close game in the first round before thrashing Oregon in round two. In the championship game, freshmen C.J. Wilcox and Terrence Ross stepped up from downtown and Isaiah Thomas hit a buzzer beater to key an overtime victory. The winner of the UW-Georgia game earns the right to take on the winner of North Carolina-Long Island in North Carolina.

UCLA heads into the tournament after a disastrous showing in the Pac-10 Tournament. The regular season conference runner-ups never got out of the starting blocks against Oregon. But the Bruins received an at-large bid nonetheless and now hope to rediscover their groove against first round opponent Michigan State. The Tom Izzo-led Spartans are always a dangerous team in March, but this season has not gone as expected for the men from East Lansing, Mich. Regardless, the fact that two of college basketball’s most storied programs meet in a first-round 7-10 matchup is a scintillating story in and of itself.

Finally, USC just snuck into the Tournament in the first year of the “first four.” The play-in game gives the Trojans the opportunity to prove they belong in the madness. USC takes on Virginia Commonwealth University for the right to take on Georgetown in the field of 64. Trojans coach Kevin O’Neill is coming off a bit of a personal drama after being suspended for their final game of the Pac-10 Tournament after O’Neill got into a verbal altercation with a University of Arizona booster in the hotel lobby of the J.W. Marriott in Los Angeles. O’Neill has been reinstated for the NCAA Tournament, however, and will look to make a surprise run for a program that continued to get better as the season went on.