Rush The Court

Tonight kicks off the second-to-last week of the Pac-12 regular season. One third of the conference has three games remaining on their schedule; everybody else has four. And even at this late date, nothing much is really decided. Sure, we know Washington State is going to be the 12-seed in the Pac-12 Tournament in Las Vegas. Arizona State is probably going to be a (relatively) dangerous 11. The current conference leaders – Arizona and Oregon, tied at 10-4 – seem destined for opening round byes, although things are tight enough that even that isn’t assured. So let’s get caught up on where we stand as March draws nearer, with an eye towards the race for the regular season title.

Officially, there are seven teams still mathematically alive for the conference title. Realistically, however, Colorado and Washington would need to win out and have everything else break perfectly for their conference title lottery ticket to pay off. Likewise, USC finds itself two games in back of the leaders and would need good fortune to bring the crown back to Los Angeles. Given those disqualifications, odds are very strong that our eventual champion(s) will come from this quartet of teams: Oregon, Arizona, Utah and California.

Oregon is probably in the driver’s seat, but the Ducks still have plenty of turns to maneuver. They host Washington State tonight, then a hungry Washington team on Sunday; the latter game won’t be easy, but Oregon should get through this weekend unscathed. Then, when considering the tougher pair of games Arizona has this weekend — the Wildcats travel to Colorado and Utah — chances are good that the Ducks head into the final weekend of the regular season in sole possession of first place. But oh will that last weekend be a doozy, as the Ducks fly south needing wins over UCLA and USC teams that are going to be desperate for resume-boosting wins. Here’s the quick back-of-the-envelope, completely unscientific breakdown of the Ducks’ chances:

• 2-0 on LA trip: 92.8% chance outright Pac-12 title
• 1-1 on LA trip: 21% chance outright Pac-12 title, 68.4% chance share of title
• 0-2 on LA trip: 0% chance outright Pac-12 title, 21% chance of shared title

Arizona has the same record as the Ducks, but it seems all too possible that the ‘Cats don’t get out of the mountains without taking a loss. Utah on Saturday is a game in which Arizona will likely be an underdog, but if Sean Miller’s team is looking too far ahead to that game, Colorado is also very capable of beating them tonight. To make things even more difficult, even if Arizona is somehow capable of winning those last two road games, its welcome back home is a visit from a talented, red-hot California team.

Utah’s path to a share (or potentially better) of the Pac-12 title is simple: defend homecourt. With their sweep of the Los Angeles schools last week, the Utes wrapped up the road portion of their 2015-16 schedule in style. If they can take care of business at the Huntsman Center (where their only blemish this season is a mid-week loss to a hot Oregon team back in mid-January) against Arizona State, Arizona and Colorado, you’ve got to really like their chances of getting at least a piece of the title (although Oregon would win the tie-breaker for the #1 seed in the conference tourney). That scenario would demand an Oregon loss, but even if the Ducks do somehow win out and earn the outright title, a 3-0 finish to the season for the Utes would earn them the #2 seed in Vegas.

All things considered, calling each of those three teams a roughly even bet to win at least a share of the conference title is not going too far. But California isn’t quite out of it yet. The Golden Bears are a full game back of the duo at the top of the conference, but they’ve won five in a row and have been dialed in on the defensive end. In Pac-12 conference play, the Bears have been the best defensive team in the conference — and fourth bet offensively. Their path to a conference title would have to include an addition to that dominating 16-0 record at Haas Pavilion with a couple more wins this weekend against the Los Angeles schools. It gets tougher from there, as they travel to Arizona for the final week of the season. Knocking off Arizona in McKale on Thursday night is step one, but even if they get that done, they’d have to avoid a hangover and finish the deal with a win at Arizona State, a game which KenPom projects right now as just a one-point Cal win. Three wins in those four games would put the Bears at 12-6 — a finishing record that would give them a non-zero chance of a share of the regular season title. But more than anything else — more than the expected Oregon sweep of the Washington schools; more than the odds Arizona loses at least once in the mountains; more than Jakob Poeltl running away with the Pac 12 Player of the Year award – expect it to take 13 wins to win the title. The finish line is in sight.