03-15-2021, 11:35 AM
Oregon State--with Arizona's assistance--proves once again that a first-round bye is a big advantage for winning the Pac-12 tournament. In the history of the conference tournament, going back to the days of the Pac-10, only Colorado in 2012 and Oregon in 2019 managed to win four games in four days. As hot and well-coached as OSU is, I don't know that they would have had enough gas in the tank to pull off the quad this year.
If I had a vote, I would like to see the conference tournament go three days with eight teams so that the regular season has more significance. No team seeded better than 7th has ever made the finals and no team seeded better than 6th has won the tournament, so it's hard to argue that seeds 9 through 12--while they occasionally pull off the upset--have a chance. The conference has never been that deep.
The Pac-10 actually used the eight-team format for a few years in the early 2000s, with seeds 9 and 10 staying home, so there's precedence. But I guess the Pac-12 network needs content.
If I had a vote, I would like to see the conference tournament go three days with eight teams so that the regular season has more significance. No team seeded better than 7th has ever made the finals and no team seeded better than 6th has won the tournament, so it's hard to argue that seeds 9 through 12--while they occasionally pull off the upset--have a chance. The conference has never been that deep.
The Pac-10 actually used the eight-team format for a few years in the early 2000s, with seeds 9 and 10 staying home, so there's precedence. But I guess the Pac-12 network needs content.
If there's one thing people have learned in Berkeley, it's that you can't put "Cal football" and "Rose Bowl" in the same sentence. The words just don't fit. You'd be better off linking "covered wagons" with "Mars travel." (Bruce Jenkins, Cal '70, SF Chronicle, Nov. 11, 2017)