MARCH MADNESS- Pac-12 Final Preview

Ok so we all wish that that Utah Utes Basketball team was in this game.  But they aren’t and life goes on, so I thought I’d take a look at the final two, Oregon and UCLA.

And we might as well deal with the real tragedy up front, that UCLA’s Jordan Adams won’t be apart of this game as he broke his foot on the final play of the Arizona game.  Jordan really saved UCLA against the Wildcats.  It would be foolish not to think that this would have a massive effect on tonights game.

However let’s look at a couple of other things first.

Utah connections for the coaches.  Ok, these are think but interesting.  Dana Altman, as I mentioned before was offered and would have taken the Utah job after Majerus.  But Altman knew the cupboard wasn’t exactly deep long term for the Utes and wanted some job security.  So he asked for a 10 year deal with Chris Hill refused.  Altman stays at Creighton, nearly took Colorado before heading to the northwest.  Oregon fans at the time hated the hire and thought they were bigger than Altman.

As for UCLA, Ben Howland and Rick Majerus used to be very close friends.  That was until Howland took the UCLA job which he and Rick supposedly had a gentlemens agreement not to take as Rick very much coveted that job.

As for the game tonight.  With Jordan Adams out, I think you have to be a fool not to go with Oregon.  UCLA wasn’t deep before the Adams’ injury and this doesn’t help matters.  On top of that Oregon looked refocused against Utah last night, making their final weekend meltdown in Salt Lake City seem like a distant memory.

I will say that UCLA surprised me getting to the final, this Bruin team has the feel of a team that you shouldn’t trust, and yet they just keep finding ways to win games.  And they certainly are a fun team to watch.

It’s been a great Pac-12 tournament and I expect this to be a pretty good final with Oregon just having too much at the end.