The last time a Pac-12 team claimed the national championship, Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd was playing for Whitman College in Walla Walla and UCLA coach Mick Cronin was handling video work for Cincinnati’s coaching staff.
It has been a quarter century — 26 years, to be exact — since the Wildcats made their stunning run through the 1997 NCAA Tournament as a No. 4 seed.
In the intervening decades, the conference has placed seven teams in the Final Four and two in the title game but has zero trophies.
Will either of the Pac-12’s heavyweights end the drought? The Wildcats and Bruins are No. 2 seeds; both open the NCAAs in Sacramento; and both carry 12-to-1 odds to win the championship.
Also, both have flaws — just not the same flaws.
Our questions about the Wildcats: Are they tough enough up and down the lineup? Are the guards good enough on both ends of the court? Will star forward Azuolas Tubelis respond when the pressure is most intense?
Not in the first round but perhaps in the second and assuredly in the Sweet 16, the Wildcats will face an opponent that turns the second half into a rock fight and makes every dribble, pass and shot difficult.
That does whatever it takes to secure possession of each loose ball.
That forces Tubelis out of his comfort zone.
That uses its quickness to turn Arizona’s size into a liability.
That makes Arizona’s survival the responsibility of a role player on the perimeter.
The Wildcats should escape the first weekend but they won’t reach the big stage. They aren’t good enough to take down South region favorite Alabama.
UCLA’s issue isn’t toughness. Nope. The Bruins are well suited for grinding affairs in which each possession is a steel-cage match unto itself.
And we’re assuming big man Adem Bona, an essential piece to the interior defense, is reasonably healthy after the shoulder injury he suffered in the Pac-12 tournament.
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