Stephen Vilardo’s Week 17 Pac-12 Men’s Hoops Stat Previews

The fourth bye in the 2022 Pac-12 Tournament will go to either the Ducks or the Buffs

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As we enter the last weekend of the regular season only two things are certainties for the Pac-12 Tournament in Las Vegas.

Arizona will be the No. 1 seed and Oregon State will be the No. 12 seed.

Three of the four byes have been solidified with UCLA and USC joining Arizona. The final bye spot will go to either Colorado or Oregon. The Ducks currently have a half-game edge over the Buffs.

Arizona has clinched the outright regular-season title and enters the week with a 16-2 Pac-12 record. This is the 14th time the Wildcats have won a title outright.

Since Arizona entered the conference in 1978-79, they have now claimed at least a share of the title 17 times.

The Wildcats have had at least a share of 37.5 percent of the 43 conference regular-season championships since joining the league.

With one win in their final two games, Arizona would become the first conference team with 17 wins in conference play since Stanford in 2003-04.

Seventeen conference wins have been done seven times before, five of those instances were by Arizona. (Oregon State in 1980-81 joins the Cardinal and five Wildcat teams).

No team has ever won 18 conference games in a season. Worth noting: This is just the second season of a 20-game conference schedule, and that number will increase to 22 next season.

The odds of Arizona getting at least one win, if not two, this week at home over Stanford and Cal is fairly good, but the home court has not been definitive as in other seasons.

This year, 11 teams have swept road trips and, overall, the road team is 50-60 in conference play. The .455 road win percentage would be the third-best since 1979.

In 2007-08, road teams won 42 of 90 conference games for a .456-win percentage, which is the best the Conference has ever seen.

Interestingly, Oregon collected two of the 11 road sweeps (USC also had two), but the Oregon road trip has also been swept twice this season.

Should either of the Bay Area schools be able to sweep the Desert trip this weekend, and should Oregon or OSU head south Saturday with two wins in hand, then every road trip would have at least one sweep this season.

California’s sweep of the Oregon schools was the Bears’ s first road sweep since 2015-16

Road Sweeps this Season

Trip	Number	Swept by
Bay Area	4	Arizona, Colorado, Utah, WSU
Mountain	4	ASU, Oregon, UCLA, USC
Oregon	2	Cal, USC
Los Angeles	1	Oregon
Washington	0
Desert	0

This Week’s Matchups

Bay Area Teams hit the Desert

California’s season has not gone how they would have envisioned, but some of the sting may have been taken away in their home finale against Stanford, a 53-39 domination.

The 39 points were the fewest the Bears have allowed in the shot-clock era, and the fewest since holding Oregon to 37 in 1985.

Arizona State has won seven of the last eight meetings with Cal and has won the last three meetings in Tempe. Overall, the Sun Devils are 29-15 at home against the Bears.

The first meeting this season was won by Cal in Berkeley, 74-50. The 24-point margin of victory was Cal’s largest in Pac-12 play since besting Oregon State 76-46 on Feb. 24, 2017.

The Bears are looking to sweep ASU for the first time since 2017.

Arizona is 19-2 against Stanford since 2008-09. It had been an 18-game win streak in the series for the Wildcats prior to Stanford earning the sweep a season ago.

Arizona has won 12 of the last 14 meetings in Tucson dating to the 2004-05 season. A win would give Arizona a 17th conference win and extend Tommy Lloyd’s record for most conference wins for a first-year coach.

Arizona’s Kerr Kriisa | Christopher Hook/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Against USC Lloyd surpassed Steve Lavin and Jim Anderson, who had been tied with 15 conference wins in their debut seasons.

Stanford snapped a three-game losing streak to Arizona State with a 79-76 win over ASU earlier this season. That was the first single-digit meeting between the teams since an 84-83 Sun Devil win in Tempe in 2018.

Arizona State has won four of the last five over the Cardinal in Tempe. Arizona State is 12-9 in the last 21 meetings between the schools in the desert.

The first meeting this season saw ASU go just 3-14 from deep in the first half. Stanford outscored ASU 11-6 on second-chance points in that one.

Arizona has won 10 in a row over Cal and 14 of the last 15 meetings. The 10-game streak is tied for the longest ever in the series. UA also won 10-straight from 1999-2004.

The Bears’ last win at the McKale Center came in 2013, setting up a string of seven in a row for the Wildcats over Cal in Tucson. Arizona is 50-5 against California in Tucson since 1984-85.

The Wildcats are 22-2 against Cal in Tucson since 1996.

Oregon Schools head North

This will be the 312th time Washington and Oregon have met on the hardwood since 1904.

The Ducks have owned the series since 2015.

Oregon is 12-1 in their last 13 against Washington and the Ducks have won six in a row in the series. The first game this season was an 84-56 win for the Ducks in Eugene.

The 28-point margin of victory was the largest by Oregon in series history. The first meeting this season was over early. Oregon held a 48-13 lead at halftime.

Washington turned the ball over 14 times in the opening 20 minutes in Eugene compared to their 13 points scored.

On Monday night Washington State was an overtime winner, 103-97, over Oregon State in Corvallis. The teams will do it again at Beasley on Thursday.

The loss was the 15th in a row for the Beavers, the fourth-longest active streak in the nation. The Beavers have lost their last 10 away from Corvallis.

Oregon’s Devion Harmon | Logan Hannigan-Downs/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

The 103 points Washington State put up on Monday was the most the Cougars have ever scored in 302 games against OSU.

The win snapped a six-game series win streak for OSU in Corvallis. The Cougars have won the last two meetings in Pullman.

Oregon is 19-5 in their last 24 against Washington State, including a three-point win in Eugene a couple of weeks ago. The Ducks have a 174-126 all-time edge in the 300 games of the series.

Washington State did not get to the foul stripe at all in the first half. The teams have split their last eight meetings at Beasley since 2011.

Washington has won 13 in a row at home over Oregon State. The Huskies won the first meeting by 10 points in Corvallis.

The teams combined to shoot just 9 of 39 on three-pointers in the first meeting, including the Beavers making just three of 19.

Mountain Schools Meet in Salt Lake City

Colorado was an 81-76 winner when the teams met in Boulder in mid-February. It marked the fourth win in the last six games in the series for the Buffs.

Colorado outscored Utah 24-10 from the FT line in the first meeting.

Utah’s Gabe Madsen and Colorado’s Tristan de Silva | Colorado Athletics

That sticks with the theme of the season as the Buffs are making 15.24 FTs per game, the 27th-most in the nation.

The teams have alternated wins in the last five meetings. Colorado was a winner the last time the teams met in Salt Lake City. Utah has a 12-10 series lead since the teams joined the Pac-12.

UCLA hosts USC

USC has won five straight over UCLA; it is the Trojans’ longest win streak in the series since winning 42 consecutive games against UCLA from 1932-43. (They met five to seven times a year in the 1930’s.)

Free throw shooting has been a thorn for the Trojans, as they are hitting just 66.7 percent on the season, ranking 316th in the nation.

USC’s Ethan Anderson & UCLA’s Jaime Jaquez Jr.| Jevone Moore/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Southern Cal is also missing an average of 6.2 FTs per game, the 38th-most in the country. None of that was present when the teams met at the Galen Center as the Trojans finished 11-12 from the stripe.

USC has won the last two in the series at Pauley Pavilion. The Bruins are 19-10 at home against the Trojans since 1998.

Follow Stephen on Twitter @StephenVilardo and his organization @SERCenter.

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