NCAA Basketball: Picking winner of each conference tournament for 2022-23 season
By Bryan Mauro
Pac 12
Dates: March 8th-11th
T-Mobile Arena
Top Seed: UCLA Bruins
Winner: UCLA Bruins
Your guess is as good as mine is when it comes to who is going to win the Pac-12 tournament. UCLA has been the strongest team for most of the year with Arizona not too far behind. The only difference is that the Bruins have avoided the bad losses up to this point in the season and have dominated most of the teams they have played. Even with that said the Bruins just don’t instill much confidence that they are going to win the tournament. I picked them because of their experience and their ability to play a Mick Cronin defense. Cronin loves to play an aggressive style of defense that is predicated on turnovers and easy points in transition.
The Bruins’ opponents average about 17 turnovers per game and that leads to a lot of easy baskets for UCLA. The stars for the Bruins have all played in Westwood for a long time and they have experienced a Final Four run, a sweet 16, and who knows this year. Jamie Jacquez, Tyger Campbell, and Jaylen Clark are all players who have been on the team for all of it. They know how to win games, they know how to play Cronin basketball, and are some of the best leaders in the country. UCLA should not have much of a problem making the final in their final Pac-12 tournament. After this year the Bruins will be part of the Big Ten.
Sleeper: Oregon Ducks
Can Oregon really ever be considered a sleeper? A run to the Pac-12 title would be such an Oregon thing to do, especially after they had no chance to make the field as at large. Coach Dana Altman is always going to have his team ready to play in a conference tournament. Oregon has all of the pieces needed to make a deep run into March and with their seeding in the conference tournament, it should work out where they can avoid the top seed until the Semifinal rounds.
The Ducks have three very athletic bigs in N’ Faly Dante, Kel’el Ware, and Nathan Bittle. Each one of them brings something different to help Oregon win. Dante is the starter and dominates underneath in the paint. He is the leading scorer on the team. The advantage to having three players like what Oregon has is rim protection and rebounding which again can determine the pace you play and aids in getting out in transition. As always the Ducks are different in March.