The Pac-12 Conference women’s basketball tournament begins on Wednesday in Las Vegas.
The question will be whether or not the UCLA Bruins can make a deep run and earn a 1-seed in the NCAA Tournament on Selection Sunday.
Jeff Metcalfe of The Mercury News (subscription required) gave his predictions and he picked UCLA to win the tournament. As far as game-by-game goes, we’ll discuss, but he had UCLA defeating Oregon State in the title game:
Yes, we’re on a bit of a limb predicting the top-two seeds won’t reach this nationally televised showcase. But it’s far from a stretch given how strong the Pac-12 has been this season and given what happened last year with the No. 5 and 7 seeds meeting in the final. UCLA and Oregon State split the season series with the Beavers winning most recently. Their 79-77 victory on Feb. 16 was arguably the best game of the regular season and featured four lead changes in the final 10 seconds. Oh, for another such finish.
The path to the title game might be tricky for UCLA, especially if they face JuJu Watkins and the USC Trojans. But, Oregon State against UCLA again would be fascinating.