Pac-12 women’s basketball tournament

USC and UCLA hope to create a historic Pac-12 Women’s Tournament semifinal

The biggest game at the 2024 Pac-12 Women’s Tournament might not be the championship game. That and more in this Pac-12 notebook.

There’s a lot to talk about at the Pac-12 Women’s Basketball Tournament in Las Vegas. The show is underway on Wednesday afternoon, with USC and UCLA playing Thursday night in the quarterfinals. If they both win — and it’s far from a lock that they will — they would create a historic and hugely important Pac-12 Tournament semifinal matchup late Friday night in Sin City. We’re not taking this matchup for granted — good teams could easily play spoiler and prevent this matchup from happening — but if it happens, we want you to know how big a game it will be on Friday. We’ll lead with that item but then continue with some other discussion topics in this Pac-12 women’s basketball notebook, with help from UCLA Wire:

If USC and UCLA meet on Friday night in the Pac-12 semifinals, the two rivals would meet for bragging rights and a victory in the three-game season series. The teams split the first two meetings, so this would be the decider. That’s meaningful on a personal level for both teams and fan bases, but the real prize on Friday — if these teams do meet — would be a possible No. 1 seed in the Women’s NCAA Tournament. The winner would have good odds of getting that top seed even if it loses in the Pac-12 Tournament final on Sunday. The winner would be near-certain to get a top seed if it then wins the Pac-12 Tournament title on Sunday.

USC and UCLA, if they meet, would play the second (late) semifinal Friday night. ESPN has the final on Sunday. That means this is the last Pac-12 Conference women’s basketball game ever shown on Pac-12 Network. What a way to end the Pac-12 Network era if the Trojans and Bruins meet on Friday.

USC could face Arizona or Washington. UCLA could face Utah. Which quarterfinal is tougher? UCLA Wire’s Matt Wadleigh said “It doesn’t matter who faces USC. JuJu Watkins is that good. UCLA will have a tougher game assuming Utah is the matchup. This tournament seems to be pretty chalk early on, but things can get interesting later on.”

Do UCLA fans want USC to lose before Friday’s semifinals? We don’t think so. UCLA Wire’s Matt Wadleigh agrees.

“I think UCLA fans want part three,” Wadleigh told us. “Sure, an easier matchup is always the hope. Then again, adding another signature win would help their chances of landing a 1-seed in the field of 68. L.A. showdown part three will be fantastic.”

UCLA hammered Utah not that long ago. Will this meeting be different?

“Not much different,” Wadleigh said. “UCLA is playing arguably its best basketball of the season.”

Which is the tougher matchup for USC in the quarterfinals on Thursday?

“Washington,” Wadleigh said. “That Huskies loss (earlier in the season) hurts, but perhaps the Trojans have figured out a way to get it down.”

Wadleigh weighed in on a great coach of the year race in the Pac-12:

“It’s a four-person race: Scott Rueck, Lindsay Gottlieb, Cori Close, and Tara VanDerveer. VanDerveer has the best team, again. Cori Close has dealt with numerous injuries and is on the verge of a 1-seed in the NCAA Tournament. Lindsay Gottlieb has the Trojans looking dangerous, although she has the best player in the conference in JuJu Watkins. I’ll go with Scott Rueck. Oregon State finished second to last a year ago, and they have been a top-25 team and can be a real threat in the Big Dance.”

Wadleigh told us that “Cameron Brink, Alissa Pili, and Lauren Betts all deserve consideration. However, I’ll go with JuJu Watkins. As we have all seen, she is a generational talent that has been key to turning around this USC program. Winning both the freshman player of the year and conference player of the year is extremely rare. But, JuJu is that good.”

Wadleigh summed up JuJu Watkins’ greatness this way:

“She is arguably the second best women’s player in the country behind Caitlin Clark, and any other year she would be at the top. She has been out of this world and just isn’t slowing down.”

Wadleigh:

“The Oregon state beavers … somehow. The Beavers are destined for the Big Dance after going 13-18 and finishing second to last a year ago.”

Wadleigh:

“The Oregon Ducks. They won 20 games a year ago and are now losers of 20 games. It’s a tough basketball season all around in Eugene.”

USC women’s basketball is No. 2 seed in latest ESPN NCAA Tournament bracketology (March 4)

USC is holding firm as a No. 2 seed in ESPN’s projected bracket before the start of the Pac-12 Women’s Tournament.

The USC women’s basketball team is about to participate in the 2024 Pac-12 Women’s Tournament in Las Vegas. The Trojans play their first game in the quarterfinal round on Thursday, March 7, against Arizona or Washington. USC is a No. 2 seed in the latest ESPN NCAA Tournament bracketology forecast from bracketologist Charlie Creme.

Notably, USC is placed behind UCLA. The Bruins are a projected No. 1 seed in Creme’s bracket for Monday, March 4. There is a chance that USC and UCLA could meet in the semifinals of the Pac-12 Tournament. If both teams win their quarterfinal games on Thursday, they would meet in a Friday night semifinal game. The winner could very well get a No. 1 seed in the Women’s NCAA Tournament.

A good question is if the winner of a potential USC-UCLA semifinal would be a lock for a No. 1 seed. It’s probably too early to tell. The odds of the winner getting a No. 1 seed would go up if Iowa, Texas, or North Carolina State — teams battling USC and UCLA for top seeding positions — all lost in the next week. If USC or UCLA wins the Pac-12 Tournament, however, in addition to winning in Friday’s semifinal round, that team would very likely be a No. 1 seed, and it would be hard to see that team failing to reach a No. 1 seed.

Follow Trojans Wire all week for coverage of the Pac-12 Women’s Tournament in Las Vegas.

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2024 Pac-12 Women’s Basketball Tournament schedule, seeds, tip times, and TV networks

We have the full Pac-12 Women’s Basketball Tournament schedule for you, complete with start times and TV notes.

It’s the final Pac-12 Women’s Basketball Tournament, at least for the next several years. USC, UCLA, Washington, and Oregon are heading to the Big Ten. Utah, Colorado, Arizona State, and Arizona are going to the Big 12. There won’t be a Pac-12 Conference in any meaningful sense next year. This is the last true Pac-12 gathering for the conference tournament in Las Vegas. We have the Pac-12 Women’s Tournament schedule for you.

Let’s go through the matchups, the seedings, the start times, the television assignments, and more for the big gathering which begins on Wednesday, March 6, in Vegas, with USC having the No. 2 seed:

2024 Pac-12 Women’s Basketball Tournament Bracket

The bracket is set. Here are all the matchups and seedings for the 2024 Pac-12 Women’s Tournament in Vegas.

It’s that time of year. March means brackets and single-elimination tournaments and a whole lot of madness. The Pac-12 has concluded its final women’s basketball regular season. Next up: The last Pac-12 Women’s Basketball Tournament, which begins next week in Las Vegas. We have a Pac-12 Women’s Tournament bracket for you to look at. The bracket contains all the potential matchups for the event from March 6-10 in Sin City.

Let’s go through each day’s matchups so that you can see how they all line up within the bracket. USC will be the No. 2 seed at this tournament. If the Trojans win two games, they are assured of a No. 2 seed in the 2024 Women’s NCAA Tournament and will have a shot at a No. 1 seed. If USC can win the Pac-12 Tournament, there’s a very good chance the Trojans will be a top seed.

Here is the bracket followed by each day of play in Vegas:

Pac-12 Women’s Basketball Tournament seedings if the season ended today (February 24)

These seedings will change, but right now, USC is in a very good spot.

The Pac-12 Women’s Basketball Tournament will be held from Wednesday, March 6 through Sunday, March 10 in Las Vegas. The Pac-12, if you didn’t already know, has the strongest top five of any conference in the country. Five Pac-12 teams are currently projected to be top-four NCAA Tournament seeds. No other conference can match that total. That’s five teams which will be seeded to make the Sweet 16. Other conferences have two or three significant Sweet 16 threats, but the Pac-12 has more.

With that in mind, here are the seedings for the 2024 Women’s Pac-12 Basketball tournament if the season ended right now. These seedings will obviously change, beginning with results on February 25 and 26. Colorado and UCLA play on the 26th, Monday night, in Westwood:

Haley Jones on her ‘sketchy’ experiences playing the Pac-12 tourney in Vegas and how she limits sports betting noise

Being shouted at in a casino doesn’t sound fun.

With sports betting legal in over 30 U.S. states, there aren’t many athletes who don’t periodically hear from a fan or two about how their performances impacted a bet.

Those usually one-sided interactions are typically limited to social media or during games. Especially for an athlete based in a state where betting isn’t legal, like Stanford basketball star Haley Jones. So, as you can imagine, playing a game in Las Vegas is a different experience than what she’s used to.

Vegas has hosted the Pac-12 women’s basketball tournament since 2019. Up until this year, Stanford had reached the final each time, winning the last two. This year’s team had its time shortened with a semifinal loss to UCLA, but that didn’t make the betting chatter any less noticeable.

“We’re walking through the casino to get to our games, and there’s the betting stations and this and that, and I can feel people’s eyes on me and I’m like, ‘Oh gosh, your money is in my hands. That’s sketchy,'” Jones said in a conversation with FTW about her new podcast, Sometimes I Hoop. “I feel like people just take it more intense since they have something personal on the line. After games, if I’m walking through the casino after we lose or after we win, they’re like, ‘Oh, you won me this. Oh, you lost me that.’ And I’m just like, what the heck. I was just over here trying to get back and get to post-game meal and shower. I don’t need you shouting at me right now. So I think it’s definitely created a different environment.”

That environment is likely more intense for a team like Stanford that has achieved so much in Jones’ four years on campus. The Cardinal have been to each of the last two Final Fours, winning it all Jones’ sophomore year. As this year’s tournament approaches, their +700 title odds at DraftKings are second only to undefeated South Carolina.

As legal betting has exploded during that time, conversations about lines have even penetrated Jones’ own circle. But if you plan on chatting her up about point spreads and parlays, just know she hasn’t caught up on all the lingo.

“My brother, he’ll be on ESPN like ‘Oh my gosh, you guys are up this, down that.’ And I’m like, I don’t know what any of that means, so awesome,” the 2021 Final Four Most Outstanding Player said. “But I think fans are in some cases more into it because they have money on the line. So it’s a lot more intense of a crowd.”

That noise spills over on to social media, but Jones has found a way to filter it out.

“You definitely get tagged and whatnot, but there’s different security and privacy things that I’ve been able to put on my account so I’m not just getting tagged in a million hate messages of ‘Haley, you lost me $1,000!'”

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Everything we know following Oregon’s 73-65 win at Utah

Oregon secured the No. 2 seed of the Pac-12 tournament with a 73-65 win over Utah.

The Oregon Ducks women’s basketball suffered a very disappointing loss in double overtime this past Wednesday at Colorado.

But the Ducks rebounded nicely this afternoon at Utah and defeated the Utes 73-65 in the regular-season finale. Oregon finished 19-10 overall and 11-6 in conference action.

Now Oregon will focus on the Pac-12 tournament next week in Las Vegas where it will be the No. 2 seed and will receive a first-round bye.

Sydney Parrish led the way with 18 points with four three-pointers. She was one of five Ducks to score in double figures. Defensively, however, Oregon couldn’t solve Jenna Johnson, who led all scorers with 27 points on 10-of-17 from the field.