bedupivi wrote:

All the Ducks need to do is win against the Bears and Cardinal...at home. The # 1 seed is there for the taking. Having said that, my heart sank when I saw Chris Duarte's hand in a cast. Without him in the lineup, it's going to be a real challenge as to how deep Oregon can go in the tournament.

Yes, maybe.  But Mathis is good enough to take up some of the slack, if we actually had an inside game to free him up a little bit.

The key to this team making a run is not Duarte, though it would be harder without him if he can't come back.  The key is whether Altman can find a way to get some production out of the big men, especially Dante.  I had high hopes, with Altman's track record, of Dante being merged into the team and becoming an effective complementary weapon to Pritchard / Duarte / Mathis.  The other big men probably would be better alongside him, too, if he were really melded in.

Altman has put teams together by tourney time many times before.  This time, due to Dante's injury, he's got a very short time to make that happen.  If it does, they can go far even without Duarte.  If it doesn't happen, I don't think they'd have made it far anyway.

Well, ASU lost to USC, and UCLA beat UA.  Far fewer permutations now.  UCLA only has one game left, at USC.

As above, if Oregon wins out, at worst they tie with UCLA and win on the head-to-head tiebreaker.

If Oregon loses twice, they will finish behind UCLA no matter what, and I think still could possibly finish outside the top 4.  Hard to see them losing twice at home, but this team is wildly inconsistent.

If Oregon loses once, then they could end up in a tie for first (if UCLA loses at USC), perhaps multi-team, or in a tie, perhaps multi-team tie, for second.

So the complicated scenario to work through is if Oregon loses once.  First, if UCLA wins their last game, Oregon would be second, potentially tied with Colorado and Arizona State (if they win out).  In this case, these three teams would have 6 losses each.  Should that happen, the first tiebreaker would be how teams performed against UCLA.  Colorado was swept by the Bruins, ASU split, and Oregon was 1-0 against them.  Oregon would win the tiebreaker against Colorado and ASU, in that scenario, and be the second seed.

What if Oregon and UCLA both lose one game?  You'd have a tie at the top between Oregon, UCLA, and possibly ASU and Colorado.  If that happened, the key tiebreaker results:
Oregon 1-0 vs UCLA, 1-1 vs ASU, 1-1 vs CU
UCLA 0-1 vs UO, 1-1 vs ASU, 2-0 vs CU
ASU 1-1 vs UO, 1-1 vs UCLA, 0-2 vs CU
CU 1-1 vs UO, 0-2 vs UCLA, 2-0 vs ASU

That leaves Oregon and UCLA tied at 3-2 in the group.  Once the tie is down to two teams, the head to head tiebreaker applies.  In the head to head, they'd be tied in records against the teams with 6 losses, so I think that means it would go to records against teams with 7 losses.  In this scenario, that would include USC and probably Arizona, but not Stanford (for this to have happened, Stanford would have to lose to CU).  UCLA would be 0-2 against USC, 2-0 against AZ, while Oregon would be 0-1 against USC and 2-0 against Arizona.

Looks to me like Oregon would win this tiebreaker by virtue of being 0-1 vs USC while UCLA would be 0-2.  LOL.

If ASU were to take a loss to one of the Washington schools, it wouldn't really change anything because they were 1-1 against both Oregon and UCLA.  If CU takes a loss, either at Stanford or at Utah, Oregon would beat UCLA on the first tiebreaker even if ASU is part of it.

In other words, if I've got this right there's no way Oregon can lose a tiebreaker to UCLA.  There's no way they can lose a tiebreaker to ASU unless they lose twice (which could bring Stanford and USC into the key tiebreakers). 

So unless Oregon loses twice, the Ducks win all the tiebreakers.  If they win both, they are the top seed.  If they lose one, they are top seed if UCLA loses at USC, no matter what anyone else does.  If they lose one and UCLA wins at USC, Oregon is the second seed.

First vs second seed matters.  #1 seed likely plays Cal.  #2 seed likely plays Stanford, who is on the bubble and will still have a shot at dancing if they can get a couple big wins.  The second game is going to be very tough no matter where you finish in the seeding, but the first game against Cal might give you a chance to rest your starters some, something that no other team in the top eight should expect.

All that work and ASU renders it moot by losing to some team from Seattle that had already clinched last place.

Oregon and UCLA are 1-2 no matter what, UCLA finishes ahead only if they win away and Oregon loses at home.  Have to like our chances.

OSU beat Stanford.  This is good if OSU is your second-favorite team in the conference.  It does mean Stanford's bubble situation is not too comfortable (they'd have probably locked down a spot by winning that game), so they'll be desperate to beat the Ducks.

Total chaos for third place.

Cal is the eighth seed and will play the Beavers, Utah, or WSU for the right to lose to Oregon in the second round.