Ducks, Wildcats Collide Again In Final

LAS VEGAS — Two recent blowouts in the series between Oregon and Arizona loom large as the two prepare to meet again Saturday night in the Pac-12 Tournament final (8 p.m., ESPN).

Two years ago in the final, an Arizona team packed with pro prospects undressed the Ducks, 80-52. Since then, Oregon has won three straight in the series, most recently an 85-58 blowout of the Wildcats on Feb. 4 in Matthew Knight Arena.

UO starters Jordan Bell and Dillon Brooks, and key reserve Casey Benson, were in those same roles two years ago when Arizona dominated the tournament final. Ditto last month in Eugene, when the Ducks made 16 of their first 21 three-point attempts — one of the misses a desperation heave by Bell just before halftime.

"They went on a roll like I've never seen before," Arizona coach Sean Miller said Friday, following his team's win over UCLA in the semifinals. "There was just nothing you could do."

The defending tournament champion Ducks, seeded first and ranked fifth nationally entering Saturday's final, felt about the same way two years ago. The Wildcats shot .545 as a team, though the only players still in the rotation from that game are Dusan Ristic and Parker Jackson-Cartwright, who combined for seven points in 15 minutes off the bench.

"I still think about it …" Bell tweeted Saturday morning, with a photo of the scoreboard displaying the final score from that game.

Oregon could be in for another long night in the final if the Ducks can't raise their level of play from Friday's semifinal. With Pac-12 player of the year Dillon Brooks struggling through a 3-of-12 shooting night marred further by foul trouble, the Ducks had a hard time shaking free from Cal, which was playing its third game in three days, and without injured starter Jabari Bird.

The Ducks shot .429 and had a meager 11 assists on 24 made field goals, which reflected their largely stagnant ball movement.

"We obviously know that we can't play like we did today, especially in the championship game," Bell said Friday after the 73-65 semifinal win over Cal. "We know they're going to come out with a lot of energy, they're going to be focused. So we just have to come out with that same intensity, be focused and try to have one of our best games this year."

It would be tough to match the performance from February in Eugene. The Ducks shot .652 as a team and .640 from three-point range, with Tyler Dorsey finishing the game 6-of-6 from three. That night, the Ducks made 30 baskets, and had an assist on all but four.

Afterward, Brooks called it "the best game I ever played in three years here." He also said the Ducks "look up to Arizona" and predicted that "we'll see them again."

Saturday night, the rematch is at hand.

Oregon has also given Arizona fits defensively the last two years, employing a zone the Wildcats haven't been able to crack. But Arizona enters the final feeling newly confident in its ability to attack a zone, after doing so Friday against the Bruins.

"Our ability against the zone was a big turning point in terms of winning and losing," Miller said. "We executed really well against their zone. Oregon has a different type of switching, man-to-man match-up zone, and hopefully we can do the same thing."

If Friday was any indication, the final essentially will be a home game for the Wildcats. The T-Mobile Arena was a sea of red, the vast majority of the announced crowd of 19,224 cheering for Arizona.

"It's a great boost for us, and we're very appreciative of our fan base and how much they support us and the energy they bring us," said Arizona's Allonzo Trier, who played off the bench last month in Eugene shortly after being reinstated from suspension. "But at the end of the day, it still comes down to us playing hard and doing the right things and playing well. They can be here all they want. If we don't go out there and play well, it doesn't do anything."

Given losses in the past week by presumed NCAA Tournament top seeds Kansas and North Carolina, there's speculation Saturday's final could be not only for the Pac-12 Tournament title, but a No. 1 seed in the Big Dance as well. Because Gonzaga is widely considered the likely top seed in the West Region — in which the regional final will be hosted in San Jose, Calif. — the winner Saturday could face the prospect of being named top seed in another region, and thus getting shipped east for the tournament's second weekend.

Asked Friday about the NCAA Tournament implications of Saturday's final, UO coach Dana Altman declined to speculate.

"Whatever implications those have on our seeding, I don't know," Altman said. "But we'd like to win the conference tournament again."

Seated to Altman's left, Bell conceded that "I kind of care where we play, yeah, so obviously that matters a lot." The southern California native Bell played before friends and family last year when Oregon was No. 1 in the West Region, and played the second weekend in Anaheim, Calif.

But the third man sitting on the dais for Friday's postgame press conference, Dorsey, echoed his coach.

"We want to win this championship," Dorsey said. "We want to win it back-to-back."