NCAA Seed At Stake In Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS — Nobody on the current UO men's basketball roster was around for the absurdity that was playing a second-round NCAA Tournament game in 2014 against Wisconsin in, of all places, Milwaukee.

But Dillon Brooks and Jordan Bell were starters a year later as freshmen when the Ducks faced Wisconsin the second round, again, in the Midwest, again, and lost, again. Casey Benson, like Brooks and Bell now a junior, came off the bench that day in Omaha, Neb.

Last year, after winning the Pac-12's regular-season and tournament titles, Oregon earned the right to open the NCAA Tournament in Spokane, Wash. They moved on to the West Regional in Anaheim, Calif., ultimately advancing to the Elite Eight. As the top-seeded and fifth-ranked Ducks (27-4) prepare to play for another Pac-12 tournament title, beginning in Thursday's quarterfinal round on the Pac-12 Network, they know which of those paths they'd like to follow in the coming weeks.

"The West is going to be decided on who wins the Pac-12 (Tournament)," Brooks said Monday, before the Ducks left for Las Vegas a day later. "We want to be that, so we have home fans and a lot of energy. We know what's at stake, and we're trying to win out."

The Ducks are currently projected as a top-two seed in the West. That would see them open the NCAA Tournament next week in Sacramento, Calif. Should they advance to the West Regional, they would return to Northern California, specifically San Jose.

That sounds much better to the UO men than joining, say, Kansas at the Midwest Regional in Kansas City, or Villanova at the East Regional in New York. In those cases, the current Ducks would get a taste of what Bell, Benson and Brooks experienced two years ago in Omaha.

"That wasn't much fun," Bell said. "We didn't have many fans out there. Last year, playing on the West Coast was much better — having a lot of fans, and me being from L.A. So we're trying to stay close to home."

To do so, the Ducks will again need to win three games in three days, beginning with a noon quarterfinal Thursday against the winner of Wednesday's first-round matchup between Stanford (14-16) and Arizona State (14-17). The semifinals are Friday, and the final is Saturday, when Oregon — if still alive — would presumably face the winner of a semifinal between fellow Associated Press top-10 teams Arizona and UCLA.

First the Ducks will need to defeat either the Cardinal or Sun Devils. Oregon beat ASU by a single point at home on Feb. 2, and swept two games against the Cardinal, the second a two-point win in Stanford on Feb. 25.

"Those are two totally different teams," Brooks said. "One team (ASU) is a great scoring team, can shoot outside really well. The other team's the total opposite, with rebounding, grit and grind. We're ready for both, and whatever comes our way, we'll focus on for that day and get the job done."

The Ducks scheduled a practice session off-site Wednesday. But they arrived in time for the staff to scout the ASU-Stanford game at T-Mobile Arena, the new home of the conference tournament.

After playing recently in the MGM Grand's Garden Arena, the conference moved to the home of the new Las Vegas NHL franchise, which features more than one thousand additional seats.

"I'm excited about it," UO coach Dana Altman said. "I think it's definitely the direction the Pac-12 needs to go. We need to try to grow our tournament as much as possible, and this is the next step."

Practices earlier this week weren't geared toward a specific opponent, as the Ducks awaited the result of Wednesday's first round. But at this point in the season, the Oregon men feel their fate — including their ability to remain out West for the NCAA Tournament — is in their own hands.

"We just need to follow what we've been trying to follow all year — rebound, limit our turnovers and share the basketball," Brooks said. "When we do those, we blow out teams. When we only do two of those things, games are pretty close."