UCLA heads into Las Vegas for the opening round of the Pac-12 tournament on Wednesday as the No. 5 seed and with a clear mantra in its matchup with 12th-seeded Oregon State.
“Just keep playing,” said Lazar Stefanovic, following the Bruins’ 59-47 victory over Arizona State on Saturday to close the regular season. “Keep playing, keep believing.”
UCLA (15-16) endured plenty of challenges on the way to its worst record since Mick Cronin took over the legendary program in 2019. Those issues included a pair of four-game losing skids and a five-game losing streak that ended Saturday.
But the Bruins also had a stretch of seven victories in eight games during conference play and hope to duplicate that level of success in order to earn the conference’s automatic NCAA Tournament bid. By missing out on a top-four seed this week, UCLA will need to win four games in four days to keep its season alive.
“It’s much better that we are going with a win,” Stefanovic said. “And we secured the fifth spot. That’s what we wanted.”
In earning the No. 5 seed, UCLA opens with last-place Oregon State.
The Beavers (13-18) went on a seven-game losing streak late in the season, which began with a 71-63 loss Feb. 1 at UCLA. The Bruins swept the regular-season series, also winning 69-62 at Corvallis, Ore., on Dec. 28.
Oregon State recovered to go 2-2 in its last four games of the regular season, but it was not enough to avoid the conference cellar.
The Beavers will try to mount a surprise run at the Pac-12 tournament, three years removed from winning it and them making an unlikely run to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament. Doing the improbable this year means reversing a vexing trend: their 1-12 record in games played away from Corvallis.
“What we talked about in the locker room is if we don’t bring the fight, we won’t have a chance,” Oregon State coach Wayne Tinkle said following the Beavers’ 73-57 home loss Saturday to Colorado. “If we’re not united, we won’t have a chance. If we get down on each other out on the court, we won’t have a chance.”
Oregon State must also find answers for Adem Bona and Dylan Andrews, UCLA’s leading scorers in each of the Bruins’ two wins over the Beavers. They each averaged 15.5 points in the regular-season victories over Oregon State.
–Field Level Media
