Sorting out bracket spin for Pac-10 and beyond
 

Welcome to Championship Week, which actually lasts nine days and started last week, but why quibble, since March Madness ends in April?

If we'd all turn off our TVs during the incessant rehash between now and Sunday of who's in and who's out and which four teams will be seeded No. 1 when the NCAA tournament field is announced, we might put a dent in global warming.

The final decisions rarely play themselves out before the last major-conference title games Sunday, which could include such matchups as Ohio State and Wisconsin in the Big Ten final, Kansas and Texas A&M in the Big 12 final, North Carolina playing for the Atlantic Coast Conference title or defending NCAA champion Florida playing for the Southeastern Conference title.

But since you want to know ...

UCLA still looks like a No. 1 despite its clunker against Washington.

It's true that top-seeded teams don't usually have games when they shoot 31% from the field and 57% from the line. But UCLA is poised to remain No. 1 overall in the official Ratings Percentage Index when the NCAA announces it today, and the Bruins get to play the Pacific Life Pacific 10 Conference tournament this week at Staples Center, about 14 miles from Pauley Pavilion.

UCLA's season-long resume is so strong — the Bruins are 9-1 against teams in the RPI's top 50 — that UCLA probably could earn a No. 1 even if it doesn't add the tournament title to its regular-season Pac-10 championship. But the Bruins would be wise to make Saturday's final.

Pencil in a short flight to Sacramento for a first-round game March 15, with another short flight to San Jose if they advance to the regional.

There's more pressure on USC, which looks like an NCAA tournament team but has lost two in a row and has an RPI in the 50s when the traditional comfort level for earning an at-large bid is in the low 40s.

Sweeps of Oregon and Arizona and an 11-7 Pac-10 record speak well for the Trojans.

But their quarterfinal matchup against Stanford on Thursday pits them against another not-quite-a-lock NCAA team.

Stanford beat UCLA, Washington State and Oregon and won at Virginia but also has an RPI in the 50s.

That means the loser of the USC-Stanford game will be a bit antsy the rest of the week — USC over a falling seeding and Stanford over its fate.

The Pac-10 team with the most to play for — short of an extremely unlikely run to the title by California, Oregon State or Arizona State — is Washington.

At 18-12 with an 8-10 record in the Pac-10 and an RPI in the 70s, the Huskies are on the outside looking in at the NCAA tournament.

But they're a team that has the ability to win it: After all, they just beat UCLA.

The problem for the Huskies is they would have to beat Arizona State and a team that has had their number, cross-state rival Washington State, just to reach the semifinals.

Come Sunday, there will be quibbling about whether a team that earns a No. 3 seeding should have been a No. 4, or how far some team has to travel.

Just remember that the NCAA considers the difference in one seeding line so slight it allows teams to be moved up or down a line simply to allow for balance or geography issues and principles such as preventing conference rivals from meeting before a regional final.

In the end, as more and more coaches say, it's not about seeding, it's about matchups.

In other words, you're in. Now you've got to win.

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