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BetDSI.com has your Pac 12 Conference Tournament odds and 2015 College Basketball betting predictions.
Favorites
The Arizona Wildcats have to be seen as the favorite, while the Utah Utes have to be seen as a rather distant second choice and a team that would become the favorite only if Arizona loses in the quarterfinals or semifinals, which isn’t likely. Arizona swept the season series against Utah. Not only that point is worth mulling over, though – wrap your mind around the fact that the Wildcats are the only Pac-12 team to beat Utah on the road in each of the last two seasons. (Oregon beat Utah on the road last season but not this season.) Arizona has given Utah its last two home-court losses. The Wildcats have Utah’s number, but it goes deeper than that.
What Arizona is specifically able to do is shut down Utah big man Jakob Poeltl, whose physical inside play has usually helped the Utes in the Pac-12, helping them to become the number two seed at this tournament. Against Arizona, Poeltl has disappeared thanks to the defense of Kaleb Tarczewski, who is playing as well right now as he has all season long. Arizona’s defense is too strong for Utah to contend with. The Utes struggle far too much in their halfcourt offense. They very nearly lost at a bad Washington State team last Thursday night and then lost at Washington on Saturday afternoon. They’re not playing their best. In a discussion of which team is best positioned to win this tournament, it’s clearly Arizona.
Sleepers/Longshots
There’s not a lot of depth in the Pac-12, since it is likely to get only three teams into the NCAA tournament. If it’s going to get a fourth team, it will be either UCLA or Stanford. Both teams have players – Tony Parker and Kevon Looney for UCLA, Chasson Randle for Stanford – who can go off and score a ton of points. They can carry their teams and get hot in three or four days at this tournament in Las Vegas. The other teams in the conference, such as Cal and Arizona State, are not ready to make a run. This is a tournament in which the only alternatives to the top three seeds are Stanford and UCLA.
