Pac-12 Tournament Semi-Finals: UCLA and Oregon Advance to Championship

It was almost a relief to get just two games after two full days of four games that went down to the wire in the first two games of the tournament, but even if there was half as much action total, the first game kept all of the same suspense that we had in the first eight games of the Pac-12 Tournament.

(1) UCLA 66 (4) Arizona 64

• Another good atmosphere where it sounds like there are actually people at the game. Can't hear the echoes of the sneakers as much as you could in previous years.
• Very good sign for the conference that both of these teams are finally showing up as they are the only two that I think can really make deep runs in the tournament.
• Still waiting on the epic tournament performance that makes Shabazz Muhammad memorable as he had just 11 points, but it looks like that is going to have to wait for the NCAA Tournament for that and it was actually Jordan Adams who had that game tonight as he scored 24 and almost single-handedly got the Bruins back in the game in the second half.
• Once again, just when you finally think we are going to have the first one-sided game of the tournament, UCLA roars back halfway through the second half.
• There have been some good ones, but Solomon Hill's dunk with about four minutes left has to be considered for dunk of the tournament.
• Adams looked a bit like LeBron James tonight he might end up being more valuable for the Bruins than Muhammad in the long run.

(2) Oregon 64 (10) Utah 45

• Seems like this happens every year when an underdog team wins a couple of early games but runs out of gas.
• Same thing could be said of the team that was red hot and simply had a game where their shooting came back to Earth. Just so hard to stay hot for three to four games.
• I'm pretty sure Jarred DuBois is now aware of this if he wasn't before, from hottest guy in the tournament to 0-8 for zero points.
• Even if they were just cold, you have to give the Ducks some credit for holding DuBois and Jordan Loveridge, two of the hottest players in the tournament coming in, to 1-19 combined shooting.
• I guess we were due for an eventual stinker.