Digging into the Pac-12 Tournament bracket

BOULDER — Welcome to postseason basketball!

It’s been a rollercoaster of a year since we last saw postseason college basketball, but the Colorado Buffalos are heading back to Vegas and they’ve never held such a promising position.

For the first time since joining the Pac-12, Colorado is going to enter the tournament as a top-four seed, meaning the Buffs will have a bye for the first time, as well.

The tournament will start Wednesday afternoon, but Colorado won’t play until 9:30 p.m. MST Wednesday on ESPN.

THE BRACKET

🚨 UPDATE 🚨: The 2021 Men's #Pac12Hoops Tournament bracket is SET!!!

🗓️: March 10-13
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— Pac-12 Conference (@pac12) March 8, 2021

The bracket couldn’t have shaken out much better for Colorado; Oregon and UCLA are on the other side of the bracket, leaving USC as the top competition for the Buffaloes, who have already beaten the Trojans twice this season.

Colorado’s first round game will be against the winner of Wednesday’s Stanford-Cal matchup. Cal beat Colorado once this season but they finished as the bottom team in the conference. Stanford lost both games to CU. While Stanford is the best team playing in the opening round (and is competing with Arizona State to be the most talented) Colorado’s first matchup is still a good draw.

Looking away from CU, one major matchup is the No. 4 vs. No. 5 game, UCLA vs. Oregon State. UCLA is one of the favorites to win the tournament—more on that later—but the Bruins only beat Oregon State by five when the two teams played in Los Angeles earlier this season. On top of that, Oregon State closed out its season with three wins in four games. All three wins were on the road, though the most impressive was against Stanford. UCLA, meanwhile, is on a three-game losing streak.  If you’re looking for a big upset, here you go.

Arizona State vs. Washington State is another to keep an eye on. WSU is capable of getting hot and ASU, as one of the most disappointing teams in the country this season, hasn’t come close to its ceiling this season.

One more note: USC split the season series with Utah, its likely first-round opponent. The loss came just over a week ago when the Utes held the Mobley brothers to a combined 4-of-15 night from the field.

THE ODDS

The good people at DraftKings Sportsbook have already released the lines for the Pac-12 tournament.

Here’s what they look like, as of Monday evening, from best odds of winning to worst:

1. Oregon +175
2. USC +235
3. Colorado +300
4. UCLA +550
5. Stanford +1500
6. Oregon State +2000
7. Utah +3000
8. Arizona State +4000
9. Washington State +10,000
10. Cal +30000
11. Washington +30000

How the bookmakers see the Pac-12 is pretty clear, in my opinion. There are, essentially, three tiers.

First, the contenders. Oregon, Colorado, USC and UCLA are going to be the bulk of the story in this tournament. Maybe another team sneaks into the final four over one of these teams, but this looks like a four-team tournament as of now. At least as much as any 11-team tournament can be a four-team tournament.

The second tier are the teams that could sneak in. Stanford is a legitimately good basketball team, but they don’t have the same explosiveness of the top four. Oregon State and Utah are further steps down. Arizona State fits into this tier, too.

The third tier is for the teams that… have no chance. Anything can happen in March, but there’s a reason that a $10 bet on Washington State would net you a cool $1,000.

For my money, the best pick on the board is either Colorado or UCLA. I lean Colorado because of UCLA’s tough close to the season but you wouldn’t be getting odds these good if the Bruins had played well, so I won’t blame you for going that route.

DraftKings got it right by making Oregon the favorite but at +175 there just isn’t enough juice to believe that the Ducks can rip off three-straight against good competition.

If you’re looking for a dark horse, I’m honestly having a tough time finding one. I might just point back to UCLA. Stanford doesn’t have the firepower, Utah needs just about everything to go right to beat one of the top four teams, let alone to beat three of them in a row. Arizona State might have the juice but hasn’t done anything to indicate that they’re going to start playing at a Pac-12 Championship level. If you really want a dark horse, I’d throw caution to the wind and take WSU and hope for chaos. But you’ll be throwing your money awy.