UCLA's first game at the Pac-10 tourney scenarios

I've professed my love of tiebreakers here before, so I decided to work out all the possible scenarios on where all the Pac-10 teams finish at my own blog.

Now that UCLA has clinched the #1 seed at the Pac-10 Tournament even if they lose today, I thought some of you would be interested in who the Bruins will play on Thursday, especially since there's a chance Washington could be involved, and some of you have said you want revenge after the Tim Morris incident.

The quick answer is, the #8/#9 game on Wednesday will feature Cal vs. Washington (if UW loses today), or Cal vs. the Arizona/Oregon loser. And UCLA will play the winner of that #8/#9 game.

The explanation behind how I figured that out below:

Cal has already clinched the #9 seed no matter what happens today (even if Cal beat UCLA and Washington lost to make the two teams tied at 7-11, Washington beat Cal in both games this season).

The #8 seed gets interesting. If Washington loses, they clinch the #8 seed (they're a game behind the other teams, and like I said above, can't finish below Cal). If Washington wins, however, they can't finish at #8 because they hold the tiebreaker over any combination of Arizona, Arizona State and Oregon (all who have eight wins, and at least one of them has to lose today since Arizona and Oregon play each other). Washington split with each of the three schools, but by virtue of beating the Pac-10 champion Bruins, would hold the tiebreaker over any of the teams they split with.

So those of you who want UCLA to play Washington on Thursday should root for Washington to lose today (I don't just want the Bruins to play them because of Tim Morris, but I'd like to see them avenge what will hopefully be their last loss of the season).

If Washington wins, the loser of Arizona/Oregon will finish as the #8 seed. You read that right -- there's still a chance UCLA could play Arizona on the first day of the Pac-10 tournament. The standard indeed. Arizona State can't finish #8 because they have the tiebreaker over Arizona (2-0 vs. them) and the tiebreaker over Oregon (season split, but both lost both to UCLA, beat Stanford, lost both to Washington State and only Arizona State beat USC).

Yes, I'm a nerd for looking all that up.