With only 10 games remaining on the conference schedule and WSU already securing a top-two seed, who can they expect waiting for them?
It feels like just yesterday the Washington State Cougars were tipping off their season against the Idaho Vandals. Now, we are just two days away from the regular season finale, eight days away from the Pac-12 tournament and 12 days away from Selection Sunday.
With only one game remaining on the schedule for WSU and 10 in total for the rest of the conference, the Cougars have already secured a first round bye in the Pac-12 tournament and at least the two seed.
WSU can grab the Pac-12 regular season title with a win over Washington and an Arizona loss to either UCLA on Thursday or USC on Saturday.
But this is just one of 1,024 ways in which the Pac-12 regular season can end.
In 384 (37.5%) of those scenarios, WSU claims the Pac-12 title, the other 640 (62.5%) has WSU remaining pat at the two seed.
As the one seed, WSU would play the winner of the 8/9 seed game on Thursday, March 14th at noon. The two seed would pit WSU against the winner of the 7/10 seed game on March 14th and 6pm, so plan accordingly.
If I were a true sicko, I’d figure out all 1,024 scenarios and list you each one and how likely they are. Unfortunately, there just isn’t enough hours in the day to do this. However, thanks to those of you who participated in my Google forms, I was able to pull together what the most popular scenarios are. I’ve also tacked on a few other predicted scenarios to get a wide range of outcomes.
What the people are saying
Ashley Davis
We had a wide range of voters from your local west coast CougCenter writers, to the east coast experts of the Big East. Here’s the consensus results:
- Colorado and Utah sweep the Oregons
- Wazzu beats UW
- Arizona beats both UCLA and USC
- USC beats Arizona State
- Stanford beats Cal
This would result in the following Pac-12 standings:
As the two seed, WSU would play the winner of Cal vs ASU. If they manage to get past their second round matchup they will have one of Colorado, UCLA or USC.
What KenPom is saying
Ashley Davis
KenPom has a nifty feature where you can see who he projects to win each upcoming games. Here’s how KenPom expects the season to end:
- Colorado sweeps the Oregons
- WSU beats UW
- Arizona sweeps the SoCal’s
- USC beats ASU
- Stanford beats Cal
- Utah beats OSU
- Oregon beats Utah
- UCLA beats ASU
Which results in:
- Arizona
- Wazzu
- Colorado
- Oregon
- Utah
- UCLA
- Cal
- UW
- Stanford
- ASU
- USC
- OSU
This again comes up with WSU playing either Cal or ASU in the quarterfinals with Colorado, UCLA or USC awaiting them in the semi-finals.
What if UCLA trips up Arizona?
James Snook-USA TODAY Sports
WSU defeats Washington at Beasley Coliseum. As they clear out the aftermath and celebration, the scoreboard tunes into the final minutes of Arizona/UCLA. Mick Cronin and his crew help out WSU by polishing off their upset win and the good brands begin printing their WSU Pac-12 regular season champion t-shirts.
With the one seed in hand, here’s one way in which the final standings shape up.
- Wazzu
- Arizona
- Oregon
- Colorado
- UCLA
- Utah
- Cal
- Stanford
- UW
- ASU
- USC
- OSU
In this scenario, WSU is tipping off the quarterfinals at noon against either Stanford, or Washington in back-to-back games with the winner moving on to either play Colorado, UCLA or OSU.
How do you see the final 10 game shaping out? Leave your predictions in the comments. I’ll try to plug in your unique scenario and return the outcome to you.