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Arizona Wildcats: Baseball head coach Andy Lopez talks lack of PAC-12 Baseball Tournament

The Wildcats definitely needed a conference tournament this year. The conference not having one may cost them a chance to defend the National Championship

The 2012 National Champion Arizona Wildcats may not get a chance to defend their crown in this year's NCAA tournament
The 2012 National Champion Arizona Wildcats may not get a chance to defend their crown in this year's NCAA tournament
Bruce Thorson-US PRESSWIRE

The PAC-12, Big West, and Ivy League are the only conferences in the country to not hold a baseball tournament. The Ivy League doesn't have any conference tournaments, but the PAC-12 and Big West not having one doesn't make any sense, and Arizona Wildcats head coach Andy Lopez agrees.

"I've been pushing for that since I got here. I think it would be great."

The lack of a conference tournament may cost the Wildcats a chance to make the 2013 NCAA Tournament and a shot at defending their 2012 National Championship.

"This is a good year. We would need it, and Stanford could use it."

"It's a real gift when you're on the bubble because the top two teams don't try to win it, they just get their pitching in line because they know they're hosting the following weekend, and it leaves the door open for somebody else to get hot for four days and if you do for four days you win the thing you're in. Liberty did it."

"That hurts us."

Arizona's conference schedule this year hurt them as well, having to play the top two teams, Oregon State and Oregon, the first two weeks of PAC-12 play with a lineup full of freshman.

"It's how it works. If you throw both rosters out......they're not freshman anymore, they were back then."

Maybe with the success of moving the PAC-12 basketball tournament to Las Vegas this past year, the conference will look into holding a baseball tournament in the future. But this year is the year Arizona needed it to get in, as it looks like they will come up just short of making the NCAAs.