Pac-12 men’s basketball tournament field set; Arizona to face ASU/Stanford winner

And now, the Wildcats wait.

Arizona is the No. 1 seed in the Pac-12 Tournament next week at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, which means a bye until Thursday’s quarterfinal round. It will face the winner of Wednesday’s first-round game between No. 8 ASU and No. 9 Stanford at 1 p.m. MT on Thursday.

Second-ranked UA (28-3, 18-2) is 9-1 in games play at T-Mobile Arena, which opened in 2016. It won the 2017 and 2018 Pac-12 tourneys there, while this past November it beat Wichita State and Michigan in the Roman Main Event.

Its only loss there was to USC in the first round of the 2019 Pac-12 tourney.

“I’ve heard these rumors that ... T-Mobile becomes McKale North up there,” UA coach Tommy Lloyd said after Arizona’s 89-61 win Saturday over Cal, which set a record for most Pac-10/12 wins and tied the school mark for regular-season victories.

Arizona is 4-0 this season against ASU and Stanford, winning those games by an average of 15.8 points. The closer contests were in Tucson, where the Wildcats were tied with the Sun Devils at halftime before winning 67-56 and they trailed Stanford by two on Thursday before winning 81-69.

ASU (14-16, 10-10) is the hottest team in the conference heading to Vegas, winning its last four and seven of eight. It ended the regular season with a 65-56 home win over Stanford (15-15, 8-12), which has dropped five in a row.

“They’ve been on fire,” Lloyd said of ASU. “Much, much improved. I tip my hat to Bobby (Hurley). They’re feisty defensively, and offensively they’re sharing the ball and they look good.

“And Stanford came in here and gave us a battle. They’ve got some talent, they’ve got size across the board. They have some defensive versatility that they showed here that I wasn’t expecting. It’s going to be a tough game no matter what, there’s no guarantees you’re going to come out on top.”

Here’s a look at the full Pac-12 tourney bracket: