When No. 4 Arizona and No. 5 Oregon hit the hardwood in Sunday’s NCAA Tournament Round of 32 in Seattle, the Conference of Champions nostalgia will be hard to miss.
The two former Pac-12 foes are set to face off for the first time since the conference saw a mass exodus, followed by the dissolution of the league.
Arizona wrapped up its first season in the Big 12, finishing third in the regular season. Oregon finished eighth in the Big Ten.
It feels like old times, and the familiarity could prove useful as both coaches prepare their teams on short turnaround.
But, it still isn’t the same facing a former conference rival on the first weekend of the tournament.
In fact, historically the selection committee would try to avoid having the teams face this early in the tournament.
“It is a little weird playing them in the second round of the tournament,” Arizona head coach Tommy Lloyd said Saturday. “It’s a team you’re used to being a conference rival and usually you wouldn’t see that until later in the NCAA Tournament. … It’s interesting, but it’s a great thing. Anytime you’re in the tournament, whoever you’re playing next you’re excited. It’s a program and a coach that I have a lot of respect for.
“I am sure both team’s staffs sat down yesterday and watched the film yesterday and they were like, ‘Oh that’s right.’ I think there was probably a lot of those familiar things. Both programs have a conviction in the way and a style of play that suits their personnel, so there’s probably a lot of familiarity on both sides.”
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Wanting to look into the history himself, Oregon head coach Dana Altman looked up how many times the two former Pac-12 juggernauts played each other in the past 14 years.
They played 27 times. Oregon won 15, Arizona took 12. The programs met four times in the conference tournament in the Altman era with the teams going 2-2.
Arizona leads the all-time series against Oregon, 55-38.
“It was always a game we looked forward to,” Altman said Saturday. “A lot of years we were battling for position in the league and NCAA Tournament and so forth. Sean (Miller) did a great job and now Tom (Lloyd) has done a great job. It was always a big game. It is unusual, especially given the last 14 years that we’ve been associated with the program. But we are looking forward to the challenge again.”
The last time Oregon and Arizona squared off, the Ducks eliminated the Wildcats from the 2024 Pac-12 Tournament, 67-59. That loss stands as Lloyd’s only Pac-12 Tournament loss.
Caleb Love, Motiejus Krivas, K.J. Lewis and Jaden Bradley are the only Wildcats on this year’s team who played in the last meeting against Oregon. Jackson Shelstad, Kwame Evans Jr. and Jadrian Tracey are the Ducks who suited up.
Arizona, Oregon coaches comment on new landscape
Lloyd and Altman were asked if the new landscape of college basketball conference alignment has affected West Coast basketball.
Lloyd noted that, because of the lack of a regional conference to house West Coast schools — despite the Pac-12 trying its hardest to come back to life — west coast schools like Arizona and Oregon are going to have to fight a bit harder for prominence.
“With these conferences spanning the country, I think us on the West are going to have to fight hard for our place at the table and for identity because we don’t have a league that’s basically committed to a region of the country,” Lloyd said. “We are going to have fight. We are going to have to scratch. We are going to have to claw. We’re going to have to let people know we are here. And how do you do that? You win. You’re successful. You’re competitive. You play a national schedule. Those are the things we are going to do to let people know that Arizona basketball is here for it.”
Altman acknowledged the change all the old Pac-12 schools have faced, including Stanford and Cal playing in the ACC, and the Big 12 contingent of former teams playing as far as Central Florida and West Virginia. Many of those being teams that Altman saw as standard bearers when he got to Oregon in 2010.
“We looked at those programs when we came in 15 years ago and looked at them and said, ‘We know we got to compete with Arizona. We know we got to compete with UCLA,'” he said. “Those were the programs we looked at. Can we recruit at that level. Those are the programs we got to beat. It has become more national with Washington, UCLA, USC and us heading East so much. … It’s kinda changed for all of us.”
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