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Pacific-10 Conference Men's Basketball Tournament
File:Pac10BasketballTournamentPacificLife.png
Official logo of the tournament; Pacific Life has been title sponsor since 2003.
Sport Basketball
Conference Pacific-10 Conference
Number of teams 10
Format Single-elimination tournament
Current stadium Staples Center
Current location Los Angeles, California
Played 1987-1990, 2002-present
Last contest 2010 Pacific-10 Conference Men's Basketball Tournament
Current champion Washington
Most championships Arizona Wildcats (4)
Official website Pac-10.org Men's Basketball
Sponsors
Pacific Life (2003-present)

The Pacific-10 Conference Men's Basketball Tournament, known since 2003 under sponsorship agreements as the Pacific Life Pac-10 Men’s Basketball Tournament, and otherwise known as the Pac-10 Tournament, is the annual concluding tournament for the NCAA college basketball in the Pacific-10 Conference, taking place in Los Angeles at the Staples Center every year.

History[]

The predecessor conference of the Pacific-10, the Pacific Coast Conference began playing basketball in the 1915-16 season. The PCC was split into North and South Divisions for basketball beginning with the 1922-23 season. The winners of the two divisions would play a best of three series of games to determine the PCC basketball champion. If two division teams tied, they would have a one game playoff to produce the division representative. Starting with the first NCAA Men's Basketball Championship in 1939, the winner of the PCC divisional playoff was given the automatic berth in the NCAA tournament. Oregon, the 1939 PCC champion, won the championship game in the 1939 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament.

The last divisional playoff was in the 1954-55 season. After that, there was no divisional play and all teams played each other in a round robin competition. From the 1955-56 season through the 1985-86 season, the regular season conference champion was awarded the NCAA tournament berth from the PCC, later AAWU, Pac-8 and Pac-10.

Beginning with the 1975 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament, the Pac-10 would usually place at least one other at-large team in the tournament. Although, since the run by UCLA that ended in the 1970s, the PAC-10 would struggle to get out of the early rounds of the NCAA tournament.

By the 1985-86 season, the Pac-10 was one of three remaining conferences that gave their automatic NCAA tournament bid to the regular season round-robin champion. The other two conferences were the Ivy League and the Big Ten Conference.

1987-1990[]

The modern tournament format began in 1987. The first incarnation of the tournament ran from 1987 to 1990, hosted at different school sites. UCLA was awarded the inaugural tournament, which was won by the Bruins. The Arizona Wildcats would take the next three. It was dropped after 1990 upon opposition from coaches, poor revenue, and poor attendance.[1] The Pac-10 went back to having the regular season conference champion get awarded the automatic NCAA tournament bid for the 1990-2001 seasons. During that time Arizona and UCLA both won NCAA championships.

2002 to the present[]

In 1998, the Big Ten began to hold a conference tournament, leaving the Pac-10 and Ivy League the lone conferences without post season tournaments. The tournament was restarted by a 8-2 vote of the athletic directors of the conference in 2000 after determining that a tournament would help increase exposure of the conference and help the seeding of the schools in the NCAA tournament.[2] Stanford University and the University of Arizona opposed the tournament, while UCLA's and USC's votes, considered the deciding votes, were swayed by permanently hosting the tournament at Staples Center.[3] Los Angeles is the second largest media market in the United States. The championship game has been broadcast nationally by CBS Sports.

Television coverage[]

Format[]

From 1987 to 1990 and since 2006, all ten teams participate in the tournament, with the top six teams receiving a bye in the opening round. Between 2002 and 2005, only the top eight teams in the conference participated in the tournament. Washington State is the only team to have never played in the championship game.

Results[]

Year Champion Score Runner-Up Tournament MVP Arena (City)
1987 UCLA 76-64 Washington Reggie Miller, UCLA Pauley Pavilion (Los Angeles, California)
1988 Arizona 93-67 Oregon State Sean Elliott, Arizona McKale Center (Tucson, Arizona)
1989 Arizona 73-51 Stanford Sean Elliott, Arizona Great Western Forum (Inglewood, California)
1990 Arizona 94-78 UCLA Jud Buechler, Arizona University Activity Center (Tempe, Arizona)
2002 Arizona 81-71 USC Luke Walton, Arizona Staples Center (Los Angeles, California)
2003 Oregon 74-66 USC Luke Ridnour, Oregon Staples Center (Los Angeles, California)
2004 Stanford 77-66 Washington Josh Childress, Stanford Staples Center (Los Angeles, California)
2005 Washington 81-72 Arizona Salim Stoudamire, Arizona Staples Center (Los Angeles, California)
2006 UCLA 71-52 California Leon Powe, California Staples Center (Los Angeles, California)
2007 Oregon 81-57 USC Tajuan Porter, Oregon Staples Center (Los Angeles, California)
2008 UCLA 67-64 Stanford Darren Collison, UCLA Staples Center (Los Angeles, California)
2009 USC 66-63 Arizona State DeMar DeRozan, USC Staples Center (Los Angeles, California)
2010 Washington 79-75 California Isaiah Thomas, Washington Staples Center (Los Angeles, California)

The tourney will be held at the Staples Center through 2012.

Tournament Championships by School[]

Member Winners Winning Years
Arizona 4 1988, 1989, 1990, 2002
UCLA 3 1987, 2006, 2008
Oregon 2 2003, 2007
Washington 2 2005, 2010
Stanford 1 2004
USC 1 2009

Most Consecutive Championships[]

3 - Arizona (1988, 1989, 1990)

References[]

  1. Matt Duffy - Vote Today On Pac-10 Tournament. Daily Californian. Monday, October 23, 2000
  2. Pac-10 News: PAC-10 APPROVES POST-SEASON BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTS YEAR-AROUND TRAINING TABLE ALSO APPROVED. Pac-10 site (www.pac-10.org). Monday, October 23, 2000
  3. Keith Carmona - Pac-10 votes to revive basketball tournament; Olson, men against tourney; Bonvicini happy for publicity. Arizona Daily Wildcat. Tuesday October 24, 2000

2007-08 Pac-10 Men's Basketball Media Guide pages 50-60 (PDF copy available at 2007-08 Pac-10 Men's Basketball Media Guide)

External links[]


NCAA Division I men's basketball conference tournaments

ACC • America East • Atlantic 10 • Atlantic Sun • Big 12 • Big East • Big Sky • Big South • Big Ten • Big West • CAA • Conference USA • Horizon • MAAC • MEAC • Mid-American • Missouri Valley • Mountain West • Northeast • Ohio Valley • Pac-10 • Patriot • SEC • Southern • Southland • SWAC • Sun Belt • The Summit League • WAC • West Coast

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