It will be Ducks and Cougars to open the Pac-10 women's basketball tournament, after all.
Washington's upset of California on Sunday gave the Huskies sole possession of sixth place in the conference, and the final first-round bye into the Pac-10 tournament. Oregon would have claimed that distinction through a tiebreaker if the Ducks and Huskies had each finished with seven conference wins, but UW claimed its eighth with the surprising win over the Bears.
An Oregon-WSU matchup on Friday at 6 p.m. in San Jose, Calif., developed into a strong possibility over the last couple of weeks, but two losses by USC this week — one to eighth-place Arizona — opened up a tiebreaker scenario in which the Ducks could have edged Washington.
The Ducks (13-16) closed their regular season by completing a season sweep of Oregon State at home Saturday, keeping their hopes for a first-round tournament bye alive. Instead, the Ducks will play Friday against the other Pac-10 opponent they swept this season, the last-place Cougars (2-16).
"It's something we had been anticipating since a week or so ago, and therefore I think our team probably was ready to play on Friday," UO coach Bev Smith said. "Obviously with the hope last night, having a chance to be sixth is always good, but we'll just go forward."
Oregon beat Washington State 64-45 in Eugene on Jan. 17, the Ducks' largest margin of victory in a conference game this season. They completed the sweep with a 70-67 win in Pullman on Feb. 17, though the Cougars cut a 13-point deficit down to one in the final two minutes.
"We have to play our kind of basketball," Smith said. "It starts on the defensive end, and we didn't do a very good job up there."
The Ducks might have preferred the sixth seed's benefit of an extra day off before facing No. 3 Arizona State, a team Oregon nearly upset on the road last month.
"It can work the way you want it to work," Smith said. "For a young team, it's probably good to get on the floor right away and get a game under your belt, get comfortable with the surroundings and hopefully a win under your belt."
The other first-round matchup Friday features Oregon State and Arizona, a rematch of a game won by the Wildcats in the first round last year. The two finished tied for eighth in the standings at 4-14, but OSU gets the honor of the No. 8 seed by virtue of its win over Washington.
The UO-WSU winner will face No. 2 Cal in Saturday's second quarterfinal, following ASU-UW at 11 a.m. The third game features conference champ Stanford against the OSU-Arizona winner, and the day will end with No. 4 USC vs. No. 5 UCLA.