ERIC M. JUKELEVICS/Arizona Daily Wildcat Head Arizona basketball coach Lute Olson shows his anger after a referee's call earlier this season in McKale Center. Olson is similarly vexed by this year's resurrection of the Pac-10 basketball tournament, which adds games to the already grueling conference schedule.

Cats to face Sun Devils in tomorrow's first round

UA head coach Lute Olson has not kept it a secret that he dislikes the idea of a Pacific 10 Conference tournament.

When Pac-10 coaches voted last year whether to reinstate the tournament, Olson and Stanford head coach Mike Montgomery stood firm and rejected the idea of holding a postseason tournament.

Despite their protests, the tournament will commence tomorrow for the first time since 1990 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

"I think they have known from the start what Arizona's position is on the tournament," Olson said.

However, Olson's standpoint cannot be attributed to a lack of success.

In the four-year history of the Pac-10 tournament (1987-1990), Olson has a 9-1 record and three championships, won consecutively from 1988-1990.

Perhaps the biggest reason for Olson's dislike of the tournament is the danger of a high seed - like Arizona - having to contend with exactly what he will be facing tomorrow - a physical team with nothing to lose.

After facing each team twice already during the regular season, Olson said he is not sure how much good it does for the teams to beat up on each other one more time a week before the NCAA tournament.

UA will face an Arizona State team that is likely not headed to the NCAA tournament, as No. 1 seed Oregon is matched up against a Washington squad that has no chance at a postseason unless it manages to win the conference tournament.

Olson joked earlier in the year that the eight teams that want to be in the tournament should play and Arizona and Stanford can prepare for the NCAA tournament.

But with the opening round of games beginning tomorrow, his focus is on preparing, not criticizing.

"Everyone is going into the tournament knowing they will have a fight on their hands," Olson said. "The games are going to be highly competitive."

Olson also pointed to the fact that the Pac-10 conference boasts six teams that will likely be selected to the NCAA tournament - four of which have been ranked in the Top 10 at some point during the season.

"The tournament won't have the same sense of urgency (as in the past)," Olson said. "It's pretty obvious that there is a pretty natural cutoff."

ASU lies below Olson's cutoff at 14-13, and the Sun Devils will be primed to pull off three upsets and try to squeeze into the NCAA tournament.

After all, the Sun Devils have posted victories over Oregon, Arizona and UCLA this year.

With this in mind, Olson said that ASU is very capable of putting together a three-game run and snagging the automatic bid to the NCAA's.

"They played really well against Stanford and Cal," Olson said. "They have not had many bad games. In most of the cases, the game went down to the wire."

The risk of injury is another concern for the Wildcats, especially against a physical ASU team.

The elite Pac-10 teams fear a situation such as Cincinnati's in 2000, when the Bearcats lost their star player and the unanimous NCAA Player of the Year, Kenyon Martin, to a broken leg suffered in the quarterfinals of the Conference USA tournament against St.Louis.

Martin's absence in the NCAA tournament meant the Bearcats were no longer contenders for the national championship, and they ended up losing in the second round to Tulsa.

Junior guard Luke Walton said he is expecting an already physical conference to become even more brutal when the tournament starts.

"We're going to be beating each other up," Walton said. "Every game is going to be a super matchup. I am probably going to need an ice bag after each of these games."