SAUL LOEB/Arizona Daily Wildcat Arizona head coach Lute Olson said he is against Pac-10 teams playing 18 regular season games before the Pac-10 tournament. Olson and the Wildcats face USC tomorrow night in Los Angeles for Pac-10 tournament first-round action.

Olson's Pac-10 views differ from last year

Lute Olson has never been afraid to say what he thinks about the Pac-10 Tournament.

"We'll be there because it's the vote of the conference, and we'll try to win it as we did last year," said the UA men's hoops head coach last year at this time. "I personally think 18 games in-conference is enough."

Olson's remarks regarded a UA team that was a No. 1 seed in last year's NCAA tournament, conference tourney championship or not.

This season, however, with national rating services predicting Arizona to be as low as a No. 10 seed for this year's version of the big dance, Olson and his players know this week's conference tournament is really a whole new ballgame ÷ for the Wildcats and the rest of the conference.

"I think if we could win the tournament, it would help us regain the season," Olson said. "If you don't have the regular-season championship, you could win the tournament championship, which certainly would be a feather in anyone's cap."

Over the two years since the tournament's rebirth ÷ the Pacific 10 Conference put on four tournaments from 1986-87 to 1989-90 before it went on hiatus ÷ Olson has repeatedly stressed his distaste for the extra games. Olson and Stanford's Mike Montgomery were, in fact, the only two conference coaches against bringing it back in 2001.

But during the last two seasons, Arizona was never in the position it's in now ÷ forced to look up at the nation's best teams, rather than down from a perch atop the college hoops landscape.

Earlier this week, Olson said it isn't so much the tournament he's against, but that two teams have to sit out every season.

"The Pac-8 Tournament?" Olson said. "(Pac-10) is a misnomer, isn't it?

In addition to allowing all 10 teams to compete ÷ Oregon State and Arizona State won't be traveling to Staples Center in Los Angeles tomorrow ÷ Olson added that the most important change the Pac-10 needs to make is with the conference's regular season schedule.

"I think it's absolutely ludicrous for us to have to play 18 games in the league and turn around and play a tournament," Olson said. "You can see what's happened with the (Ratings Percentage Index) in our league. You can win and drop. It's killing us. It's killing our league."

In recent weeks, Arizona has been fighting for its RPI life. Simulations have the Wildcats hovering in the mid- to high 30s, with a probable seeding of anywhere from 8 to 10 in various forecasts.

The situation is worse, however, for conference foe Washington, a team Olson said should be in the NCAA Tournament. The Huskies' problem is an RPI ranking in the mid-70s ÷ the consequence of a weak conference schedule.

"There is no way that Washington could be kept out of the NCAA Tournament," Olson said. "The NCAA looks at how you've done over your last 10 or 15 games, and I just don't see how they could be left out. They are young, and they have a lot of momentum coming into the Pac-10 Tournament, and additional games would be in their best interest."

The same Husky squad ÷ now with a 17-10 overall record ÷ knocked off nationally ranked Arizona twice, all before finishing the regular season with a 13-point knockout of previously undefeated Stanford, the nation's top team at the time. But if the RPI has any say in it, the Huskies' season would be over this weekend.

As far as his own team, Olson said what happens on the court will decide where his team ÷ or any other Pac-10 squad ÷ ends up next week. Olson said he's focused on preparing his team to play three teams in three days, and carry a Pac-10 Tournament title into next weeks NCAAs. The rest is up to the selection committee.

"I don't know; that is out of our hands," Olson said. "We just need to come out and play as well as we can play."