Only four games separate the Arizona men's basketball team from the NCAA Tournament, but don't pencil UA in as a No. 3 seed just yet because those four games are a doozy. Of the Wildcats' four Pacific 10 Conference losses this season, three of them (Washington, California and Stanford) are against teams Arizona will play in the final two weeks of the season. Here are notes from the UA basketball team:

Sowing the seeds: UCLA has a two-game lead in the Pac-10 and will in all likelihood win the league title, but No. 11 Arizona seems to have the inside track to get a higher seed in the tournament, especially now that the 17th-ranked Bruins have stumbled down the stretch, including a 85-66 loss at Duke this weekend.

While the Pac-10 would push for UCLA to be the highest-seeded team from the conference because it would be the conference champion, UA head coach Lute Olson said the selection committee for the tournament did not have to follow the conference's recommendation.

"The Pac-10 would recommend (UCLA) as being their number one seed, but the NCAA is not required to follow that," Olson said. "But we've got four tough games in the near future that could change all of that."

Olson also said the Bruins' loss to the Blue Devils would not help the conference's attempt to get four teams into the tournament, and it would lower the Pac-10's power ranking against other conferences.

"If someone's looking for a reason to cut down on the number of teams, they can say 'look at this,'" Olson said.

A.J.: Despite the recent reduction in freshman center A.J. Bramlett's playing time, Olson said it was not as much what Bramlett was doing as it was what Arizona was trying to accomplish as a team.

With a change to a perimeter-oriented, four players out, one player in approach, Olson has turned to senior forwards Joe McLean and Corey Williams to play the bulk of those minutes.

But while Olson said both Bramlett and redshirt freshman Donnell Harris could expect more playing time on the Washington road trip, he felt the duo needed to play with more intensity.

"They just need to be more aggressive," Olson said. "They can't get a whole lot stronger right now, but they have to increase their aggressiveness."

"He's been playing pretty well," Ben Davis said of Bramlett. "I think earlier in the year A.J. was a little bit above Donnell, now I think Donnell's picked it up and they've evened up. They both do good things when they're in the game."

Would you like butter on that?: Freshman point guard Jason Terry, from Seattle's Franklin High School, is no stranger to Hec Edmundson Pavilion, site of Sunday's game with Washington.

Last year, Terry was in the Pavilion for the game, but never saw a minute of the action. He had no time for that € he was selling popcorn.

This year, Terry's role is slightly different € he'll be playing.

"Well, I'm playing and we're ready for them," Terry said. "They beat us last time and I think I've got something built up for them and I'm ready to go ahead and let it loose."

Charlie's Angels: Olson said there was no truth to the rumor that he was leading a charge to get fired Southern Cal head coach Charlie Parker named Pac-10 Coach of the Year. Olson, who has been outspoken in his disapproval of the decision to fire the second-year coach, said he had not talked to any other conference coaches about it, but was not adverse to the idea.

"I think it would put a definite statement as to how the coaches feel about (USC's) choice," Olson said. "Besides, I thought Charlie Parker did a good job, he had them turned around."

Parker was fired following his team's loss to Oregon Feb. 3 despite an 11-10 record. USC was 7-21 the year before.

Swiping a record: Reggie Geary is six steals away from becoming UA's all-time steal leader. Cleveland Indian centerfielder Kenny Lofton has the record with 200 steals.

While the record could fall this weekend, Geary said he could have broken it a long time ago if he wasn't hobbled by a sprained ankle for the second half of last season.

"It would mean a lot, but if I had had a healthy junior year this record would have been gone by now," Geary said. "But to do this in three years, three and a quarter years, it's something to be very proud of."

Too much free time: Arizona is 15-0 when it scores 80 or more points ... UA is 11-0 when Michael Dickerson scores 13 or more points.