2002 Pacific-10 Conference men's basketball tournament

2002 Pacific-10 Conference men's basketball tournament
Classification	Division I
Season	2001–02
Teams	8
Site	Staples Center Los Angeles, California
Champions	Arizona (4th title)
Winning coach	Lute Olsen (4th title)
MVP	Luke Walton (Arizona)
Attendance	18,997 (final game)
Pacific-10 Conference men's basketball tournaments

2001–02 Pacific-10 Conference
men's basketball standings

	Conf							Overall
Team	W		L		PCT			W		L		PCT
No. 6 Oregon	14	–	4		.778			26	–	9		.743
California	12	–	6		.667			23	–	9		.719
No. 10 Arizona†	12	–	6		.667			24	–	10		.706
No. 18 USC	12	–	6		.667			22	–	10		.688
Stanford	12	–	6		.667			20	–	10		.667
No. 20 UCLA	11	–	7		.611			21	–	12		.636
Arizona State	7	–	11		.389			12	–	15		.444
Washington	5	–	13		.278			11	–	17		.393
Oregon State	4	–	14		.222			11	–	17		.393
Washington State	1	–	17		.056			6	–	21		.222
† Conference tournament winner As of July 10, 2011[1] Rankings from Coaches Poll[2]

The 2002 Pacific-10 Conference men's basketball tournament was played March 7–9 at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. The event was revived after eleven seasons without, and USC made its first appearance in the final. The champion of the tournament was Arizona, which received the Pac-10's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. The Most Outstanding Player was Luke Walton of Arizona, and a capacity crowd of 18,997 attended the championship game on Saturday.^[3][4][5][6]

Seeds

The top eight teams participated, with all in the Thursday quarterfinals.^[7][8] Teams were seeded by conference record, with a tiebreaker system used to seed teams with identical conference records. The previous four editions (1987–1990) included all ten teams, with the final on Sunday.

Bracket

	Quarterfinals Thursday, March 7					Semifinals Friday, March 8					Final Saturday, March 9
	1	#9 Oregon	86
	8	Washington	64
						1	#9 Oregon	78
						4	#22 USC	89
	4	#22 USC	103
	5	#16 Stanford	78
											4	#22 USC	71
											2	#15 Arizona	81
	3	#25 California	67
	6	UCLA	61
						3	#25 California	78
						2	#15 Arizona	90
	2	#15 Arizona	73
	7	Arizona State	56

Tournament Notes

• Arch-rivals Arizona and ASU met for the first time in a Pac-10 Tournament (the 2nd meeting ever by any arch-rival universities).
• Only one lower seeded team beat a higher seeded team the whole tournament (#4 USC over #1 Oregon in the second round).
• In this tournament Oregon set the team single game record for the most blocked shots with 9 (vs. Washington).
• This was the first Pac-10 Basketball Tournament held in the 21st century.

All tournament team

• Luke Walton, Arizona – Tournament MVP
• Sam Clancy, USC
• Brandon Granville, USC
• Jason Gardner, Arizona
• Salim Stoudamire, Arizona

References

1. "Pacific 10 conference 2001–02 standings". Retrieved July 10, 2011.
2. "2002 NCAA Men's Basketball Rankings". ESPN. Retrieved July 10, 2011.
3. PAC-10 News – This week in Pac-10 Men's basketball Archived 2008-05-21 at the Wayback Machine, PAC-10, March 17, 2008
4. 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 Archived 2009-03-02 at the Wayback Machine)
5. Harris, Beth (March 10, 2002). "Walton carries 'Cats to title". Eugene Register-Guard. (Oregon). Associated Press. p. 1G.
6. "Walton puts on show". Spokesman-Review. (Spokane, Washington). Associated Press. March 10, 2002. p. C7.
7. Conrad, John (March 7, 2002). "Ducks are underdogs no longer". Eugene Register-Guard. (Oregon). p. 1E.
8. "Pac-10 takes on some one-and-done hoops". Spokesman-Review. (Spokane, Washington). Associated Press. March 7, 2002. p. C3.