A look at the updated 2016 Pac-12 Tournament bracket after the four quarterfinal matchups.
After a first round of blowouts in the Pac-12 Tournament, the quarterfinals were filled with close battles and tremendous games as teams battle for conference superiority. With the selection committee set to decide the fates of teams’ NCAA Tournament chances and seeding on Sunday, these games are important for boosting the strength of resumes heading into Sunday.
On Thursday, four games were played in the quarterfinals of the Pac-12 Tournament and all four went down to the very end. The Washington Huskies rolled through the Stanford Cardinal on Wednesday night, to earn themselves a battle with the Oregon Ducks. The Huskies would give Oregon everything they could handle, but ultimately fell short in the second half. The Ducks would advance to the semifinals of the Pac-12 Tournament.
The Utah Utes fended off a rally from the USC Trojans behind forward Kyle Kuzma’s 23 points on Thursday. The two teams put on quite the show in Las Vegas, but it was Utah that punched their ticket to the second round.
A couple of weeks ago, the Colorado Buffaloes defeated the Arizona Wildcats in an upset. On Thursday, they gave the Wildcats another big fight at the MGM Grand Arena, but the Wildcats edged them out to earn a date with Oregon on Friday.
Just like the three games proceeding them, the Oregon State Beavers and California Golden Bears put on a tightly contested battle to close out the final game of the semifinals on Thursday night. The Golden Bears would pull out the win behind Ivan Rabb to set up a meeting with the Utes.
The Semifinals are now set and the Wildcats, Ducks, Golden Bears and Utes will battle for a spot in the finals on Friday night.