Pac 12 Tourney: Great Games on Day 1 and Some Even Better Set for Day 2

Also, Vegas is a great college basketball town. There are three conference tournaments going on here right now. Everywhere you look you see different fans wearing different team gear from multiple conferences. It's like putting three bowl games in a town where there is already a ton to do, with great weather. I know there were other ideas floated, like moving it to different towns each year, etc. but I really can't imagine the Pac 12 Tourney being better than it is right now in Vegas.

Before we preview today's action, let's take a quick look back at what happened on Wednesday:

ASU 89 vs Stanford 88 - This was a great game to start the tourney. It was a slug-fest from the beginning as neither team could separate throughout. With ASU leading by 8 with a little over a minute left, Stanford hit 3 consecutive 3 point shots including one with :30 seconds remaining where Aaron Bright was fouled to tie the game. In overtime, Jahii Carson scored 5 of his 34 points and was the difference maker at the end.

Colorado 74 vs OSU 68 - The grudge match. A rematch of two teams that just played last week provided just as much drama. The highlight of the day was Spencer Dinwiddie getting an in-bounds pass with :01.1 left in the first half and slinging one from mid-court to extend their halftime lead to 6. In the second half CU extended that lead to 11, but once Ahmad Starks and Joe Burton finally started scoring OSU was able to pull it back to 6.

Utah 69 vs USC 66 - Utah so far has the biggest fan attendance (although that may change today because there are a lot of Arizona fans here) and they were able to push their team to victory. I'm not sure either team appreciated the officiating very much in this game as the physical USC team attacked at every opportunity and the refs seemed to let a lot go, but still called USC for more fouls overall. Interestingly, USC had a chance to tie the game, but fumbled the ball late and couldn't get a shot off.

Uw 64 vs WSU 62 - A game that looked to be the snoozer of the day turned out to be one of the best late. Uw ran out to a 19 point lead behind the stellar play of Abdul Gaddy and Scott Suggs, but WSU's Brock Motum and DJ Shelton attacked from all over the court in the final 6 minutes to actually tie the game with 2:50 remaining. But like most WSU games, they let you down in the end and didn't score the rest of the time.

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Here's a look at today's schedule:

12:00pm - ASU vs Ucla - You can watch whatever you want in this game, I'm going to be looking at Jahii Carson against Larry Drew II. The two dynamic guards should go back and forth most of the night with Carson being able to create for himself and Drew II setting up others on the floor. ASU won the last meeting between the two, and Ucla is coming in as regular season champs and have a lot prove.

2:30pm - Colorado vs Arizona - This is like college basketball porn. The first match between these teams was marred by a ref overrule of a late game winning 3. The rematch in Colorado the Buffs got their revenge by crushing the Wildcats. Don't think that Arizona has quickly forgotten that game. Oh yeah, and this is also a rematch of last year's Pac 12 Tourney Championship Game, where Arizona thought they were screwed. Let's just say neither of these teams like the other and in recent past, there isn't a lot of reason to. This is going to be a great game.

6:00pm - Utah vs Cal - Cal hasn't played in 8 days since they were run out of their own gym by Stanford. Utah has played a couple of physical teams in between that and come out victors. We'll see if that takes it toll on the Utes and if Cal can use that to their advantage.

8:30pm - Uw vs Oregon - [Preview Coming Later]

Plenty of other great games on the slate for Thursday as #5 Georgetown takes on Cincinnati in the Big East quarterfinals and #19 Syracuse against #17 Pittsburgh tip at 11:00am. Use this space to talk about the day's action. We'll have a preview of the Oregon versus washington game as well as a game thread out later today.