Pac-10 tournament roundup Ubaka keeps Bears alive in upset of No 4 Bruins

If you get a chance to go to the Pac 10 Tournament we suggest you do. You get so much basketball for so little money its amazing. We purchased 4 Pac 10 Tournament tickets and sat our butts in the seats for over 4 hours watching some great basketball. UCLA lost, and Mark wasnt happy with that but it was still a great time. California senior guard Ayinde Ubaka's collegiate basketball career came down to one game Thursday night in the quarterfinals of the Pacific-10 Conference tournament against No. 4 UCLA.

One last chance to salvage a season that had gone south early. One last chance to keep playing. One last chance that appeared virtually impossible to be stretched into another last chance.

Yet somehow, Ubaka and California, with its sub-.500 record coming in and its debilitating injury report, helped define why conference tournaments can be fun, dramatic and eye-popping, even though some elite teams have argued against them.

Behind Ubaka's career-high 29 points, Cal upset conference regular-season champion and tournament top seed UCLA 76-69 in overtime at Staples Center .

"Perhaps we caught them on a bad night," Ubaka said. "But this could have been our last game tonight. They are automatically going to the tournament, so we had to put it all out and play hard."

Cal (16-16) celebrated little after the game. Ubaka would have none of it. Instead, he reminded his teammates that they had earned another last chance tonight in the semifinals against No. 16 Oregon, which annihilated an uninspired Arizona team 69-50.

"I expressed that to the team right when I walked into the locker room," Ubaka said.

Some might challenge that Arizona, with coach Lute Olson often vocally against the concept of a conference tournament, and UCLA (26-5), with a No. 1 seed apparently sewn up, mailed in their performances.

It's difficult to make that case against the Bruins, even though they have lost twice since clinching the regular-season title at Washington State last week.

After Thursday's loss, UCLA Bruins coach Ben Howland shot down a theory that losing to Cal presented a silver lining because now the team would have more opportunity to rest before the NCAA Tournament.

"I'm going to go back right now and watch the tape of this game with my staff and I'm sure we're not going to see any silver linings," Howland said.

UCLA fell behind by 16 points late in the first half but never quit and took the lead 53-49 with 6:36 left in the game.

"We showed a lot of heart and a lot of character," Howland said
But did the Bruins hurt their chances of receiving a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament? Howland said he was more concerned with his team's play than seeds.

"If we don't play better than we're playing right now, anybody in the field of 64 is going to beat us," he said.

USC 83, Stanford 79: Nick Young scored 26 points, Lodrick Stewart made two of his three baskets in overtime, and the Trojans rallied to beat the Cardinal in the quarterfinals of the Pac-10 tournament.

The Trojans rallied from an 11-point second-half deficit to force overtime, then never trailed in the five-minute extra period.

Gabe Pruitt added 17 points, Taj Gibson had 13 points and 10 rebounds, and Dwight Lewis scored 10 points for the third-seeded Trojans (22-11), who won their first Pac-10 tournament game since 2004.

Anthony Goods led Stanford (18-12) with 19 points and five assists. Freshman Landry Fields scored a career-high 15 points and Fred Washington added 12 for the sixth-seeded Cardinal.

No. 11 Washington State 74, Washington 64: Taylor Rochestie scored 20 points, including 11 over the final 61/2 minutes as the Cougars (25-6) pulled away from the Huskies (19-12). Derrick Low added 15 points, Robbie Cowgill 14 and Kyle Weaver 13 for Washington State. Quincy Pondexter led the Huskies with 15 points.

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