Pacific 10 Conference

Thirty-four times, UCLA and USC have played with the Rose Bowl on the line for at least one of the schools, and that scenario might play out again on Nov. 18 at the Coliseum. USC was the overwhelming pick to win the conference title at Pacific 10 media day a month ago, getting 34 of 42 first-place votes. UCLA got four. The Pac-10 goes from a season called "the year of the quarterback" to a season of largely new quarterbacks.

The Pacific 10 Conference officially became the Pac-12 on Friday, the same day the Big Ten went up to 12 teams and the Big 12 shrunk to 10. So goes the landscape of major college sports, and it didn't stop there. Brigham Young, a university with an enrollment of about 34,000, is now part of the West Coast Conference, where no other school has as many as 10,000 students. Utah and Colorado are now members of the Pac-12, and for football they will join UCLA, USC, Arizona and Arizona State in the conference's South Division.

Maybe he won't be Pacific-10 Conference coach of the year, but Kevin Eastman has done a remarkable job in his first season at Washington State. The Cougars had lost popular coach Kelvin Sampson and three of his top four players from a team that lost in the opening round of the NCAA tournament last spring. With mostly inexperienced players, this was supposed to be a rebuilding year. But Eastman, who turned a loser at North Carolina Wilmington into a winner in his four seasons, had other ideas.

The Pacific 10 Conference has spent more than a year preparing for the moment when it can put its television rights up to bid on the open market for the first time since its expansion. With Fox's exclusive negotiating window expiring Thursday, the conference can shop the rights to some 2,700 events a year and a possible partnership in a Pac-12 network to a bevy of interested media and technology companies. The conference will have 12 teams with the additions of Utah and Colorado, covers one-fifth of the country and is the last major-college property on the market for at least a few years.

When the Pacific 10 Conference had only eight members in the 1970s, someone jokingly referred to the league as John McKay and the seven dwarfs. That was in reference to the USC coach's dominating teams. Perhaps there is a recurring theme in the early 1990s--with the Washington Huskies leading the pack. Washington is the clear-cut favorite to repeat as conference champion, despite the loss of quarterback Mark Brunell, who suffered torn knee ligaments in spring practice.

Oregon football Coach Rich Brooks contends that there isn't a bad team in the Pacific 10 Conference and the previous have-nots in the league have narrowed the talent gap with USC, UCLA and Washington. If so, this could be the year an upstart team wins the conference title. Parity hasn't been evident, though, in the league since 1972. USC or UCLA have represented the Pac-10 in the Rose Bowl 14 times in that span, with Washington making three appearances and Arizona State one.

The Pacific 10 Conference's hopes of expanding to the Rocky Mountains ended quickly Thursday when the University of Colorado rejected an invitation to join the league. Colorado's Board of Regents declined the offer with a 6-3 vote during an emergency meeting in Boulder, citing a commitment to the newly formed Big 12 Conference. Big Eight schools including Colorado agreed last February to form the superconference with four Texas refugees of the Southwest Conference.

The words are basically the same, only the scenery and faces change. A week ago, it was Oregon Coach Mike Bellotti telling tall tales in the Northwest, brushing aside concerns about quarterback Dennis Dixon's knee. "Dennis is going to be fine," Bellotti said even as tests were being conducted that would show Dixon was anything but fine after suffering a torn knee ligament against Arizona State on Nov. 3. This week, there's a desert wind blowing from Arizona State.

The Pacific 10 Conference has found no evidence that UCLA basketball Coach Jim Harrick violated NCAA rules when his son Glenn sold a car to the sister of a recruit. Athletic Director Peter T. Dalis said at a news conference Monday that Harrick may still face disciplinary action from the school for not disclosing the transaction. Dalis said he always believed UCLA did nothing wrong in its recruitment of point guard Baron Davis, a highly regarded senior from Santa Monica Crossroads High.

Any college football team would love to have a quarterback who was named most outstanding player in the Rose Bowl. Washington has two. That's only one reason why the Huskies are favored to win a third consecutive Pacific 10 Conference championship after finishing unbeaten and sharing the national title with Miami last season. The question facing Coach Don James is, how does he make the best use of senior left-hander Mark Brunell and junior right-hander Billy Joe Hobert?

Getting the top seeding for the Pacific 10 Conference tournament could be considerably more difficult for UCLA than catching Arizona atop the conference standings, which the Bruins accomplished Saturday at Pauley Pavilion with a 71-49 victory over the Wildcats. The Bruins face a far tougher road than the Wildcats over the final week of the regular season and lag behind their counterparts in the current tiebreaker scenarios. While UCLA travels to play at Washington on Thursday and Washington State on Saturday, Arizona plays host to Oregon State on Thursday and Oregon on Saturday.

When: 1 p.m. Where: Pauley Pavilion. On the air: TV: Prime Ticket. Radio: 570. Records: UCLA 20-8 overall, 11-4 Pacific 10 Conference; Arizona 23-5, 12-3. Update: UCLA Coach Ben Howland calls every game "the most important game of the season," but this time he's not just repeating a cliché. A Bruins victory would move them into a first-place tie atop the Pac-10 standings alongside Arizona, though the Wildcats have the more forgiving schedule during the final week of the regular season; Arizona plays host to the Oregon schools while UCLA hits the road to play at Washington and Washington State.

UCLA next vs. Arizona, Saturday at Pauley Pavilion, 1 p.m., Prime Ticket ? The final game at Pauley Pavilion before the facility closes for interior renovations could have Pacific 10 Conference title implications for the Bruins and the Wildcats. Arizona outclassed UCLA with its superior quickness and athleticism last month during an 85-74 victory in Tucson in which sophomore forward Derrick Williams scored 22 points. ? Ben Bolch

It's goodbye, for now. UCLA bids farewell Saturday to its basketball home of the last 46 years, with plans to return to Pauley Pavilion after renovations are completed in the fall of 2012. In a fortuitous development, the Bruins will also get a chance to say hello to first place in the Pacific 10 Conference. USC's 65-57 upset of No. 10 Arizona on Thursday moved UCLA (20-8, 11-4 Pac-10) to within a game of the Wildcats (23-5, 12-3) heading into the Bruins' home finale against the conference leaders.

UCLA's defense was in a zone, and Ben Howland couldn't have been happier. The coach who abhors zone defenses was thrilled when his Bruins went into lockdown mode with their trademark man-to-man scheme Thursday night at Pauley Pavilion, overcoming a sluggish start to pull away for a 71-53 victory over Arizona State. An array of steals, strips and blocks by UCLA over the final 91/2 minutes of the first half triggered a 30-8 run that transformed a 12-point deficit into a 10-point halftime lead.

The score was close, the time running out, the crowd on its feet, the building rumbling and rocking. But for USC, its exhilarating, back-and-forth second half Thursday against Arizona State at Wells Fargo Arena, where 7,638 raucous fans bore down, was nothing new. "It kind of looked familiar," junior guard Jio Fontan said. It should have. Entering Thursday, USC had played in nine games decided by six or fewer points this season. And seven had been losses, four on the game's final possession.

Lorenzo Romar is pleasantly perched, middle row, in UCLA's 1995 national championship team picture. Seated to Romar's immediate right is Bruins head coach Jim Harrick, flanked by assistants Mark Gottfried and Steve Lavin. Romar, Gottfried and Lavin would all break off Harrick's branch and become Division I head coaches. Today, Romar is the only seated coach of the four in that photo who is still standing. "Just trying to hang on, man," Romar said Tuesday.

Lazeric Jones wished he was dreaming when an assistant coach delivered a wake-up knock on his dorm room door shortly before 8 Saturday morning. "I didn't like it too well," the UCLA point guard said. A few hours later, the Bruins were still feeling groggy. "I kind of felt it in warmups," junior guard Malcolm Lee said. "I was a little sluggish. " UCLA's malaise carried over to the first 10 minutes of a rare late-morning game at Pauley Pavilion. Stanford took a 14-point lead, appearing poised to hand the Bruins a nationally televised flogging on their home court.