Deep Pac-12 set for conference tourney in Seattle

Right behind the Cardinal, and sharing the conference title this year, is rapidly improving and fifth-ranked California. Not too far back are No. 14 UCLA and the surprise of the season, No. 18 Colorado. Even recently downtrodden Washington is showing signs of resurgence and is on the verge of a 20-win season.

While the top to bottom depth of the Pac-12 could still use improvement, the coaches see the league becoming stronger and receiving more worthy recognition.

The depth of the conference will get a chance to showcase itself this week when the Pac-12 tournament moves out of Los Angeles and gets a four-day billing at KeyArena in Seattle.

Stanford, California, UCLA and Colorado all received first-round byes. The tournament begins on Thursday with fifth-seeded Washington facing No. 12 Oregon; No. 6 Utah vs. No. 11 Arizona; No. 7 USC vs. No. 10 Oregon State and No. 8 Washington State vs. No. 9 Arizona State.

"My hope this weekend and moving forward is because of the television coverage and the timing of it, it's going to help the NCAA selection committee. It will give us a good look," Arizona State coach Charli Turner Thorne said. "A few years ago when we talked endlessly to have it or not, the biggest reason was to allow teams to get a few more wins that were on the bubble and showcase ourselves for seed in the NCAA tournament. We're really positioned well for that now with how things are structured."

As conference tournaments begin around the country, the Pac-12 is one of two — along with the SEC — with four teams ranked in the top 18 nationally. The last time the conference ended the season with four teams ranked in the final AP poll: 1981. Five times since 2001, the conference ended the season with just one ranked team, including Stanford last season.

Colorado is clearly the surprise of the four ranked teams. Colorado was picked to finished ninth in the preseason conference poll.

"It's always our goal to be better than anyone thinks we would be. I knew at the beginning of the season there was no way we would finish ninth," Colorado coach Linda Lappe said. "But I knew we had to stay healthy and get our young players better and acclimated to the college game and that's a huge reason we were able to finished fourth.

Increasing exposure and recognition nationally for Pac-12 women's hoops was one of Larry Scott's initiatives when he took over as conference commissioner. A big help in increasing that exposure was the development and launch this year of the Pac-12 Network, which regularly made games available on a national platform. Combining that bump in how many games are being seen with the teams doing their part, and the end result is more national attention on the Pac-12 than has been seen for quite some time.