With the news of the dissolution of the Pac-12 Conference, schools scrambled around for a place to play.

Wait a minute - that’s not exactly accurate. What happened was that schools made a hasty exit, which itself actually caused the conference to collapse.

That leaves some of these institutions in strange places. The Oregon Ducks, for example, have a long way to go to travel for Big Ten road games, unless they’re going to Washington. The Stanford Cardinal situated themselves in, of all places, the Atlantic Coast Conference, where things become tougher for them.

Those teams will be playing in tournaments on Sunday night - in the NCAA Tournament, Oregon faces the Arizona Wildcats, who moved from the Pac-12 to the Big 12, while Stanford meets Kent State in the NIT. 

Let’s start with Oregon’s game with Arizona, which tips off at 9:40 PM ET at the Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle. In the March Madness betting odds posted at BetOnline, Arizona is favored:

Arizona Wildcats -4 (-105)
Oregon Ducks +4 (-115)

Over 151.5 Points -110
Under 151.5 Points -110

Coach Dana Altman has been at Oregon for 15 seasons, and has won at least 20 games in every one of them. 

This year’s squad had to deal with additional travel with the move to the Big Ten, but they came out of it with a conference record of 12-8 and wins over Wisconsin and Maryland. They also had a non-conference win over Alabama, and defeated Indiana in the Big Ten tournament before being eliminated by Michigan State.

In their NCAA opener, they cruised to an 81-52 victory over Liberty, limiting the Flames to eight makes out of 37 attempts from three-point territory. 

Arizona had a 14-6 mark in the deep Big 12. They beat a couple of the big boys in the conference, including Texas Tech (twice), Iowa State and Kansas (in the league tournament). They beat Akron without too much trouble (93-65) on Friday, posting a dozen triples and a rebounding edge of 53-22.

Arizona gets plenty of second-shot opportunities (ranked 15th nationwide in offensive rebounding percentage), plays very well within the arc (with multiple shot-blockers) and the leadership of North Carolina transfer Caleb Love in the backcourt. 

The inability to hit a lot of threes hurts Arizona here, though, as the ‘Cats will have to deal with the shot-blocking prowess of seven-foot Nate Bittle. Altman really knows the drill, and the Ducks have been known to punch above their weight in the tournament. So the points are worth taking. 

Kyle Smith’s Stanford crew plays host to Kent State at the Mapes Pavilion in a second-round NIT game starting at 9 PM ET. Stanford is a solid favorite according to the good people at BetOnline:

Stanford Cardinal -7.5
Kent State Golden Flashes +7.5 

Over 143 Points -115
Under 143 Points -105

Stanford beat archrival California three times in battles between teams that made the transition from the Pac-12 to the ACC. They also scored a win over North Carolina and lost by only two points to Louisville in the conference tournament.

Smith won the College Insider Tournament when he was coach at Columbia, won 20 games three times at San Francisco, then had a 25-win season at Washington State before landing in Palo Alto. His counterpart, Rob Senderoff, has spent 14 seasons at Kent State.

The player whose most worth watching here is Stanford’s 7’1” center, Maxime Raynaud, who hails from Paris and once played with Victor Wembanyama when the two were at Espoirs Nanterre.

Raynaud is averaging 20.1 points and 10.6 rebounds per game, and importantly, he has improved his free throw shooting to the point where he’s hitting 76.7% from the line. He controlled the paint in the opening-round NIT win over Cal State-Northridge, with five blocked shots, and he could hinder what Kent State does best. You’ll likely hear his name called when it’s time for the NBA Draft, possibly in the first round. 

We’ll lay the points.

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