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LAGUNA NIGUEL, Ca. – All of the pre-NCAA Tournament field and bracket speculation, via the work of the seemingly countless – and meticulous – “bracketologists”, has, in essence, rendered “surprise” almost non-existent each Sunday evening at this time of the year.

The projection of the 37 at-large selections to the 68-team field has become something approaching an exact science.

The only thing approaching something beyond eyebrow-raising when the 2013 bracket was unveiled involved the seeding of the teams – and several of the matchups (and potential matchups).

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LAS VEGAS – Suppose, if you will, that a survey was taken early last week of all of the media that covers the basketball programs from within the Mountain West and Pacific 12 conferences whose questions included:

Who will be the Most Valuable Players in the respective tournaments?

In the MWC, junior point guard Kendall Williams of regular-season champion New Mexico – the conference’s 2013 Player of the Year – would have received a lot of support.

So would have 2012 POY Jamaal Franklin of San Diego State and so would have soon-to-be NBA lottery selection in MWC Freshman of the Year Anthony Bennett of UNLV.

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LAS VEGAS – If you’re easily seduced by the color red, large and noisy crowds and a couple of entertaining and gifted college basketball teams, that the Thomas & Mack Center, on the UNLV campus, is the place to be mid-Saturday afternoon.

Unless you’re already in possession of a ticket, though, it’s probably wise not to invest the time and effort into showing up for the 3 o’clock tip-off for the Mountain West Conference Tournament championship game that will be played between the host Rebels and the regular-season New Mexico Lobos.

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LAS VEGAS – With as much focus – internal and external – on the Friday matchup between the UCLA and the Arizona teams Friday night in the MGM Garden Arena, the winning coach will have to almost immediately remind his squad of something afterward:

The third meeting of the season between the Bruins and Wildcats will not have been for the conference tournament championship and the Pac 12’s automatic bid to the 68-team NCAA Tournament field.

Although the UCLA-UA matchup has the most sizzle — and if you are even a neophyte in following all things Pac-10 and, now, Pac-12 hoops, you know why – there will still be one more game for the winner to play come Saturday night.

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LAS VEGAS – Three days, and six college tournament games, down and now it’s onto the MGM Grand’s Garden Arena today for the Pac 12 Conference Tournament quarterfinals, beginning with the noon tip-off between top seed and regular-season champion UCLA and Arizona State.

Before I put the Honda Accord on its way west on Harmon and then south on Koval to get to that massive entity which is the self-parking structure at the city within a city that is the MGM, my thoughts on Wednesday’s Mountain West quarterfinal games:

*How many conferences can make the claim that each of its tourney quarterfinalists is a “quality” club?

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