It isn’t same, old NCAA, especially in Arizona

Florida and Ohio State were on the court when the ball was tossed up for the NCAA championship game last April.

They aren’t even certain to be in the bracket when the NCAA tournament field is announced Sunday.

The two-time champion Gators, gutted by the NBA draft, are 21-10 but have lost seven of their last 10 and probably need a good showing in the Southeastern Conference tournament after losing to fellow bubble-dweller Kentucky on Sunday.

Ohio State, similarly hit by the draft, helped its prospects by upsetting No. 17 Michigan State on Sunday -- the 19-12 Buckeyes’ second consecutive victory over a ranked team after beating No. 15 Purdue.

Here in the West -- other than the question of whether UCLA gets an almost certain bus ride to Anaheim for the first and second rounds and a likely short-hop flight to Phoenix for the regional -- the big question is the fate of Arizona, which has made the NCAA tournament 23 years in a row.

With an 18-13 record after finishing a stunning seventh in the Pacific 10 with an 8-10 record after a loss to Oregon on Saturday, the Wildcats are on unsteady ground.

No Pac-10 team has made the NCAA tournament with a 9-9 record, much less a sub-.500 record, and no team since Georgia in 2001 has earned an at-large berth with 14 losses -- as Arizona would have unless it won the Pac-10 tournament this week at Staples Center.

The Wildcats’ NCAA tournament fate is almost as much in question as the situation involving Coach Lute Olson, whose leave for unspecified personal reasons this season was under the provisions of the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, the university revealed to Arizona newspapers last week.

Olson has said he plans to return next season, when he will be 74, but some believe that would be a difficult transition and no more than a short-term solution for a team that has largely moved on under interim Coach Kevin O’Neill, who has a handshake agreement to replace Olson whenever he decides to retire.

That’s a lot of back story for players who need to be zeroed in on playing well in the Pac-10 tournament, where they are relegated to the opening round Wednesday against Oregon State.

At least that ought to be a win, since the Beavers just became the first team to go 0-18 in Pac-10 play. Stanford would await next.

Still, Arizona’s prospects are better than they might seem, largely because the Wildcats played a schedule rated the most difficult in the nation, and they will get consideration from the selection committee for the four games they played without leading scorer Jerryd Bayless and the seven without guard Nic Wise.

But here’s where Arizona State and Oregon would have a big complaint if Arizona got in and they didn’t: The Sun Devils and Ducks both swept the Wildcats.

Even though only four Pac-10 teams are locks -- UCLA, Stanford, Washington State and USC -- that seems to leave the door open for as many as seven to make the field. Arizona State and Oregon would be dealt significant setbacks if they don’t win their quarterfinal games against surging USC and Washington State on Thursday, however.

Also lurking in the field is California, which would have to win the Pac-10 tournament to make the NCAA tournament but proved its mettle with an overtime loss to USC and a controversial one-point loss to UCLA last week.

The Golden Bears could play the Bruins on Thursday in a rematch of the game UCLA won Saturday after a no-call on an apparent foul on an inbounds play and Josh Shipp’s probably illegal miracle shot from behind the backboard.

“It’s one of those calls when you’re not at home, you don’t get,” the Bears’ Jamal Boykin said. “It’s put a rage in us. I’ve never seen guys on this team this mad after a loss.

“This game will help us. This game wasn’t to get us into the Pac-10 tournament. The Pac-10 tournament will get us into the NCAA tournament. I believe we can win it.”

To do that, they’d have to start by getting by Washington and then UCLA, which is playing for a No. 1 seeding and the Anaheim-Phoenix scenario, although it’s important to remember UCLA might still get its preferred route even as a No. 2-seeded team, as it did the last two years.

The other likely top-seeded teams as the major conference tournaments begin are North Carolina, Memphis and Tennessee, with Duke a candidate to join North Carolina as a No. 1 if the Blue Devils beat North Carolina in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament and another top-seeding prospect falters.

As for the teams that are borderline just to make the field, they are encountering the most forgiving bubble in recent memory, with some teams whose resumes typically wouldn’t be nearly good enough likely to make the field.

Consider that 18-11 Kentucky, which lost at home to Gardner-Webb and San Diego, looks as if it will make it, even after losing freshman standout Patrick Patterson to injury.

“I’ve been around a lot of tough teams, but no team tougher than this one,” Kentucky Coach Billy Gillispie said after his team defeated Florida. “They defy the odds. Not one person spoke about losing an unbelievable player since that time it happened last week. All our guys have been doing is concentrating on how we are going to do this.”

Come Sunday, they’ll know whether they have succeeded.

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robyn.norwood@latimes.com

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PACIFIC 10 TOURNAMENT

Wednesday

night’s games

at Staples Center

Washington St.

vs. California, 6

Oregon State

vs. Arizona, 8:30