Bottom line -- Chris Dufresne

Sometime around 3 p.m. Pacific Time on Sunday, UCLA officially replaced the Lakers as No. 1 in the West, although both teams have concerns about injuries to their big people.

So why did they play the Pacific 10 Conference tournament again?

To determine that UCLA was the best team and Stanford was the second best?

Didn’t we know that after the regular season?

Once again, the conference’s greed-is-good decision to revisit its postseason tournament concept a few years ago may end up costing the Pac-10 a national title.

For what it’s worth, UCLA (1995) and Arizona (1997) won titles without a postseason tournament.

The only thing UCLA took out of this weekend’s tournament at Staples Center was a medical report -- an ankle sprain for Luc Richard Mbah a Moute and back spasms for freshman center Kevin Love, not that those guys are important to any national title run.

Forget the first-round opponent, Mississippi Valley State, best known for producing football Hall of Famer Jerry Rice. UCLA might as well be playing Harper Valley PTA. The key letters for UCLA this week are RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevate).

Unless the football team shows up, UCLA should be OK against Brigham Young after the Cougars get past Texas A&M.;

UCLA’s real test may come in the regional semifinals, against No. 4 Connecticut, which under Jim Calhoun has won two national titles since UCLA won its 11th in 1995. And, not that this is an omen, but Connecticut won it all in 1999 and 2004 while going through Phoenix, site of this year’s regional final.

It wouldn’t be an NCAA tournament without Billy Packer defending the Atlantic Coast Conference, and he did it again Sunday when he complained about the ACC’s getting only four bids this year even though it was No. 1 in the RPI, which everyone except Packer knows is only one component in the selection process.

Duke, as usual, came out OK, getting the No. 2 seeding in the West even though the Blue Devils didn’t even make it to the ACC title game.

Look for Duke to get all the officials’ calls en route to advancing to a regional final loss to UCLA Medical Center.