Championship Week has nearly reached its conclusion, and in the Pac-12, the title game comes down to a matchup between the No. 1 Arizona Wildcats and the No. 2 UCLA Bruins. \u00a0[ad-4468020]<\/p>\n
Pac 12 Tourney Title Game<\/strong> ATS Matchup Insight<\/a> | CP Insider Gambling Preview<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Entering the contest, the Bruins remained unranked nationally while the Wildcats boast the No. 4 mark nationwide.<\/p>\n The two prestigious programs only faced off once during the regular season: a 79-75 win in favor of the then-No. 1 Wildcats.<\/p>\n The UCLA Bruins have made a cakewalk out of their conference tournament thus far. Following a bye in Round 1, the team from Southern California took down the inconsistent, yet incredibly hot Oregon Ducks in blowout fashion. The game ended 82-63, giving the team all the momentum it needed in its matchup with in-state rival Stanford Cardinal. The Bruins got back to work once more with a second-straight blowout win in the conference semifinals.<\/p>\n Now, with the conference championship officially on the line, the competition is about to ramp up significantly with the Arizona Wildcats waiting around the corner.<\/p>\n Like the Bruins, Arizona has had no trouble at this point in the tournament. There\u2019s a reason it is the fourth-ranked team in the entire country, and the fact that it wins with defense makes its chances even more reliable. You can\u2019t expect the defense to step up at this point in the year\u2014albeit it against a subpar offensive unit\u2014but if they can hold true to their offense, which scored 82 points a night on the season (11th in the country), they will force Arizona\u2019s hand and make it uncomfortable until the final buzzer.<\/p>\n Defense, defense, defense. It\u2019s how the Arizona Wildcats have beaten their tournament opponents by an average of 26 points per game, and it\u2019s how they\u2019ll hope to combat one of the most potent offenses in the nation.<\/p>\n Following the Round 3 matchup against Colorado, Buffaloes head coach Tad Boyle had high praise for this group. \u201cIf Arizona makes shots and the way they guard consistently,\u201d he stated, per ESPN, \u201cthey\u2019ve got a chance to win a national championship.\u201d<\/p>\n Boyle is right, which is why the Bruins must focus on either putting a halt to the Wildcats\u2019 offensive production or paying extra attention to pushing the tempo and getting good looks.<\/p>\n Unfortunately for the Bruins, if the Wildcats\u2019 defense is as efficient as it\u2019s been thus fan on Saturday, UCLA\u2019s goal of simply running Arizona out of the gym becomes far less likely.<\/p>\n Prediction: Arizona 76 \u2013 UCLA 68<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" UCLA vs Arizona CBB Picks Championship Week has nearly reached its conclusion, and in the Pac-12, the title game comes down to a matchup between the No. 1 Arizona Wildcats and the No. 2 UCLA Bruins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":66951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1415],"tags":[83,3646,2004,11977,53917,1268,2851,19069,19070,2860],"class_list":["post-73598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-arizona","tag-arizona-wildcats","tag-bruins","tag-bruins-vs-wildcats","tag-pac-12-tournament","tag-ucla","tag-ucla-bruins","tag-ucla-bruins-vs-arizona-wildcats","tag-ucla-vs-arizona","tag-wildcats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73598"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73641,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73598\/revisions\/73641"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nUCLA (25-8, 12-16 Pac-12) @ No. 4 Arizona (30-3, 15-3 Pac-12)<\/strong>
\nSaturday, March 15 6:00 PM ET @ Las Vegas, Nev.<\/strong>
\nSpread: Arizona -5.5 \/ OU: 138<\/strong>
\n [dfads params=’groups=63740&limit=1&return_javascript=0′]<\/strong><\/p>\nUCLA<\/h3>\n
\n[ad-6571516]
\nWhat UCLA must do against the Wildcats is put the ball in the bucket early and often. Despite being third in the nation in steals with 9.6 per game, the Bruins are just 207th in points allowed.<\/p>\nArizona<\/h3>\n