LAS VEGAS – With the regular season Pac-12 conference championship already earned, the Arizona Wildcats will look to defend their Pac-12 Tournament championship. That defense begins on Thursday afternoon with a quarterfinal match-up against the winner of Arizona State and Colorado.

No. 15/17 Arizona vs. Arizona State/Colorado
Thursday, March 8 at 1:00 p.m. (MST)
TV: Pac-12 Networks (Roxy Bernstein, Don MacLean & Jill Savage)
Radio: Arizona IMG Radio Network (Brian Jeffries & Ryan Hansen)
Twitter: @APlayersProgram
#BearDown
 
Arizona heads into the Pac-12 Conference Tournament after winning the regular season championship, which was the program's fourth regular season conference title in the last five years. The 2017-18 crown was the fifth regular season championship in head coach Sean Miller's nine seasons in Tucson.

The Wildcats are the defending Pac-12 Tournament champions after beating top-five teams on back-to-back nights to claim the 2017 crown. Allonzo Trier was the 2017 Pac-12 Tournament Most Outstanding Player a year ago averaging 20.7 points, 5.0 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game while shooting 50.0 percent from beyond the arc in the three wins. Trier scored 23 points in last year's championship game versus Oregon, including 10-of-11 shooting (.909) at the free throw line.

Freshman Deandre Ayton led the program's all-conference award parade after being voted Pac-12 Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year while earning spots on the All-Conference First Team, All-Defensive Team and All-Freshman Team. Ayton became the third player in the history of the conference to win Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year in the same season, joining Kevin Love and Shareef Abdur-Rahim.

UA has the most Pac-12 Tournament titles in the conference at six, leading UCLA and Oregon with four apiece. Head coach Sean Miller has a record of 14-6 (.700) in the Pac-12 Tournament with two championships while reaching the finals of the tournament on five different occasions.

Deandre Ayton capped off the regular season with a monster showing versus California. The freshman finished the game with 26 points and 20 rebounds as he became the first Wildcat since Al Fleming in 1975-76 to record a 20-20 game. The 20 boards were the third most by a UA freshman as Ayton now owns four of the top eight rebounding games in Arizona freshman history.

Arizona will face the winner of Wednesday's Arizona State-Colorado game. The Cats have faced the Buffaloes in five of the last six conference tournaments and have not played the Sun Devils in the Pac-12 Tournament since 2009. UA and ASU have only faced each other twice in the history of the Conference of Champions' tournament.

Fourth-year seniors Dusan Ristic and Parker Jackson-Cartwright set out this season to become two of the winningest Wildcats in program history. Ristic became the all-time wins leader at UA in his team's win over Stanford on March 1. The victory was the 111^th in his career, surpassing Kaleb Tarczewski (2013-16) and Matt Muehlebach (1988-91) atop the wins list. While he has added to his wins lead, Parker Jackson-Cartwright has continued his rise through the wins list as well.