Jay Bilas reacts to four Pac-12 teams in Sweet 16 - 247Sports

Entering the Sweet 16, a quarter of the teams belong to the Pac-12. While the respective NCAA tournament runs by Oregon, Oregon State, UCLA and USC are collectively a surprise, ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas broke down why the four Pac-12 programs each have tools for an Elite Eight appearance.

"Well, UCLA's been pretty good all year and they lost (senior guard) Chris Smith to injury, overcame that," Bilas said after Monday's games on SportsCenter with Scott Van Pelt. "They didn't play well at the end of the year, but part of that was they had to go up to Oregon at the end as a make-up game. So that certainly didn't help them.

"Oregon is now healthy. They were not healthy earlier in the year. They didn't have (junior guard) Will Richardson. If Will Richardson — they lefty — had been playing the whole year, he would've been first-team All-Pac-12. He's that good. And to have that team healthy now, able to press, switch defenses — they're really talented.

"And USC covers up the rim. I mean, defensively, they're a joke. They are so difficult to score upon. And to have (freshman center) Evan Mobley as player of the year in the Pac-12 and then defensive play of the year — as you know, Scotty, the last player to do that in a major conference, the only guy to do that, was Anthony Davis at Kentucky in 2012.

"The surprise, obviously, was Oregon State. They've been on a roll. They're good. I don't think anybody expected this and I don't think they expected this, but they've been on a roll and they're playing really well. And it's got to be fun for them to be on this, and they're in one place. Like, usually — team goes back to campus, you don't know if they're going to stay on that roll when they go home, then they've got to go to another site. Now they're staying in one place. Maybe it's easier to keep momentum there."

In the West Region, seventh-seeded Oregon (21-6) and sixth-seeded USC (24-7) are set for a head-to-head matchup. The winner of Sunday's 9:45 p.m. ET tip-off on TBS at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis will likely get a crack at No. 1 overall seed Gonzaga (28-0), which faces fifth-seeded Creighton (22-8) earlier that day — and Bilas believes either Pac-12 team could give the Bulldogs a game.

"We can sit and talk about the nuanced reasons why the Pac-12 won and why the Big Ten and the Big 12 were bounced out early, but nobody really wants to hear that," Bilas said Tuesday afternoon on SportsCenter. "The Pac-12 should crow about this and they should yell, 'Overrated.' The fans should yell, 'Overrated,' at other conferences and they should say, 'Conference of champions,' and have fun with it.

"But one thing stands out to me and that is Oregon is healthy now. ... So the way Oregon is constructed now, they're not really a seven seed — they're much better than that — and I think they're a legitimate threat to Gonzaga and a legitimate threat to make the Final Four. And USC has been, all season long, a great defensive team that covers up the rim from six feet and in. They're No. 1 in the country in two-point-field-goal-percentage defense. They can swat away or change just about any shot that comes within six feet of the basket.

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"So ... it's sort of unfortunate for the Pac-12, in this regard — only one of those teams can get to Gonzaga to play 'em because if they win their games, they have to play each other to get there. So it's a little bit of a bummer, in that regard. But Gonzaga better be ready for either one of those teams, if they get there."

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