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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

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It begins in Las Vegas

COUGARS

FROM LAS VEGAS -- The seemingly non-stop conference tournament tour of Las Vegas continues today when the Pac-12 tournament begins at the MGM Grand. We'll be there a little later on -- swinging over to the Orleans this morning to cover the Idaho women -- and have our usual crop of links to start your day. Read on.

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We have our advance of WSU's first-round game against Washington in today's newspaper, as well as a blog post with more comments from Ken Bone and a post with some video inside the MGM Grand Garden Arena. It's a pretty impressive facility -- not too big, fairly intimate and well-lit. If they fill the place, it could make for a pretty good environment. ... John Blanchette has a column about how the tournament fits in Vegas. ... Todd Dybas has this advance of the game, and Percy Allen has this one.

As for the rest of today's action ... 

No. 8 Stanford vs. No. 9 Arizona State, noon (Pac-12 Networks) -- The Sun Devils, like seven other teams in the conference, are trying to win four games in four days. The Cardinal should feel OK about this matchup. The Pac-12 tournament feels wide open, says Jeff Faurado.

No. 5 Colorado vs. No. 12 Oregon State, 2:30 p.m. (Pac-12 Networks) -- The Beavers beat the Buffaloes on Saturday, so this is an interesting matchup. Colorado gets Andre Roberson back.

No. 7 USC vs. No. 10 Utah, 6 p.m. (Pac-12 Networks) -- The Trojans need to rely on their frontcourt depth with a pair of 7-footers suspended. Utah is ready for another crack at USC.

Also: Oregon hopes it's back on track when it faces the winner of tonight's game between WSU and UW. ... Conferences are taking a chance by moving tournaments to Las Vegas. ... Here's the AP preview of the tournament.

That's all for now. We'll be tweeting throughout the Idaho women's game, then will spend the rest of the day at the MGM Grand.

Christian Caple can be reached at christianc@spokesman.com. Twitter: @ChristianCaple



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