WSU women open tourney vs. ASU

The Washington State women’s basketball team will face Arizona State in Thursday’s opening round of the Pac-12 Conference Tournament at KeyArena in Seattle.

Tipoff is slated for 6 p.m. and will be televised by the Pac-12 Networks.

The Cougars (10-19, 6-12 Pac-12) are the No. 8 seed while the Sun Devils (13-17, 5-13) are the No. 9 seed. WSU swept the season series with ASU, winning 77-65 in Pullman on Jan. 6 and 54-43 in Tempe on Feb. 1. WSU has never faced Arizona State in the conference tournament.

The winner will face No. 1 seed Stanford (28-2, 17-1) Friday at 6 p.m. The Cardinal and California (27-2, 17-1) tied for the regular-season title, but Stanford is the top seed in the tournament for the 12th consecutive year by virtue of a tiebreaker.

Stanford, Cal, third-seeded UCLA (23-6, 14-4) and fourth-seeded Colorado (24-5, 13-5) earned first-round byes.

Washington enters the tournament as the No. 5 seed. The Huskies will face 12th-seeded Oregon on Thursday at 8:30 p.m.

In other games Thursday, No. 6 Utah (17-12, 8-10) faces No. 11 Arizona (12-17, 4-14) at 2:30 p.m. and seventh-seeded USC (10-19, 7-11) kicks off the tournament at noon against 10th-seeded Oregon State (10-20, 4-14).

All tournament games will be broadcast on the Pac-12 Networks with the exception of Sunday’s championship, which will be on ESPN2.