Fight on Trojans! Beat the Farm!

USC leads Stanford, 45-35, with 16:51 left at the Galen Center. If the Trojans win and Washington State loses to UW tonight, USC will be the #3 seed in the Pac-10 tournament, and any possible Loy-Tran bet-deciding USC-UCLA game wouldn't happen until the conference final. If USC loses or Wazzu wins, the Trojans will be the #4 seed, setting up a possible semifinal matchup with the top-seeded Bruins.

In other news, last year's Notre Dame-conquering Big South champion, Winthrop, earned another auto bid to the NCAAs, joining Cornell on that short list and sending regular-season champ UNC-Asheville to the NIT as that tournament's first automatic qualifier.

Later today, three Tennessee teams will try to earn automatic NCAA bids of their own, as Cinderella story #6 seed Tennessee State, 15-16 and #215 in the RPI, faces #1 seed Austin Peay, also from Tennessee, in the Ohio Valley title game (ESPN2, 5pm), and Belmont, yet another Tennessee school, faces Jacksonville in the Atlantic Sun final (ESPN2, 7pm)