Pac-10 Men's Basketball | UCLA dominates conference honors

UCLA cleaned up in the Pac-10 awards announced Monday, with Kevin Love earning player of the year and freshman of the year honors and Russell Westbrook taking Pac-10 defensive player of the year.

Love is the second player in conference history to be named player of the year as a freshman.

Washington coach Lorenzo Romar was "a little bit surprised" that forward Jon Brockman wasn't named to the first team given that he leads the league in rebounding (11.5) and is fifth in scoring (17.6).

"You look at what he does for our team, I was a little surprised by that. ... [But] I think it's fantastic that he's a two-time all-Pac-10 guy going into his senior year. It's well-deserved, no doubt."

Brockman said, "It's just an honor to be mentioned with those other players."

Washington freshman Venoy Overton said he knew getting onto an all-freshman team that Brockman described as a lottery draft would be difficult.

"I knew I would have to average 20 points to be on the first team with the players that came in," he said. "I just came in and did what I had to do."

NCAA bids

The Pac-10 brass are in full-on campaign mode. Given the especially successful season for this league — any team has a chance any given night — conference officials are hoping for seven teams in the NCAA tournament.

Commissioner Tom Hansen and men's basketball representative Dave Hirsch have been working the phones and sending regular e-mail updates to the NCAA tournament committee in a push to get as many Pac-10 teams into the 65-team field as possible.

"When you go into the final two weeks and have nine teams that should be considered, seven would be great," Hirsch said after watching a recent Stanford game. "I think we deserve at least six."

UCLA, Stanford and Washington State all are ranked in the Top 25 with 23 or more wins.

While the Pac-10's top three teams are certainly in come Selection Sunday — UCLA probably a No. 1 seed — the conference is counting on a few more at-large bids. The Pac-10 tournament has an automatic entry, and a victory or two by a lower-level Pac-10 team in the tournament potentially could earn that school an at-large bid.

Seattle Times staff reporter Bob Condotta contributed to this report.