A victory over the Trojans at the Galen Center would nearly assure the Bruins of securing the No. 3 or No. 4 seeding for the tournament that starts Wednesday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas with games involving the teams that finish Nos. 5-12 in the conference standings. The winners of those games advance to play the top four teams in quarterfinals March 8.
UCLA, 19-10 overall and 10-7 in the Pac-12, currently is tied for fourth with Utah. Should the Bruins beat USC and finish in a two-way tie for third or fourth place with either Stanford, Utah, Oregon or Washington, they would hold the tiebreaker by virtue of having gone a combined 3-0 against first-place Arizona and the second-place Trojans.