Other articles by Bruce Pascoe:

UA's 3 of a kind beats Jacks Arizona Wildcats Basketball: UA beats NAU 74-57 NAU coach happy to take his lumps, play at McKale Cats catch break with mediocre schedule 4 games into season, Budinger displaying clear leadership skills Cats on brief break from hoops, but not mentally Arizona 69, Santa Clara 66 Loss is Santa Clara's fourth close one this year Judkins, in starting debut, blossoms as forward option Horne plays, sounds fine in Georgia

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Jim Livengood has had five years to recover from chairing the NCAA tournament selection committee, but basketball has consumed much of the Arizona athletic director's time this season.

First, it was Lute Olson's leave of absence. Then it was Olson's decision to sit out all season. And then it was naming interim head coach Kevin O'Neill the eventual successor.

Livengood said he intends to restructure O'Neill's contract, which pays him $375,000, a year as an assistant coach, but has not yet.

Fortunately for Livengood, he at least won't have to spend time dissecting complicated tournament campaigns such as that of Arizona, which heads into its final six games of the regular season still uncertain of a 23rd straight NCAA tournament berth.

The Arizona Wildcats are difficult to evaluate, with an RPI of 17, five losses that came without either Jerryd Bayless or Nic Wise, but only 15 Division I wins and a 6-6 conference record.

No Pac-10 team has ever gotten into the NCAA field with a 9-9 conference record, but Livengood said he could see scenarios where that the Wildcats make it at 9-9 or even 8-10.

Here's what he said on Monday about the situation:

"It's a different year, a different strength of conference. A huge part of it is what is going to be happens across the basketball landscape over the next three weeks. I know the popular perception out there is win three and we're in, and so on. But I've seen so many different things happen right at the end of the year.

"I know, from sitting in that room … those 10 (committee members) understand and know so much about each team. They know how many games that Jerryd didn't play in, Nic didn't play in, Bret (Brielmaier) didn't play in.

"(Injuries) are a huge factor. When it's your leading scorer and particularly with the kind of year he's having right now, and the kind of year Nic is having — not just as a point guard but his scoring, his steals and those other things — those are significant factors in weighing one team against the next.

"You can't have a formula (for injuries) or then it becomes too mechanical. Let's say Arizona's being looked at (against) a team or group of teams with one or two more wins. Then you look at it and say, 'You know what? Arizona probably wouldn't have won all those games if they had Nic and Jerryd but they might have won half of them.' That would be a fair assessment. Then you throw the Bret factor in.

"I do know I like our RPI and strength of schedule. Those things can help us at the end of the day."

Pac-10 will be difficult to sort out:

"Sometimes a team will have beaten the other team twice and the team that lost twice will get in because of other factors. That's hard for people to understand because people go so much on head-to-head. There's just a lot of games that are left to be played and I'm one to believe the Pac-10 tournament is going to be a bit of a factor this year. The reason is that everybody is obviously looking for wins but also that virtually everybody you play can help you because it's a pretty good team. After UCLA and Stanford — and I'm not forgetting Washington State, because they are outstanding — the closeness record-wise for the next seven teams is unbelievable.

"I would think we would have a legitimate chance, RPI-wise and schedule-wise, of getting five, probably six, and maybe an outside chance of having seven (bids). I think it'd be hard to go beyond seven. The thing you don't know is if somebody upsets somebody in the conference tournament and somebody gets in who would not have gotten in, that tends to throw everything off. All I know is that I'm glad I'm not sitting in Indy (at committee headquarters). There's so many close calls."

O'Neill's contract will be altered:

"We will definitely do something. There's no question about that. He's still under (his original) contract.

"It'll probably be towards the end of the season. We want to make sure he's treated fairly and go from there."