Slants and rants as Bracketville looms on the horizon:

• The worst at-large pool of teams since the advent of the 64-team tournament bracket in 1985 — that’s what ESPN.com analyst Jay Bilas is calling this year’s candidates. That’s a lot of bubbles, Jay.

• I think Washington might squeeze into the NCAA without winning the Pac-10 tournament. It could come down to a potential Pac-10-tournament semifinal game with Arizona State, loser out of the big dance.

• Still, bracketologist Joe Lunardi is skeptical. On a national conference call Wednesday, he said, “I don’t think there’s any longer a scenario for three Pac-10 teams. I don’t know that there’s really an at-large team in the Pac-10 other than Cal.”

• Ironically, the recent fade of Gonzaga victims Illinois and Cincinnati as NCAA hopefuls helps Washington and hurts the Zags. If Illinois, Cincy and Saint Mary’s don’t make it, Gonzaga figures to have only one victory over an NCAA-tournament team (Wisconsin). Last year, it had four on its way to a No. 4 seed.

• Evan Turner of Ohio State, the likely national player of the year, has won seven Big Ten player-of-the-week awards this year, despite missing a month.

• Memo to Larry Scott, the new Pac-10 commissioner: While you’re dealing with FSN, how about suggesting they spruce up their Saturday halftime shows, the ones that consist of Thursday night’s Pac-10 highlights, complete with a crawl breathlessly revealing Thursday-night scores across the country?

• Wouldn’t you know it? North Carolina, which has rarely been more vulnerable, has an NCAA-record streak of 54 home wins against Clemson. But with the ACC’s unbalanced schedule, the Tar Heels didn’t host the Tigers (21-8) this year.

• USC might accomplish the strange feat of not scoring in the 70s for an entire 18-game conference season. The Trojans put up 87 on Washington Jan. 23 but in their other 15 games, haven’t scored more than 68. “Basically,” says coach Kevin O’Neill, “we’re a little bit fried as a team.”

• For those of you with no life, there’s www.blogging-thebracket.com, which projects not only the NIT field, but the CBI and CollegeInsider.com.

• Not a great year in the SEC for a couple of hands on Lynn Nance’s old staff at Washington in the early ’90s. Trent Johnson’s LSU team is last in the SEC West at 1-13, and Mark Fox’s Georgia club is tied for the SEC East cellar at 5-9.

• New Mexico (27-3) deserves a long look on your NCAA bracket. It has seven top-50 RPI victories, and at 6-0 against ranked opposition, is the only team other than Syracuse to have gone unbeaten versus the top 25.

• Even by UCLA coach Ben Howland’s standards, he was burning timeouts as madly as a texting teenager last week against Oregon, calling three in the first half in a span of a minute, 54 seconds. He was fresh out with 12 minutes left in the game.

• Cal coach Mike Montgomery, stumping for a 96-team NCAA field: “There are legitimate potential national-championship winners being left out of the tournament.” Really? Name one, Montie.