The 2009 Pac-10 tournament has its first final: No. 9 Stanford 62, No. 8 Oregon State 54.

The Cardinal took the lead with a big run at the start of the second half, and they held it the rest of the way, although the Beavers hung around.

And Anthony Goods 3-pointer in the final two minutes may have been the dagger that did the most damage.

The Cardinal and Huskies will play at 2:30 p.m. Thursday. The game will be on FSN.

In the regular season, UW beat Stanford 84-83 at home Jan. 8, and 75-68 on the road Feb. 8.

“(The Huskies) are the conference champions,” Stanford coach Johnny Dawkins said. “We have to go out there and play a very very good 40 minutes. It’s going to be a physical game, it’s going to be hotly contested, and we have to be prepared for it.”

Since the Pac-10 revived the conference tournament in 2002, the top-seed has lost its opening game twice.

Oregon State is halfway to advancing to be Washington's quarterfinal opponent tomorrow. The Beavers moved ahead early and held a single-digit lead through most of the half.

Not surprisingly, the Huskies wouldn't publicly state of rooting interest in this one. And from that first half, it's hard to imagine either beating a focused UW.

In the regular season, the Huskies beat OSU 85-59 on the road Jan. 17 and 79-60 at home Feb. 12 while beating Stanford 84-83 at home Jan. 8 and 75-68 on the road Feb. 8.

Stanford and Oregon State are preparing for their 6 p.m. tipoff here at Staples Center.

However, the Washington Huskies won't be in the stands watching (even though there are some empty seats.)

The Huskies are off at some small-college gym in the area, running through practice. Once finished, they'll head to their hotel -- not the arena -- to see whether they'll be playing against the Beavers or Cardinal at 2:30 p.m. Thursday.

One of the treats of opening day of the Pac-10 Tournament is the coinciding story from Jeff Faraudo of the Oakland Tribune, which reveals the results of an annual poll he takes of writers covering Pac-10 teams.

I always enjoy taking the poll and then seeing where the other writers agreed or didn't.

This season, the poll is pretty much limited to basketball matters -- which isn't always the case. However, the Huskies didn't dominate this poll they way the did the Pac-10 awards that were voted on by coaches and announced Monday. (Blog post below.) At least to the extent that they picked Oregon State's Craig Robinson as coach of the year, split on whether Isaiah Thomas is the league's most exciting player, and think UCLA will go further in the NCAA tournament.

The writers also predict that Ernie Kent will survive a while at Oregon and that Gonzaga's Mark Few will take over at Arizona.

Anyway, here's the story. And here a little online extra, with more of what the writers wrote.