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As recently as four years ago in an NCAA interview room in Raleigh, N.C., Lute Olson recoiled at the bitterness of a 20-10 season and a first-round tournament loss to Seton Hall.

"A 20-10 record is not acceptable,'' he said. "And just one round in the playoffs is not acceptable.''

So what will the proper term be after Arizona lost 78-69 to the Oregon Ducks on Saturday? At 18-13, the Wildcats are thus forced to play in the much-dreaded pigtail round of the Pac-10 tournament on Wednesday.

They can only hope they get the opportunity to lose a first-round NCAA tournament game.

What was once unacceptable to the Wildcats has now become a desperate goal, a switch of philosophies in almost record time.

Arizona came to Oregon positioned on the NCAA tournament's Bubble Watch. It returns home not with its bubble burst, but in a position for it to be popped at the Pac-10 tournament.

The UA now must play Oregon State late Wednesday night in Los Angeles. A victory in that game would send them into a Thursday contest against second-seeded Stanford. It's true that in the days of the 64/65-team field that 71 teams have gotten into the NCAA tournament with 12 or more regular season losses, but that's nothing that can be taken to the bank.

Arizona completed the Pac-10 season 8-10, its first time under .500 since 1983-84, which isn't necessarily a record that will expel it from the selection committee's big board. Thirteen teams have finished two games under. 500 in conference play, or worse, and gotten into the NCAA tournament since the field grew to 64/65.

That's territory customarily reserved for Ole Miss and Virginia Tech and Dayton. It is now Arizona territory.

On Saturday, arriving at Mac Court in need of a season-saving victory, the Wildcats once again failed to contain Oregon's distance shooting. Amazingly, the Ducks made 13 of their first 15 shots in the second half, most of them from what seemed to be the California border.

How come Oregon is always so deadly against Arizona and so seemingly ineffective against the rest of the league?

Coming here in a must-win situation was not a good idea from the beginning, especially in a season in which the Ducks have a senior-laden roster and it was, gulp, Senior Day.

In the second half, by the time the Ducks began raining three-pointers over the UA defense, it became feared that those close losses to UCLA, Stanford, Arizona State and Kansas might not be balanced by close victories over Illinois, UNLV and Wazzu.

Now, unfortunately, much of the focus will return to the absence of Olson.

A week after losing to Seton Hall in that 2004 game, the then-69-year-old coach seemed in full control and the Wildcats merely seemed to be encountering a rare bump, as it did after shocking first-round exits in 1992 and 1993.

On that week, eager for a resolution as sophomore Andre Iguodala played coy about bolting for the NBA, Olson said "either you're with us or you're not.''

The Wildcats were always so resourceful and so deep that Iguodala's early departure was of little consequence.

Olson had total ownership of UA basketball, a solo voice, and even though he was a few months from turning 70, no one stepped forward to say his treasured basketball program had irretrievably begun to slip.

"We've got three tough guys coming in,'' Olson said that day in Raleigh. "It's not going to be a case of worrying if Mohamed Tangara is tough. He's tough. Daniel Dillon is tough. Jawann McClellan's high school team went 39-0. He's tough.''

No one saw this coming. No one could've known that four years later it would be Olson in the "not'' category of the "with us or not'' equation.

No one could've guessed that Tangara would have absolutely no impact in four years, and that Dillon would not develop into the type of useful sixth, or seventh, man that forever seemed to make the difference between Arizona and most of the rest of the Pac-10.

No one could have suspected that some misfortune, McClellan's string of injuries, would prevent him from becoming an all-conference player that you would expect from a McDonald's All-American.

The story now isn't Wednesday's game against Oregon State, but what Olson plans to do, or attempts to encourage UA athletic director Jim Livengood to let him do.

It is still Olson's responsibility to get the program back on its feet, either with his total involvement or, lacking that, with his support from a peripheral position. It is incumbent upon Olson to share the responsibility for his team's slippage, a team that enters the Pac-10 tournament in the unfamiliar No. 7 position.

He owes his team, if no one else, an explanation for his absence. He owes his school a quick commitment; can he continue to be a productive college basketball coach or can't he?

The program's long-term future is more important than a game or two in the Pac-10 tournament. More than anything else, the UA needs some honesty from Olson.

Can he coach again? Does he want to coach again?

His continued silence is unacceptable.