With hopes of an NCAA tournament birth all but dashed with the most recent sweep at the hands of the Oregon schools, the Washington basketball team has only to gear up for the Pac-10 tournament.

Before that last-ditch effort though, the Huskies (16-12 overall, 6-10 Pac-10) will get a chance to tune up with a pair of games at Hec Edmundson Pavilion. First, they will try and avenge their double overtime loss to USC (21-8 overall, 11-5) at 7:00 p.m. tonight. Next, the Huskies close out the season with Senior Night against UCLA (25-3 overall, 14-2) Saturday at 11:00 a.m.

“I don’t think it’s ‘Get through this weekend,’” said Spencer Hawes. “It’s ‘Let’s win this weekend.’ These are two big games, and if we can get these two that would give us a lot more momentum going into the tournament, knowing we can beat anyone.”

Washington will get plenty of chances to prove that. The team is looking at either a seven or eight seed in the tournament, and getting wins against some of the conference’s best talent could go a long way toward improving the team’s confidence.

“They talk about a lot of teams that have nothing to lose, and they play better,” Hawes said. “For the first time we can say that about ourselves and we’ll see how the team responds.”

In order to get the pair of upsets, the team will have to overcome the deficiencies it has shown all season; problems that coach Lorenzo Romar identified as defense and turnovers.

As Romar said all season, the team has not taken on a defensive identity, something that his teams of the past have done. The problem is it has caused the team to struggle when the offense sputters. These offensive lapses have led to far too many turnovers.

“The overall concept of what we do is not rocket science,” Romar said. “Our offense is designed to give our guys a step or two on their man. When we’re not scoring, we may subconsciously lose interest defensively. That may be a reflection of youth, I don’t know.”

Meanwhile, the Huskies’ first opponent this weekend, USC, has pulled off one of the most surprising seasons in college basketball. With one win this weekend, the Trojans will have locked down at least a third-place finish this season.

The Bruins will also have something to play for as they try to hold off Washington State in order to keep first place in the Pac-10 all to themselves. They will have to avoid the sweep this weekend in order to do so.

The other story of the weekend will be on Saturday, when seniors Brandon Burmeister and Hans Gasser play their final game in front of a home crowd at Hec Ed. With both having been a part of each of the past three seasons resulting in NCAA tournament bids, getting back there is the biggest thing on both players’ minds.

“It would be something very special to be the first guys to go to the tournament four years in a row in the history of the school,” Burmeister said. “It’s something that over the years we’ve built the program up to expect to go to the NCAA tournament every year, and if we don’t win the Pac-10 tournament, which is really our only chance to get in, it’s going to be a letdown.”

Ben Miller contributed to this report.

Reach reporter Justin Chartrey at sports@thedaily.washington.edu.