In the moments after an historic win that sent the Washington State Cougars into the Pac-12 Tournament title game for the first time in program history, leading scorer Charlisse Leger-Walker summed it up perfectly:

“Let’s do something that hasn’t been done before.”

There is a lot of that going around in the 22nd Pac-12 Tournament.

For the first time ever, no Top-4 seed will be playing in the title game, the seventh-seeded Cougars taking on the fifth-seeded UCLA Bruins. Both teams have had to play three games to get to this point. USC in 2014 is the only team to win a title after playing four games.

There have been six upsets (by seeding) in 10 tournament games, matching the most in tournament history, the last time in 2014.

Washington State is the lowest seed to ever appear in the title game, while UCLA is only the second No. 5 seed.

UCLA will be playing for the program’s second title, the first coming in 2006. With a win, the Cougars would become the first WSU hoops team – women’s or men’s – in 82 years to win a conference tournament championship title. 

The history is everywhere you look on this day, and may well extend to the next week, when the Pac-12 hopes to get a record number of teams in the NCAA Tournament bracket. In the meantime, the Cougars are going to both prepare for a moment they’ve never experienced before.

“I just think back on when we got these guys to sign with us all they had was a vision, all they had was our words of what we could accomplish over time, and the vision for them individually of what they could become in our program,” said Washington State coach Kamie Ethridge. ”So the trust and the jumping in when it's not the coolest thing ever to do, and they don't care because they love it and they love our program and they are our program, they represent it so much. And everything we want to be is because of these people up here and what they represent. So it is beyond belief that we are here, knowing where we've come from.” 

Pac-12 Tournament Championship

No. 5 UCLA (25-8) vs. No. 7 Washington State (22-10), Sunday, 2 p.m.

Season series: Split, 1-1; UCLA won 73-66 on January 22 in Pullman; Washington State won 62-55 in Los Angeles on February 23, the Cougars’ first-ever win at Pauley Pavilion.

Tournament history: UCLA is making its seventh appearance in the title game, the Bruins are 1-5, winning in 2006 against Stanford in San Jose. Washington State is making its first-ever appearance in the championship game.

The hot hands: For UCLA it's freshman Kiki Rice, who scored a career-high 22 points against the Cardinal, including a 12-for-13 effort from the free-throw line that sealed the victory and the trip to the championship. Rice had 11 points in the fourth quarter. Rice is 24 of 27 from the line in three tournament games so far. For Washington State, it’s junior Charlisse Leger-Walker, who leads all scorers in the tournament with a total of 53 points in three games, averaging 17.7 points and shooting better than 41 percent from the floor.

The X-factors: UCLA’s Emily Bessoir is having a breakout tournament. She has scored in double figures in all three games, and has made her presence known on both ends of the floor. Over the three games, Bessoir has scored 49 points and grabbed 28 rebounds.

Washington State’s Ula Motuga is finding her big moments for the Cougars, hitting 3 of 4 three-point shots in two straight games, including a backbreaking trey off a carom with a little more than three minutes to go against Colorado that gave the Cougars a 10-point lead.

The Bruins win the championship game if: UCLA will need to rebound, avoid the scoring droughts that put them in a hole against Stanford and maintain the resilience they have shown throughout this tournament, most impressively, their comeback over the Cardinal on Friday night after being down 16 points in the third quarter.

The Cougars win the championship game if: Defense has been the difference for WSU in the tournament, allowing opponents 52 points per game. In their last matchup against UCLA, they held the Bruins to 29 percent shooting. They need to continue to harness the intensity that has gotten them to this point. This is a team with six wins in their last seven games. They are confident and cohesive.