Pac-12 basketball is home to the top-ranked team in the nation as we head into conference play. Arizona joins the rest of the Pac-12 in opening league play on Thursday, and as good as the Wildcats look, they’re going to be tested. Pac-12 basketball has viable challengers at the top and quality in the middle. Here’s a look at what each team has done in the season’s first two months, and who they’re doing it with…
The Cal basketball team got some unwelcome publicity a week ago when a shove by head coach Mike Montgomery to the chest of guard Allen Crabbe got national attention. What that’s overshadowing is that Cal is coming on as well as any team in the country. The Golden Bears, seemingly a longshot just to make the NCAA Tournament, have won five straight and improbably become a contender for the Pac-12 title in the regular season’s final two weeks.
The Pac-12 basketball race has seemed to have a new frontrunner almost every week. Arizona was the top-heavy favorite at the start of the year. Oregon blazed out to a 6-0 start in league play. UCLA has, at different times looked like they were ready to make a big run. Frontrunner status in the Pac-12 though, has been about as tenuous as the #1 ranking nationally and all three teams are currently tied at 8-3, with Arizona State lurking just a game back. The tri-leaders all have big games coming up the next two nights, so let’s take a snapshot look at the three teams who lead the way, plus the Sun Devils.
Arizona might have been the preseason favorite in the Pac-12. UCLA might have been the team that caught fire and looked ready to be the best. But it’s Oregon that sits atop the conference as we head into Saturday’s games. The Ducks are 17-2 overall, 6-0 in the league and have already beaten both the Wildcats and Bruins. Is this for real? We’ll take a closer look at the personnel, strengths and schedule of Oregon basketball.
There’s two things you can count on when it comes to Pac-12 basketball. They’ll always get short shrift in the NCAA Tournament selection process, sometimes justified, sometimes not. And they’ll always produce an exciting conference race. This year might not get the exciting championship race, but there’s a lot of fluidity and potential dark horses in the middle. Pac-12 games begin this coming Wednesday, January 2, so let’s get a handle on how the league is shaping up.
The Pac-12 hasn’t been renowned for the quality of its basketball in recent years, but it has been known for its competitive and exciting conference races. Arizona is hoping to change both of those recent trends. At #8 in the country, the Wildcats are hoping to make some national noise, and based on early national rankings, we might conclude the Sean Miller’s Wildcats will run away with the league’s regular season title.
The Pac-12 basketball race had a familiar face at the top when the regular season came to an end yesterday, but the Washington Huskies weren’t expected to be there. With freshman and sophomores in key roles and then a slow start in December, it was rebuilding team for Lorenzo Romar. Or so we thought. Washington instead went 14-4 in league play behind the backcourt trio of Tony Wroten, C.J. Wilcox and Terrence Ross. They made it interesting in the final weekend, losing to UCLA on Saturday and giving preseason favorite Cal a chance to redeem themselves and at least claim a share of the title. But Cal dumped a game to Stanford and the Huskies became the champs of the league no one wanted to win.
Thursday night is when the Pac-12 plays all its midweek games and the conference has a compelling race shaping up and expansion has helped make it tougher in the midsection. Colorado-Arizona is a good game among NCAA Tournament contenders tonight at 9 PM ET on ESPN2, and frontrunning Washington has a tough road trip to Oregon. Today we’re going to take a look at the surprising Huskies, who’ve overcome youth to rise to first place, and as well as the five challengers giving chase. Next to each team below is their overall record, conference record, and seeding in the NCAA Tournament by ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi. Please note that the latter is not a prediction, but based on what Lunardi (whose work is as close to accurate as anyone’s in this subjective area) would expect if the season ended today.
Most college basketball fans don’t keep up with the Pac-12. The league doesn’t have a good TV contract with ESPN that lets you lock in certain nights of the week for a showcase game, and on the court, they just haven’t been that good, save for UCLA’s Final Four runs of 2006-08. But if you’re […]
Cal’s football team may have lost the Holiday Bowl to Texas last night, but the Golden Bear faithful—a group that includes probable NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers, it’s most famous current alum—have plenty to look forward to in basketball season. Mike Montgomery has his team off to a 10-3 start and they look like the best […]