Pre-Season Pac-12 Power Rankings

[GrantDuck]

We can all laugh at this at the end of the season perhaps.

1. Washington. The most coming back and Hopkins can coach. Nowell will have a breakout season. They also have the easiest regular season conference schedule path in theory. Don't think they will be the "best" team in the tournament, but they should win the conference by a game or so. Their top 3 guys are studs(Nowell, Thuybulle, Dickerson), but how far they can go will depend on other players' development.

2. Oregon. Will be the most talented team in the conference, but also heavily reliant on freshman and sophomores. Tough schedule draw in conference and also very tough Non-con schedule as well this season for once. Would have picked them first, but Lou King 5* is out until at LEAST December and they will have scoring issues without him. Will Richardson is going to surprise people as a true freshman. Defense has Pac-12 leading shot blocker returning and then adds Bol Bol and NCAA steals leader Ehab Amin. Good luck scoring once they learn Altman's zones.

3. USC. Metu is obviously a big time loss for them, but with Boatwright, Aaron, and Matthews, they have the best wing players in the league. Key will be figuring out the PG spot with their senior leader graduated from last year.

4. Arizona -Even with 5 new starters and a thin bench, the talent is still there. Brandon Williams is electric and Chase Jeter will really help inside.

5. UCLA Might have been the pick to win the regular season if not for already having THREE dudes out for the season, including 5* Shareef O'Neal(Shaq's kid). Wilkes is a stud.

6. Utah- Pundits picking Utah in the bottom half of the conference just haven't been paying attention. They'll have some white stiff who is suddenly good and barefield is a tough SOB.

7. Colorado- great PG, not much else

8. Arizona State- The talent upgrade is finally coming for Hurley, but the experience is gone. I think they have a really up and down season. If Cherry/Dort stick around, they'll contend for the title NEXT season. Will be dangerous for any team to play come Pac-12 tournament time.

9. Oregon State- Tinkle gets one more try with his kid. That goofy white stiff going pro(and not getting drafted, that fucking loser) hurts them quite a bit though. Maybe they'll finally find a PG this year, which they haven't had since GPII graduated.

10. Wazzu. I thought Wazzu was ready to have a top 6 year this year, then strangely, everyone worth a s*** decided to transfer except for Franks. That said, Franks is good enough alone for 10th.

11. Stanford. LOL @ your best player fucking ditching you for Kentucky as a grad transfer. Your program fucking sucks if that happens, sorry.

12. Cal. Gotta show me something.

Here's the media poll:

1. Oregon
2. UCLA
3. Washington
4. Arizona
5. USC
6. Arizona State
7. Colorado
8. Utah
9. Stanford
10. Oregon State
11. California
12. Washington State

[Greenblood]

Nice post, thanks. Because Altman -- who had been completely non-committal for months on when King might be back -- suddenly was quoted earlier this month as saying that he would anticipate King's being back "maybe sometime around December 1," that made me somewhat optimistic that King might be back a little sooner rather than later. Would be nice to think that the Ducks would be pretty much full strength when conference play begins for the Ducks Jan. 5.

[UOducksTK1]

I didn't even know Reid transferred, poor Stanford..

[Merganzer]

I'd have the same list. Put the league in tiers and it pretty much goes 3 in each. It's completely unfair to the rest of the conference that Washington now has a coach that can actually coach. Enfield can coach in game, and every day I looked and saw them getting another great player. Fortunately for the rest of the conference, Alford is very much the same coach for basketball that Mora was at football at UCLA.

[northbeachsf]

This is a great evaluation. Hard to argue with any of it.

[dthomas=ddixon]

Great post. Agreed on Richardson. I watched him play at the LSI over the winter and was really impressed. On a team stacked with high end talent he managed to stand out, and in ways you want a PG to stand out. Super smooth and under control, seemed to always make the right decision with the ball. Kid has a really high bball IQ. And when he wasn’t on the floor you could tell as all these hyper talented dudes didn’t have their facilitator.