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Every Pac-12 team has played nine conference games, putting us at the halfway point. And there is absolutely no separation anywhere in the standings.
Here's a look:
Team | Conference Record | Overall Record |
Arizona Wildcats | 8-1 | 21-1 |
UCLA Bruins | 6-3 | 17-5 |
California Golden Bears | 6-3 | 15-7 |
Arizona St. Sun Devils | 5-4 | 16-6 |
Colorado Buffaloes | 5-4 | 16-6 |
Stanford Cardinal | 5-4 | 14-7 |
Oregon St. Beavers | 5-4 | 13-8 |
Washington Huskies | 5-4 | 13-9 |
Oregon Ducks | 3-6 | 15-6 |
Utah Utes | 3-6 | 14-7 |
Washington St. Cougars | 2-7 | 9-12 |
USC Trojans | 1-8 | 10-12 |
Arizona's loss to Cal this weekend was not a surprise to me at all if you've been following along, but the loss of Brandon Ashley has the potential to be devastating to a Wildcat team that was only using a seven-man rotation.
UCLA missed out on a golden opportunity to take sole possession of second with Cal's loss to ASU earlier in the week, but the Bruins lost to the Beavers to leave them in a "tie" for second, and are essentially three games behind Arizona for the conference lead since UA took down UCLA in their only meeting of the year.
As for the rest of the conference, almost half of the Pac-12 is at 5-4. That seems insane to me, but then again, last year saw four teams finish they year at 9-9, and I would expect something close to that happening again.
Not sure which of the 5-4 teams has been most impressive, but Oregon St. is certainly the most battle-tested of any Pac-12 team this year. The Beavers biggest loss in conference game was 11 to Utah, and hasn't won a game by more than nine points (Stanford). If there's any team that will have the most experience with close games heading into the conference tourney, OSU is that team.
Washington certainly missed out on their opportunity to separate themselves from the pack this week when they went to Pullman and lost to that awful WSU team.
Still waiting on Oregon to make their run. Looking forward to seeing them in person twice this week, but right now it looks like I picked the wrong Oregon school to follow around Arizona for the week.
It's certainly been consistently inconsistent all the way around. And now that Arizona has a chink in the armor, will one of the other seven teams above .500 step up and take this conference?
I doubt it. It's just been another one of those years.