Pac-10 Basketball Preview

As the Pac-10 regular season approaches, and many teams are finally done with their non-conference games, it is time to look ahead to what may end up being as the most "competitive" and up in the air conference season in a long time. The last four years were basically a UCLA domination, with Washington emerging last year to steal the regular season crown by a mere game over UCLA. The same Huskies should be the favorites this year but have not been that dominating despite their high preseason ranking. The loss to Texas Tech was a huge disappointment, and so was the loss to equally powerful Georgetown. Like Washington, instate rivals WSU have only two losses from the preseason although they do not have any impressive wins. However, the play of Klay Thompson will carry them a long way in conference. Arizona State, a team believed to not be in contention after losing Jeff Pendergraph to graduation and James Harden to the NBA Draft, is sitting at 10-3 but like WSU, does not have any signature wins. Here is the entire pecking order as of Monday:
WSU 10-2
UW 9-2
ASU 10-3
U$C 8-4
UO 7-4
Cal 6-4
UA 6-5
OSU 6-5
SU 5-6
UCLA 5-7
Now, it is time to make some bold statements and predictions:

Pac-10 Champ: I still think UW has the most fire power and showed the most consistency thus far, and should therefore win the title. Plus, it's impossible to win against them in Seattle, just ask Ben Howland.

Pac-10 Surprise: U$C. Yes, I know. They are the lowly Trojans, but... They have two wins over ranked teams, including a very impressive win against the Vols. That being said, they lost to LMU, so I could be completely wrong.

Pac-10 Disappointment: It would be easy to pick UCLA, but we are talking about the conference season here. I would have to go with UofA because they were picked in the preseason to finish 4th in the conference, have a better record right now than UCLA, and have tons of question marks. If it wasn't for my admiration for Mike Montgomery of Cal I would have picked them.

Pac-10 POY: Quincy Pondexter of UW. He's coming in to the conference season averaging 21.8ppg and 8.4 rpg. He is the lone senior on the best team in the conference. Those two factors combined will bring him the award. Klay Thompson of WSU should also be in consideration, but since he is younger and on a lesser recognized team, he won't get it.

Pac-10 FOY: Reeves Nelson of UCLA. He is averaging twice as many points per game for a lower scoring team (UCLA) than Abdul Gaddy's UW. He plays with a chip on his shoulder and has had dominating performances against bigger and more established players. There really is no other freshman this year in the conference in terms of points and contributions to his team beyond the stat sheet.