ESPN Men's Basketball

Joe Lunardi believes California and Colorado will be only teams from the Pac-12 to make NCAA tournament.

Editor’s note: Jay Bilas breaks down Missouri-Kansas in today’s Weekend Watch. Andy Katz offers a dozen more games to keep an eye on this weekend.

Friday

Marquette at West Virginia (9 ET, ESPN): West Virginia has to win this game, right? The Mountaineers have lost six of their past eight games. The only wins were over lower-level teams (Providence and Pitt) on the road. Marquette has been on a tear of late and may have the Big East Player of the Year in Jae Crowder or Darius Johnson-Odom.

Saturday

Vanderbilt at Kentucky (noon ET, CBS): Kentucky has three games left to finish off an undefeated SEC regular season. No offense to Georgia, but the Cats should take care of the Bulldogs. If UK takes out Vandy, the only obstacle left is a game at Florida to end the regular season. If Kentucky can accomplish an unblemished mark, it would go down as one of the most impressive regular seasons in coach John Calipari’s career.

Iowa State at Kansas State (1:30 ET, ESPN3): Wins at Baylor and Missouri have changed the complexion of Kansas State’s season. The Wildcats have finally finished games by playing smart in the final possessions. Iowa State has a tough slate to finish the season with games at K-State and Missouri and then hosting Baylor. Not an easy road for a team that wants to wrap up an at-large bid.

North Carolina at Virginia (4 ET, ESPN): UVa has had injury issues and hasn’t been able to find consistency against the league’s elite (Duke and North Carolina). But the Cavs have a shot to re-establish themselves. This could turn into an ACC Player of the Year-type game as Tyler Zeller of the Tar Heels matches up with Mike Scott of the Cavs. UVa must ensure that it controls the tempo to have a chance.

Mississippi State at Alabama (6 ET, ESPN): Mississippi State has stumbled down the stretch and has no momentum going into the SEC tournament. The Bulldogs have lost to the bottom of the SEC and now to Kentucky at the top. Meanwhile, Alabama has done a tremendous job, despite player suspensions, to be in the hunt for an NCAA tournament berth. The win at Arkansas was one of the more impressive for the Tide this season.

George Mason at VCU (6 ET, ESPN2): George Mason was going to be in position to possibly catch Drexel and win the conference. But an overtime loss at Northeastern has pushed the Patriots into a second-place tie with VCU. The winner will get the No. 2 seed in the CAA tournament and potentially set up for a final matchup against Drexel.

Temple at Saint Joseph’s (7 ET, ESPNU): Temple has emerged as the class of the A-10. St. Joe’s had some fleeting hopes of getting a bid, but the Hawks lost at home to Richmond and scored only 49 points in the process. This is now a must-win for them. This is a huge rivalry game but the toughness of the Owls should prevail.

Penn at Harvard (7 ET, ESPN3): If Harvard gets by Princeton on Friday night, a win against Penn could give the Crimson a share of the Ivy League title and a chance to clinch it outright the following Friday at Columbia. Harvard is trying to get to the NCAAs for the first time since 1946.

Syracuse at Connecticut (9 ET, ESPN): The Huskies have new life after Shabazz Napier’s 3-point heave went in to beat Villanova on Monday night. The Orange have been as good, if not better, on the road than at home -- other than at Notre Dame. Syracuse should dominate the bench scoring. The Huskies have a chance if Andre Drummond and Alex Oriakhi can win the post, and Napier and Ryan Boatright can get into the zone with floaters to score. UConn is in desperate mode to get this win.

Sunday

Wisconsin at Ohio State (4 ET, CBS): The Badgers lost at Iowa on Thursday night and now have to go to Ohio State? Yikes. Iowa let Wisconsin back in the game, but then the Badgers couldn’t finish and lost by one. OSU, save the game against Michigan State, has been as dominant at home as any team in the country. The Badgers have to find a way to score and avoid the droughts that can decimate their chances of pulling off an upset like this one.

California at Colorado (5:30 ET, FSN): Colorado had a chance to make some noise down the stretch in the Pac-12, but losing at home to Stanford took some of the energy out of this game. The Buffaloes had overachieved to that point. Cal needs to get a sweep of the mountain area to win the Pac-12 regular-season title, assuming Washington doesn’t stumble.

Florida State at Miami (6 ET, ESPNU): The Seminoles lost their shot to win the ACC regular-season title by dropping a home game to Duke. Miami desperately needs this game to prove to the selection committee that it is tourney-worthy. This game will have ACC tournament seeding implications as well.

Allow me to concur with my colleague, Myron Medcalf, who included the Pac-12's intriguing title race among his five observations Sunday:

2. The Pac-12 race is actually exciting: Let’s ignore the fact this could still be a one-bid league and the overall conference has been bested by multiple mid-major conferences this season. The Pac-12’s title race is compelling right now. Washington beat Arizona on the road last weekend and then overcame a late double-digit deficit to beat UCLA on Thursday. The Wildcats overcame Cal’s early 22-9 lead in one of the better matchups of the week: a 78-74 road win for Arizona, which it followed up with a victory at Stanford. The Pac-12 might end up with the most captivating finish in the country simply because so many teams possess questionable NCAA tourney résumés.

This is entirely true. Sure, the quality of play in the Pacific 12 conference isn't the highest in the country, but so what? If you want to watch the best basketball in the world, played by all of its best players, well, NBA League Pass is right this way. Go wild. If you want your hoops defined as much by imperfection as success, it's hard to do much better than this fascinating and downright weird league.

Anyway, onto the rankings.

1. Washington: For much of the season, yours truly has been pining over the Washington Huskies. Well, not pining, exactly, but at least keeping an eye out. With Tony Wroten, Abdul Gaddy, Terrence Ross and Aziz N'Diaye, Washington has always appeared to be the most talented team in the conference. Of course, talent only goes so far, and for much of the season, this team's talent was undermined by a lack of chemistry and a lack of defense, and not always in that order. Both of those things have changed in conference play. The Huskies are hardly blowing the doors off on offense, but they're allowing the league's third-fewest points per possession on defense, and unlike their mediocre nonconference slate, Lorenzo Romar's team is getting key stops, closing out tight games and winning on the road. As a result -- and thanks to Cal's home loss to Arizona this week -- Washington finds itself alone atop the Pac-12 standings Monday morning. Can the Huskies take that lead to the finish line? It may not matter, this team's at-large tourney profile is still pretty mediocre. But you can't knock Washington's improvement. If things keep going this way, Romar's team will be in excellent position heading into the all-important Pac-12 tournament.

2. California: The Bears have spent the entire Pac-12 season looking like this conference's best, or at least most solid, team. That perception hasn't changed, despite Thursday's home loss to Arizona, which dropped California out of first place in the league standings. Thing is, Cal has reached its ceiling. The Bears are what they are. That's not something we can necessarily say about Washington, which looks capable of greater improvement each time it takes the floor. The Bears are solid (and their total per-possession numbers are solid, if not amazing, particularly in conference play) but unspectacular. Meh.

3. Colorado: Is it time to believe in Colorado? Insofar as "believe in Colorado" means "think they might be the third- or fourth-best team in the Pac-12," then yeah, sure. The Buffaloes are playing solid defense and got a couple of nice wins last week over Oregon State and Oregon (though Saturday night's win over the Ducks featured a controversial last-second foul call on Oregon's E.J. Singler that gave coach Tad Boyle's team two late, game-sealing free throws). In any case, the Buffaloes still need to prove themselves on the road. This team's only Pac-12 road victory came at USC, and five of their final seven games -- including the next three, at Arizona, Arizona State and Utah -- are on the road. We'll see.

4. Arizona: The Wildcats move up the board further than anyone this week thanks to their impressive Bay Area sweep, which began Thursday at Cal and ended Saturday at Stanford. Both were solid wins for coach Sean Miller's improving bunch. The Wildcats are now 7-4 in conference play with the best per-possession defense in the league. Arizona's offense could hold them back (it was uncharacteristically good at Cal, and it didn't prevent a win at Stanford), but the Cats may have found their niche on the defensive end.

5. Oregon: Perception-wise, it's hard to penalize the Ducks too much for losing on the road at Colorado, let alone losing on the road on such a controversial last-second call. Coach Dana Altman's team has an excellent chance to bounce back this week when Washington comes to town, so that's good news. But Oregon has yet to really impress when it comes to efficiency margin in league play, and while Altman and Oregon fans may feel like they are a few missed opportunities away from contention, the Ducks' advanced metrics beg to differ.

6. Stanford: Stanford entered league play with a sluggish offense and what appeared to be the conference's best defense. Since then, coach Johnny Dawkins' team has regressed to the mean on the defensive end, allowing the fifth-most points per possession in Pac-12 play. That wouldn't be so bad if Stanford were playing a bit better on offense. Unfortunately, that's not the case. That's why Arizona was able to win in Palo Alto on Saturday despite scoring well under a point per possession, and that's why Stanford, once a potential title contender, is stuck here at 6-5.

7. Oregon State: It's hard to move the Beavers either up or down after Oregon State lost at Colorado and won at Utah. Guard Jared Cunningham leads an offense that can score in bunches and a defense that is far too permissive both at home and on the road. Last week's win at Oregon was nice, but little else has been impressive.

8. UCLA: Believe it or not, the Bruins score the most points per trip of any team in the Pac-12. Travis and David Wear are providing efficient role scoring, and Joshua Smith remains a load for any defense to handle. Strangely enough for a program that has prided itself on defense in the Ben Howland era, this team is totally mediocre on the defensive end. Losing to Washington on the road, as the Bruins did Thursday, is hardly a crime. But the way UCLA lost -- with a timeout still on the board -- was curious. More importantly, this team hasn't gone anywhere since the turmoil of November and December, and that has UCLA fans questioning the program's future direction.

9. Washington State: Washington State had one thing going for it in early Pac-12 play: home-court advantage. The Cougars were offensively potent at home, and that trait guided them to wins over Stanford and Cal in back-to-back games last month. But Faisal Aden's sad, career-ending ACL injury has robbed them of even that ability, made evident by a meager 60-53 win over USC and a 60-points-in-65-possessions performance in Saturday's three-point loss to UCLA. This was never going to be a tournament team, but that doesn't make Aden's fate, or its effect on this fledgling squad, any easier to swallow.

10. Arizona State: No surprises here. Arizona State had two road games this week -- at Stanford, at Cal -- and lost by 20-plus in both. Those blowouts moved the Sun Devils to 3-8 in league play, good enough to stay atop Utah and USC and no one else.

11. Utah: The Utes will never truly wash off the stink of their horrendous nonconference performance; on a per-possession basis, they've been ranked in the low 300s all season, and they'll be there for the remainder. But they do still own one more league win than USC. Then again, Utah has lost its past four (including at USC), mostly in blowout fashion, and the Utes may return to their seemingly predestined spot at the bottom of these rankings if the trend continues.

12. USC: And then there's Southern California. The Trojans' only win in league play came at home over Utah, and while they kept things relatively close at Washington State (losing 60-53), that's hardly worth much. USC is scoring about 0.83 points per possession in Pac-12 play, a league that hardly specializes in lockdown defense. Unless the Trojans discover a magical way to score the basketball in the next few weeks, their only hopes of avoiding the 2012 Pac-12 wooden spoon award is if Utah somehow plays even worse.

Monday mornings are brutal. You scrape the snow off your car,* trudge to your office or school or wherever it is you trudge to, and you feel yourself fill with dismay and disgust. You think "Jeez, Monday mornings are brutal. If only I had some Pac-12 Power Rankings! Surely the world would seem brighter!"

Fear not, fellow human. The Pac-12 Power Rankings are here to ease your existential pain. (And if that doesn't do it for you, well, there are five more conferences being ranked this morning.)

*And yes, the author realizes that if you're a Pac-12 fan (with a few exceptions), you probably never have to scrape anything off your car, least of all snow. The author also wants you to know he hates you for this, because he lives in a place where he frequently sees people scraping their car windshields like Jerry Lundegaard in "Fargo." You're all soft.

Without further ado:

1. California: With the possible exception of Washington, by this point, Cal has pretty firmly stamped its status as the league's obvious front-runner. That's been true for most of the season, and it was true Sunday night, when the Bears pulled away from Stanford in the second half en route to a 69-59 home win. The Bears' in-conference efficiency margins match their 7-2 record. By all indications, this is simply the best team in the league. Is it as talented as Washington? Maybe not. Is it more consistent? Absolutely.

2. Washington: The Huskies' first few Pac-12 fixtures made it hard to get excited about a team that really should be exciting. But after this weekend's road win at Arizona -- a huge road win for a team that struggled away from home for much of the season -- Lorenzo Romar's team appears to be coming around. Now 7-2 and tied atop the league standings, this team still has plenty of improvements to make. But in the meantime, Washington is showing signs that it can achieve collective success on par with individual talents like Tony Wroten, Terrence Ross, Aziz N'Diaye and the like.

3. Oregon: What to make of Oregon? Last week, on the strength of four straight wins (including a road win over Arizona and a nice home victory over UCLA), Dana Altman's team climbed all the way to No. 2 in these rankings. Then, on Sunday, the Ducks laid an egg. (Sorry. I couldn't help myself.) A five-point loss to Oregon State isn't the worst thing in the world, but Altman couldn't be thrilled to see his improving team turn it over a season-high 23 times and yield a 24-point second half to Oregon State's Jared Cunningham in a 76-71 home loss.

4. Stanford: It's hard to fault the Cardinal for losing at Cal, which they did Sunday night. It's also hard to find reasons to be overwhelmed with excitement about this team, both from a national, NCAA-tournament-related perspective and in the context of this mostly ugly league. The vaunted per-possession defense Stanford played in the nonconference schedule has mostly waned in league play. Stanford is still a solid defensive team, but not anywhere near its early top-15 indicators, and the Cardinal simply can't score the ball well enough to compensate for a defense that is only slightly better than average.

5. Colorado: The Buffaloes got their first road win of the conference season this week, but that win came at USC, so the credit granted here is minimal. Colorado followed that up with a 17-point road loss at UCLA. The credit granted there is, well, nonexistent. Simply put, the Buffaloes will have to improve their road play if they want to keep pace in the league standings (or, for that matter, in these hugely important weekly rankings). Colorado hosts Oregon and Oregon State this week. After that, five of the Buffs' last seven league games are on the road. We'll see.

6. Oregon State: The Beavers' frequent defensive woes showed up early and often in Pac-12 play, but they were made more glaring by the schedule. Four of Oregon State's first six Pac-12 games came on the road. It's easier to win on the road if you can defend, and the Beavers haven't proved they can do so on a consistent basis. But Sunday offered hope. That's when Cunningham & Co. took down hated rival Oregon in the Ducks' shiny Matthew Knight Arena 76-71, notching arguably the biggest win of their season to date. It was also their third straight, which moved their record to a slightly more respectable 4-5. Let's see if this team can pick it up on the defensive end in time to mount a late-season push.

7. UCLA: Just like Colorado, you can't get credit for winning on the road when your only road win is at USC. It doesn't count. Other than that, UCLA is winless on the road in conference play, and this week's results -- a pair of home wins over Utah and Colorado -- don't move the needle one way or the other. The Bruins are thoroughly mediocre. Not good. Not terrible. Just mediocre. Unless something drastic changes in the next few weeks (and this week brings road trips to Washington and Washington State) that appears to be the extent of this team's trajectory.

8. Arizona: Arizona beat up on Washington State at home Thursday, but the good vibes in Tucson didn't last through the weekend. On Saturday, the Wildcats lost the aforementioned home game to Washington, putting them at 5-4 in league play. Similar to Washington and UCLA, yours truly has watched Arizona with some hope that its talent, particularly freshman guards Nick Johnson and Josiah Turner, would have adjusted and even thrived in this weak conference by this point in the season. But another week of Pac-12 play has passed, and Sean Miller's team has another so-so win and another so-so loss to show for it. Since the start of conference games, Arizona's results have gone as follows: win, loss, win, win, loss, win, loss, win, loss. You don't want to still be treading water by February, but that's exactly what Miller's team is doing.

9. Washington State: The Cougars have showed plenty of pluck this season, particularly at home, where they score a significantly higher number of points than in games on the road. But whatever hopes this team had were likely derailed Thursday night, when leading scorer Faisal Aden injured his left knee in a 24-point loss at Arizona. On Saturday, an Aden-less Cougars team lost at Arizona State; if the dictionary had an entry for the phrase "bad to worse," you'd see a picture of Aden on crutches directly adjacent. Brutal break.

10. Arizona State: Sure, I'll give the Sun Devils a slight bump above Utah this week. Why? (First of all, why not? Second of all, if you're splitting hairs at this point in the Pac-12 power rankings, your boss needs to assign you more work.) Because Arizona State won and Utah lost. Pretty simple, right? Either way, the only chance the Sun Devils have of getting out of this ugly bottom three is if Wazzu totally tanks in the next few weeks without Aden. Either way, you get the drift.

11. Utah: I refuse to return Utah to the bottom of the Pac-12 power rankings. Sure, the Utes introduced an ungodly stench into the Galen Center in this week's 62-45 loss at USC. Sure, Utah handed the hapless Trojans their first win in nine Pac-12 tries. Sure, Utah is still ranked in the nether regions of Ken Pomeroy's adjusted efficiency ratings (No. 313 as of this writing, to be exact). But Utah has been more than sprightly in plenty of Pac-12 contests before this week's USC drubbing. The Trojans will have to do more to escape the wooden spoon cellar.

12. USC: Hey, USC's on the board! As you just read, the Trojans finally got a Pac-12 win this week -- a 62-45 whupping of Utah. So why is USC last in the power rankings? Because with one exception (a close game at Oregon), Kevin O'Neill's team was legitimately putrid in pretty much every one of its eight Pac-12 losses to date. At least Utah played Washington close and won a couple of games against teams not named "Utah" or "USC," right? Right? Reasonable minds can differ. Your mileage may vary. The moral of the story: Both of these teams are bad at basketball.

Before we go any further, let's just all admit that this premise -- ranking the top seven or eight teams in the Pac-12 -- is inherently futile. The distinctions between these teams are minor, if they even exist. Until these standings begin to shake out in the next few weeks, we can't definitively say any one team is significantly better than the three or four teams ranked above or below it. The entire league is either mediocre or downright bad. It's harsh to say, but it's true. The difficulty we have ranking these teams 1-12 only demonstrates as much.

Alas, I can't not turn in my rankings for the week. The show must go on, as they say. So, with all the enthusiasm of a root canal, here are this week's Pac-12 rankings:

1a. California
1b. Stanford

I'm keeping these two as a tie at the top of the rankings this week, because, well, that's where they were last Monday, and their results were nearly identical in the seven days since. California lost at Oregon State but won convincingly at Oregon; Stanford lost at Oregon but gutted out a 103-101 four-overtime victory at Oregon State. These rankings are based on both results and observations, and if I had to take a guess, I would still say Cal is the favorite to win this league. They're still the best from a tempo-free, points-per-possession perspective, which is certainly worth noting. So, yeah, they're still at the top. Stanford is right there, too. But neither team is going to run away with this league. Far from it, it seems.

3. Colorado: I have serious doubts about whether Colorado is really this good, but at some point you have to acknowledge the only team still undefeated in conference play. That's Colorado. To be fair, the Buffaloes were impressive last week, particularly in their 87-69 thrashing of a Washington squad that appeared to be finally putting its considerable talent together (and was itself ranked No. 3 last time we tried to make sense of this league). Tad Boyle's team is clearly improved from its early-season struggles, and the 3-0 start has to count for something.

4. UCLA: As Doug Gottlieb wrote this weekend, the Bruins' 65-58 win over Arizona at the Honda Center in Anaheim on Thursday was sneakily impressive, if only because, thanks to the high number of Arizona grads in the Anaheim area, the Bruins could barely call this a home game. The Bruins handled business against Arizona State on Saturday, their only Pac-12 losses came at Cal and at Stanford, and with Josh Smith rounding into shape (no pun intended), this team could emerge as a viable contender in the next few weeks. We'll see.

5. Arizona: The Wildcats' loss to UCLA proved two things: A) For all its struggles this season, UCLA is not going to roll over in Pac-12 play, and B) Arizona is merely another decent but unspectacular Pac-12 team. Barring a sudden uptick in performance from disappointing freshman Josiah Turner, the Wildcats' ceiling appears relatively low.

6. Oregon: The Ducks had the chance to post a pair of positive results in their most recent two-game homestand with Stanford and Cal, two very winnable games. They got the win over Stanford, but laid an absolute egg in a 77-60 blowout to Cal on Sunday night. Like the Dec. 18 home loss to Virginia, this was another missed chance to impress at home. Instead, the Ducks disappointed. Major improvement in the next few weeks seems unlikely. They are what they are. And yeah, we could probably say that for just about every team in this league, but it feels especially appropriate for the very so-so Ducks.

7. Washington: U-Dub fell from No. 3 to No. 7 in this space this week, and you could argue for an even more pronounced slip. The Huskies looked utterly uninspired in their double-digit loss at Colorado, and they barely -- barely! -- got past Utah (57-53 in Salt Lake City). The story on this team is simple: Washington has more talent than any other team in the Pac-12. What it doesn't have is defensive consistency or offensive chemistry, and without either, the Huskies will perform far below the sum of their considerable parts. This might be the nation's most frustrating team. It's certainly one of its most inconsistent.

8. Oregon State: Like their rivals in Eugene, the Beavers had a fantastic opportunity to impress this week, getting a crack at both Stanford and Cal in their own building. And like their rivals in Eugene, Oregon State let one -- in this case Saturday's 103-101 four-OT loss to the Cardinal -- slip away. The Beavers are obviously improved, and they can make some noise in this league going forward, but if they're going to struggle on the road (as they did at Washington State and Washington), they'll have to take care of business against decent teams at home.

9. Washington State: This is where things start to get really ugly. How ugly? Consider this: I have Wazzu ranked No. 9 today despite its loss to Utah. Oh, did you miss that? Because it happened: Washington State lost to Utah. That's a little bit like losing to Tennessee Martin or Houston Baptist, two teams currently ranked higher than the Utes in Ken Pomeroy's adjusted efficiency rankings. The Cougars followed that loss with a 71-60 defeat at Colorado, in which their offense -- the strength of this team to date -- scored just 60 points in 63 possessions. Ick.

10. Arizona State: The Sun Devils' season went from bad to worse this weekend, as leading scorer Kaela King -- one of three contributors suspended for ASU's trip to Southern Cal -- was then dismissed from the team. And yet Herb Sendek's team is not ranked No. 11 in these rankings for the first time all season. Wait ... how's that? Because ASU went to USC and got a win -- yes, a win -- in the Galen Center on Thursday night, topping the offensively bereft Trojans 62-53. It's going to be a long few months in Tempe. Cherish the small victories, and all that. Oh, and speaking of USC ...

11. USC: If Utah wasn't a potentially historic brand of awful this season, I would have put USC in the cellar this week. A home loss to Arizona State is bad enough, but the Trojans lost to a fractured, half-suspended Arizona State team on their own floor. USC's sheer inability to score -- it ranks No. 275 in adjusted offensive efficiency right now -- is absolutely killing this team. I thought SC's tough defense and grind-it-out style would serve it well against some of the lesser Pac-12 foes, but the Trojans, now the only winless team in Pac-12 play, are finding new and ever more depressing ways to lose.

12. Utah: I really, really wanted to move Utah up a spot this week, if only to say it happened at least once this season. Alas, a win over Washington State and a tight game with Washington -- encouraging though they may be -- isn't enough to erase the putrid results of the first two months, which put the Utes on track to be one of the worst high-major teams in the past decade. Maybe that isn't the case. Maybe Larry Krystkowiak can get this team moving in a positive direction. Let's hope so. It's only Jan. 8, and haven't Utah fans already suffered enough?

What follows is a list of results from Thursday's night Pac-12 play.

• In Boulder, Co., Colorado beat Washington 87-69.
• In Eugene, Ore., Oregon beat Stanford, 78-67.
• In Los Angeles, Arizona State beat USC 62-53.
• Also in Los Angeles, UCLA beat Arizona 65-58.
• In Corvallis, Ore., Oregon State beat California 92-85.
• And in Salt Lake City, Utah beat Washington State 62-60 in overtime.

This is a list of facts. These facts are not in dispute. The information is not the problem. The interpretation is.

Or, to put it more simply, I have absolutely no idea what's going on in the Pac-12. Either that, or I know exactly what's going on in the Pac-12. It's one of the two.

Allow me to explain.

The causes for confusion are many. Colorado has looked like a middling team for much of the season, both at home and on the road. Washington has looked like the most talented team in the conference, albeit one struggling with chemistry issues and prone to major defensive breakdowns. Still, with Tony Wroten improving, Terrence Ross providing great wing play, and the rest of the talent on Lorenzo Romar's roster, the Huskies should be a frontrunner in this league. Washington won its first two Pac-12 games -- versus Oregon and Oregon State -- by a combined margin of 31 points. But on Thursday night, they gave up 87 points to Colorado.

Stanford and Cal, the two putative league favorites and the only two teams in this league with adjusted efficiency rankings among the top 40 in the country (Cal even ranks No. 23!), both lost in the state of Oregon. Neither game was a major upset; Oregon and Oregon State both showed flashes of effective basketball throughout nonconference play. But Matthew Knight Arena is not a bastion of road difficulty; to paraphrase the ogre in Happy Gilmore, Virginia accomplished that feat no more than three weeks ago. Again, Washington beat both Oregon and Oregon State last week. Then it lost by 18 in Boulder.

Meanwhile, UCLA -- which has spent the past two months in utter disrepair -- beat Arizona, one of the league's most consistently solid teams, at the Honda Center in Anaheim. Just last week, UCLA lost two games on the road, 60-59 at Stanford and 85-69 at Cal.

Arizona State has been putrid all season, boasting one of the nation's highest turnover percentages and one of its most anemic defenses. Even worse, on Thursday ASU suspended two starters and one reserve, Keala King, Kyle Cain and Chris Colvin, respectively, and none of the three made the trip to play USC Thursday night. But the Sun Devils, 4-9 upon their arrival, overcame USC's combination of stalwart defense and atrocious offense in time to secure a 62-53 win.

And then there's Utah. (I still think this should be the alternate title for my Pac-12 power rankings, by the way.) The Utes rank among the country's worst teams, period. Not in the high-major classification. Not in a "everybody but the Great West and the SWAC and Towson" sort of way. No, the Utes rank No. 327 in Pomeroy's rankings, currently one spot ahead of Arkansas Pine-Bluff and one spot below -- yes, below -- UMBC. Tracking the teams adjacent to Utah in these rankings has been one of the more underrated aspects of the season.

But guess what? The Utes got their first Pac-12 victory in history Thursday night, playing the rare efficient offensive game and outlasting a Washington State team that missed 12 of its 22 free throw attempts en route to a two-point overtime loss. For reference's sake, Utah's first Pac-12 result was a 73-33 drubbing at Colorado on New Year's Eve.

What does it all mean? For one, it means college basketball games are hard to win on the road, whether or not you're playing Colorado, Utah, UCLA, Oregon or Oregon State. It also means the Trojans can't, for the life of them, put the ball in the basket, and if you can't score it doesn't matter where you play. You'll probably lose. Even to Arizona State.

It also means this league has no legitimate top contender. There is no favorite. Any of the (apparent) top seven or eight teams in this league -- Cal, Washington, Stanford, Oregon, Oregon State, UCLA, Arizona and, hell, maybe even current standings leader (2-0) Colorado -- has a chance to win the Pac-12 regular season title. None of these squads has given us any hint that they're significantly better than the majority of their conference opponents, and so any and all of them could rise, or fall, based on how they're playing at any given point in the season.

It also means this league is bad. I hate to say it, but it must be said. This league is really bad. There's a legitimate chance the Pac-12 will merit just one -- one! -- NCAA tournament bid this season. If we were seeding the field today, would you give any of the above teams an at-large invite? And with nonconference play behind us, can you really see that changing before March 18? I wouldn't. And I can't.

Here's the good news: It also means the 2012 Pac-12 tournament has the potential to be at once the strangest and most exciting conference tournament of the last decade. Maybe longer. No team will be able to feel safe about their at-large prospects by that point in the season; everyone will be gunning for the guaranteed bid. The Pac-12 conference tournament will, at least for one season, morph into a mid-major competition: For four days in March, every Pac-12 team -- teams with names on the front of their jerseys that read "UCLA," "Arizona," "Washington," "California" -- will be no different than teams whose jerseys read "UC Riverside" and "Long Beach State" and "Pacific" and "Marist." They'll have their entire seasons on the line. How surreal.

Those are the things I think Thursday night is telling us, anyway. It's still early. More importantly, it's still the 2012 Pac-12. We can think this widespread, top-to-bottom mediocrity is telling us something; we can think our expectations for the rest of this season are soundly rooted in intelligent observation. But in the end, maybe all this means nothing.

On the macro level, I think I've got a few leads on this Pac-12. In general, we know what this league is. I think.

But on a micro level? The one in which we discern which Pac-12 teams are obviously better than the others? Well, your guess is good as mine.

This is your 2012 Pacific 12 conference, ladies and gentlemen. I suggest you buckle up.

The Afternoon Links are, um, exactly what they say they are. For inclusion, your best bet is to hit me on Twitter. You can also e-mail your link to collegebasketballnation at gmail.com, or use the submission form here.

• It's still too early in the season to worry much about the intricacies of various Ken Pomeroy adjusted efficiency rankings. Small sample size, and all that. Still, this is noteworthy: Monday morning, KenPom's No. 1 spot changed for the first time since Duke won the national title last season. The new No. 1, Kansas, leapfrogged Duke by a minuscule margin after the team's difficult neutral-court win against Arizona -- which, perhaps surprisingly, ranks fifth on KenPom's list -- Saturday. Through six games, Kansas has the No. 1 offense and the No. 1 defense in the nation; the Jayhawks are scoring nearly 1.209 adjusted points per possession and allowing just .836. Duke comes in No. 2 overall and on both sides of the ball, but just barely (1.205 adjusted points per trip on offense, .843 on defense). In non-tempo-free terms, both teams are dominating their opponents, and both teams are likely to hover near the top of this list -- and plenty of others -- throughout the 2010-11 season.
• Speaking of KenPom, what do the adjusted efficiency numbers say about this week's ACC-Big Ten Challenge? That the most likely outcome is a 6-5 Big Ten win. Three of the contests -- Iowa-Wake Forest, Purdue-Virginia Tech, and Maryland-Penn State -- are essentially toss-ups, which means the overall challenge outcome could swing either direction. Compared to what we've seen on the court from those teams thus far, that makes perfect sense.
• The Mikan Drill offers a nice step-by-step breakdown of how Texas's staggered screen action caused Rice to give up a crucial layup late in Texas' three-point win against the Owls on Saturday.
• Butler coach Brad Stevens says his team needs to "right our own ship;" the Bulldogs are reeling after an upset home loss to Evansville on Saturday. As the Indy Star's David Woods writes, things won't get any easier in the next few fixtures.
• Cal hoops fans were plenty pleased with the team's 3-0 start, but once the Bears played solid opponents, Mike Montgomery's team received a harsh dose of reality. Against Notre Dame, Cal had a five-point (!!) first-half scoring effort, before losing by 22 to a mediocre Boston College squad. California Golden Blogs says the Bears just need to "take their lumps."
• Ballin' Is A Habit details just how offensively gross the Old Spice Classic really was: "The Old Spice Classic managed to set records on back-to-back days for offensive futility. On Thursday, Wisconsin and Manhattan slogged their way to a 17-10 score at the half. The 27 points were the fewest ever scored in the first half since the advent of the shot clock. The previous record came on January 8th, 2003, when Ole Miss took a 15-13 lead into the break against South Carolina. It got worse the next night, as Notre Dame took a 21-5 lead into the half against Cal. The Bears, who came one point away from the record for the worst half in the shot-clock era (Savannah State scored four points in the second half against Kansas State), were 2-25 from the field and didn't score a point for the last 10:44 of the half. They had twice as many turnovers (11) as points (5), and more than four times as many fouls (9) as field goals (2)."
• Meanwhile, Arizona fans seem plenty encouraged by the team's hard-fought loss to Kansas.
• Michigan State is turning the ball over already, even at home against bad opponents like Tennessee Tech, and, given the turnover problems of Spartans teams in recent years, that's already causing some measure of consternation.
• There has been no shortage of what Kyle Whelliston years ago dubbed "Red Line Upsets" -- when a team from a conference below the mid-major athletics revenues Red Line tops one above it -- this season. Documenting each, in Whelliston's words, has "become an impossible job."
• And, finally, no Afternoon Links would be complete if I didn't shamelessly direct you to all the good hoops stuff this here site has been producing in recent days, too. In particular: John Gasaway's (Insider) look at North Carolina's offensive issues to date; Diamond Leung's coverage of the 76 Classic; Andy Katz's look at Tennessee's impressive NIT tip-off win against Villanova; some late-Saturday stuff from Purdue-Richmond you might have missed; and our complete coverage of the early season tournaments here.

The ESPN.com summer previewing tour continues with Summer Shootaround, our exhaustive August look at key college hoops conferences. In addition to helping out with the Shootarounds, yours truly will be adding some related commentary on this here blog. Today: a best-case/worst-case look at the Pac-10.

ARIZONA

Best case: If there will be a recurring theme in the Pac-10's year to come, it will be volatility. Any number of young teams that struggled through 2009-10 can seize the moment and win the conference in 2010-11. Arizona is one of those teams. Derrick Williams should be among the best sophomores in the country, and if a few of his classmates can step up with him, Sean Miller should have his storied program back in the NCAA tournament again.

Worst case: For all the talent here, this is still a young team, and it will need sophomores like Lamont Jones and Solomon Hill to help draw pressure away from Williams by taking on larger scoring roles. It will also need to become a much better defensive team (No. 108 in adjusted defensive efficiency in 2009-10). Miller's teams at Xavier were defensive by nature, but if his young players still haven't picked it up by this year, Arizona will be only slightly better than .500 for the second year in a row.

ARIZONA STATE

Best case: The talk of the offseason revolved around Herb Sendek's slow pace -- which, despite the program's protests, is still a big feature of his offense. Sendek should open it up this year. His recruiting class is tall and athletic, and guard and wing play will again be his team's biggest strength. Fast or slow, though, what Sendek does works, and with most of last year's second-place Pac-10 team returning, a best case for the Sun Devils includes a league title and an NCAA tournament berth.

Worst case: It would be surprising to see ASU take a step back, but if it does, the losses of seniors Derek Glasser and Eric Boateng -- the former one of the team's most efficient scorers; the latter ASU's only experienced big man -- will be the reason why. Still, in a weak conference, ASU's worst case should be the NIT.

CALIFORNIA

Best case: In the Shootaround team capsules, Diamond asked if the Bears are rebuilding. The answer: You betcha. (I can see the rebuilding from my house!) Cal lost four senior starters from its Pac-10 title-winning team, and those four seniors also happened to be some of the most efficient offensive players in all of college basketball. Collectively, the Bears were the fourth-most efficient offensive team in the country last season. Even with some intriguing youngsters, Mike Montgomery's short-term best case is a respectable rebuilding year.

Worst case: Worst case, on the other hand, would see the Bears drop all the way to the bottom of the league. That might be a bit drastic, but with so little depth returning from 2009-10, it's hard to see who in Berkeley can step up so soon.

OREGON

Best case: Oregon made the right hire in Dana Altman. The problem is how long the school took in finding him. While they were deliberating (and throwing out Tom Izzo's name; yeah right, you guys), Oregon saw four players transfer from a team that finished second-to-last in a historically bad Pac-10. In other words, the Ducks better hope their new arena is a draw.

Worst case: Not only does Oregon struggle -- and it will struggle -- it does so in front of a sparse crowd at its expensive new arena. It could be a humbling few months for a program that expected to cement its elite status with a splashy hire this offseason.

OREGON STATE

Best case: Craig Robinson has done an admirable job transforming the Beavers into a semi-competitive Pac-10 team. After all, in 2008, the year before Robinson took over, the Beavers went 6-25 and lost every conference game. This seems like the right year to take another step forward. If promising sophomores Jared Cunningham and Joe Burton continue to improve, and UTEP transfer Eric Moreland can be an effective point man in Robinson's 1-3-1 zone, the Beavers might be able to take that "semi-" off the front of "competitive."

Worst case: Robinson's team is improving, but it's not exactly a power yet. The Beavers were an OK defensive team in 2009-10, but if they repeat their putrid offensive performance -- they averaged fewer than .984 points per possession (adjusted) last season, good for 213th in the nation -- OSU could miss out on the NIT, too.

STANFORD

Best case: Almost every player of note on last year's 14-18 Stanford team was either a senior or a sophomore. Unfortunately, among the seniors was (rather surprising) NBA draft pick Landry Fields, the Cardinal's leader in nearly every relevant statistical category. Johnny Dawkins will have to hope those sophomores -- particularly shooting guard Jeremy Green -- can pick up some of Fields' slack, but that hope would seem unrealistic.

Worst case: Given the loss of Fields, Stanford would probably be lucky to tread water at .500; if it's unlucky, 14-18 could end up seeming like a fond memory.

UCLA

Best case: UCLA's backcourt has been decimated by one NBA draft entry after another, and in 2009-10, it showed. For the Bruins to get into best-case territory -- which would be a winning season, if not an NCAA tournament berth -- they need Malcolm Lee's move to shooting guard to work, they need someone (preferably Jerime Anderson) to figure out the point guard spot, and they need wide-bodied prospect and McDonald's All-American Josh Smith to stay as far away from McDonald's as possible.

Worst case: In many ways, this is the same UCLA team that failed to reach .500 last year, only without leading scorer Michael Roll. There's a chance the Bruins could improve without adding a superior recruiting class, but it's just as easy to see Howland's team struggling through another ugly campaign before turning it around in 2011-12.

USC

Best case: It's easy to forget that last year's USC team was playing like an NCAA tournament squad until a batch of football-conscious self-sanctions (whoops) eliminated the Trojans' postseason. That had a lot to do with USC's three backcourt seniors, but it also revealed a pair of very talented frontcourt mates in Nikola Vucevic and Alex Stepheson. Both anchored the nation's second-most-efficient defense, and if the Trojans can improve even slightly on offense, they could compete for the Pac-10 title.

Worst case: Fordham transfer Jio Fontan showed some scoring flair (averaging 15.3 points per game) in his freshman season, but USC will need more than Fontan to improve one of the country's worst offenses. Where will it come from? And if the Trojans can't find it, is there any chance they make the NCAA tournament?

WASHINGTON

Best case: And now for your prohibitive 2010-11 conference favorite -- the Washington Huskies. As any respectable college hoops previewer will tell you, losing Quincy Pondexter will be difficult to overcome. But the Huskies are so talented in the backcourt (Isaiah Thomas, Venoy Overton, Abdul Gaddy) and expect so much from top recruit Terrence Ross that the collectively high expectations seem appropriate. This team should make the NCAA tournament and win the Pac-10, and it shouldn't need until February to realize that fact.

Worst case: Much of Washington's season hinges on the ability of senior forward Matthew Bryan-Amaning, who showed his first flashes of real productivity in March. If MBA can't anchor the frontcourt on his lonesome, Washington might be vulnerable to bigger, stronger teams.

WASHINGTON STATE

Best case: If you're looking for this year's top "Wait, who is this dude? He's really good!" candidate, look no further. That's Washington State's Klay Thompson, who might end up as the Pac-10's best player in 2010-11. If Reggie Moore can complement Thompson's newfound scoring ability and Ken Bone can get his young team to defend, Washington State should be in the Pac-10 mix for much of the season.

Worst case: Thompson is all well and good, but even an improved and dynamic version of Thompson can't do it alone. If the Cougars can't get more from their supporting cast, they might be doomed to another sub-.500 season.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Cal starting forward Omondi Amoke has been suspended indefinitely from the team for a violation of team rules. The school's announcement coms two days before the Bears' first-round NCAA tournament game against Louisville in Jacksonville.

Amoke did not make the trip, according to team spokesman Tim Miguel. The 6-foot-7 sophomore averages 4.8 points and 4.6 rebounds per game.

It hasn't even been 24 hours since we saw the selection committee's 2010 tournament bracket, and already the complaints have codified into consensus. Complaining about the bracket -- about the bubble, especially -- is a yearly tradition in the days after Selection Sunday. Frankly, it gets a little tired.

This year feels different. Because the bubble was so unusually soft this season, the usual gripes about first few teams left out of the tournament are non-starters. Instead, complaints about the makeup of the bracket, from imbalanced regions to mis-seeded teams, are this year's major concerns. Whining about the bubble is so last year. Whining about seeding? Hot and getting hotter!

So, in the spirit of Silky Johnston and the great diabolical haters of our time, here's a list of the five things to most disdain about this NCAA tournament. Hate! Hate! Hate! Hate!

1. The South. You too, Duke. Kentucky, Syracuse, and Kansas -- especially Kansas -- can kick off this year's hate-fest for us. All three supposed No. 1 seeds were given more difficult regions than Duke, which should have been the fourth No. 1 seed. Heck, I still think West Virginia deserved that fourth No. 1 after winning the Big East tournament. Instead, No. 1 overall seed Kansas was stuck in a brutal landmine of tourney-proven coaches and elite guard talent. Kentucky got the toughest No. 2 seed in its bracket in West Virginia. Syracuse will likely have to beat a startlingly low-seeded No. 8 Gonzaga team as soon as this weekend. Duke's No. 8 seed, meanwhile, is Cal, a drastically overseeded bunch. Duke's No. 2 is Villanova, an undersized, defensively weak squad that faded down the stretch in the Big East season. The No. 4 seed in Duke's bracket is Purdue, which without Robbie Hummel might not survive its matchup with sexy No. 13 pick Siena.

This is a horrifically imbalanced region, one that makes you wonder if the committee took a moment before finalizing the bracket to step back, look at the big picture, and scratch their heads one final time. Really? You want to make marginal No. 1 Duke's road that easy? Seeding the bracket is tough, but come on. The South reeks of a committee that lost the forest for the trees, and Kentucky, Syracuse and Kansas -- especially Kansas -- will suffer. So much for being the overall No. 1. If we can't reward Kansas for its excellence with something better than this, then the anti-expansion folks' main point is officially moot. The regular season doesn't matter.

2. The greatest 8/9 matchup ever. And by "greatest" I mean "greatest opportunity for a two-hour nap." OK, so 8/9 games aren't exactly the tournament's bread and butter. They usually feature two very average big-six teams. I get that. But No. 8 Texas vs. No. 9 Wake Forest might be the most uninspiring 8/9 game in recent memory. Neither team has beaten anyone worthwhile for months. After going 17-0 and rising to No. 1 overall in the polls, Texas lost nine of its last 16, fell all the way out of the Top 25, and saw its head coach reveal that he really doesn't care all that much about winning national championships. Texas is an inordinately talented team that has managed to do nothing with that talent for the past two months. It's depressing.

Then there's Wake Forest, which lost five of its last six -- including games to NC State, North Carolina and Miami -- and is limping into the tournament as badly as any team in the country. Again: depressing.

Put these two teams together, and you'll get two things. The first: lots of potential NBA players on the court at the same time. The second: some truly uninspired basketball. Thanks, but I'll pass.

3. Splitting sevens and 10s. Last night there was some brief discussion about the selection committee pairing too many non-BCS schools against one another in the first round. I don't think this was a strategy so much as an unlucky consequence of a hastily assembled bracket, but there are at least two games where it seems a fair criticism. Those games: No. 7 Richmond vs. N0. 10 St. Mary's in the South and No. 7 Oklahoma State vs. No 10 Georgia Tech in the Midwest. Why not switch the No. 10s there, sending Georgia Tech to Providence and St. Mary's to Milwaukee? This swap would prevent a non-BCS matchup in the first round and cut down on travel for the Gaels without accentuating anyone else's frequent flier miles. Why pit two major conference teams like Georgia Tech and Oklahoma State in the first round when you have two quality non-BCS schools to split between them? Why force non-BCS teams to eliminate one another? I can understand not wanting to swap seeds to fulfill an unofficial tournament consideration like the vague little guy vs. big buy thing, but if the solution is right there in front of you, with the seeds all the same and travel a non-issue ... well, why not?

4. Oh, and those No. 8 seeds. This is partially covered in note No. 1 about the South, but look at these No. 8 seeds: California, Texas, UNLV and ... Gonzaga? One of these things is not like the other. Hint: It's Gonzaga. Sure, the Bulldogs were badly beaten in their conference title game, thus making them an at-large bid at the committee's mercy. Sure, as with the bubble teams left out of the tournament, it's hard to feel too bad for any team that didn't handle its business in the closing stretches of the season. But Gonzaga, with an RPI of 36 and a nonconference record of 12-3 seems insanely underseeded here. That feeling is accentuated when you look at its peers on the No. 8 line. What makes the seeding even worse is that because the committee thought Duke deserved a higher No. 1 seed than Syracuse, the Dukies drew Cal, by far the most overseeded of the No. 8s, while the Cuse will play a talented, deep, athletic Bulldogs team led by an experienced tournament guard in Matt Bouldin. (Not to mention that Kansas might get UNLV and Kentucky could play a lifeless but undeniably talented Texas team.) Ouch.

5. Villanova as a No. 2. I promise, I set out to write this without harping on the South too much -- but I give in. It's impossible. Villanova as a No. 2 seed is questionable, but given the team's entire body of work, not to mention the eye test-friendly nature of any NCAA tournament team led by Scottie Reynolds, I can dig it. What I can't dig on is Villanova being the No. 2 seed in Duke's bracket, while Ohio State and West Virginia were sent to the same region as the top two teams in the committee's bracket, Kansas and Kentucky, respectively.

If the committee wants to argue that Duke is better than Syracuse, fine. Whatever. I disagree, and I think West Virginia deserved Duke's No. 1 seed, but if Jim Boeheim isn't worried about it, I can let it go. But what's mystifying is how you would possibly rank Ohio State and West Virginia -- two candidates for a top seed, both of whom won their conference tournaments to close the season -- lower than Villanova, which can boast neither. The imbalance here is stark. If seeds hold, the two best No. 1 seeds will play the two best No. 2 seeds in the Elite Eight. This is remarkably unfair to Kansas, Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio State, all of whom won their conference championships and had their very impressive seasons rewarded with brutal paths to the Final Four.

In short, I hate the way the committee seeded the South, and I hate the way those seedings threw the rest of the bracket out of whack. You know, in case that wasn't clear. Yeesh.

We're officially at that point of the tournament selection process where perceptions are pretty well solidified, and those perceptions carry over into the aftermath of the selection process.

Normally, after the committee seeds the field, there is at least one team -- usually a disrespected mid-major or a visually appealing big-six power -- that doesn't make the tournament, spawning countless protests in the aftermath. We take up the cause, harass the selection committee chairman for a few minutes, admit that seeding the NCAA tournament is difficult, and then move on with the awesomeness that is the next three weeks of our lives. This is the way of the world.

The 2010 NCAA tournament is going to be different, though. There will be -- or there ought not to be -- any such protests. Frankly, if you don't make it to the NCAA tournament, expect no sympathy. You will have earned your fate.

Really, what team on the bubble deserves your energetic advocacy? Illinois? Ugh. Mississippi State? Beat someone and we'll talk. Virginia Tech? Fix your nonconference schedule (and beat Miami). Ole Miss? Pshh. Florida? Twelve losses and limping into the tournament. Cal? Good schedule, few good wins, horrific conference. Rhode Island and Dayton both came up short. South Florida and Seton Hall missed vital wins in the Big East tournament. If UTEP is on the bubble, Memphis and UAB, both losers in the C-USA tournament, have to be out. Almost every bubble team, with the exception of Minnesota and now Mississippi State, have not only not helped their cases, but have actively hurt themselves in the final stretches of proving season. There's a reason everyone keeps calling this bubble soft. It is.

If you really feel the need to get a lather going, William and Mary might be a worthy candidate, but the Tribe's bad losses admittedly make them pretty easy to dismiss. Utah State is a lock in Lunardi's latest bracket, but if the Aggies fail to get in, they'd deserve the benefits of your populist angst.

Other than that, the 2010 NCAA tournament bubble is rife by teams that should accept their tournament fate not with euphoria or resentment but with meek, mumbling nods to the affirmative. Will we find a way to complain about at least one scorned team later today? Sure. We like to complain, after all. But should we? Not for these teams. Not this year.

LOS ANGELES -- The Pac-10 tournament final Saturday between Washington and Cal saw 22 lead changes and 12 ties, and mirrored the constantly fluctuating season the downtrodden conference had. The way both teams played, however, belied the national perception the league was only sending one team to the NCAA tournament.

While Washington (24-9) earned the conference’s automatic bid with a 79-75 win, there is no question Cal (23-10) is just as deserving. After splitting the season series, both seemed to split baskets from the opening tip in what was easily the best game of an otherwise forgettable tournament played in front of a mostly empty arena the past four days.

As maligned as the Pac-10 has been this season, it at least saved its best performance for a national television audience. It would be hard to find a better tournament final from start to finish than the one Washington and Cal put on at the Staples Center.

Elston Turner's five straight points, including a 3-pointer, put Washington ahead for good, 71-68, with 3:22 remaining.

After depending on the play of leading scorers Jerome Randle and Patrick Christopher all season, the Bears were forced to look elsewhere as their talented senior duo had combined for just 10 points with 9:30 left in the game. Fellow seniors Jamal Boykin, who finished with 20 points and 14 rebounds, and Theo Robertson, who had 25 points, were the only reasons Cal was in the game.

“He got two fouls early which is a little unusual,” said Cal coach Mike Montgomery of Randle. “We had him [Randle] out of the game for a fair portion trying to get him back and forth and not get a third foul. He’s small so they can post him with a variety of different people. It caused a problem, no question.”

Washington guard Isaiah Thomas, who was named the tournament’s most valuable player, scored 16 points and smiled when asked about guarding Randle. The Huskies made it known they believed Washington forward Quincy Pondexter, who scored 18 points, should have been named the conference’s player of the year over Randle.

“I feel [Pondexter] should have won player of the year and I feel like we should have won the Pac-10 championship,” said Thomas. “We brought all the motivation we could to get this win.”

This was the marquee final the Pac-10 had hoped for in the preseason when Cal and Washington were ranked in the top 15 in the country in both polls. As the season progressed it became impossible to predict which teams would play in the Pac-10 tournament final.

“Some of the losses we got early on in the league hurt the perception,” Montgomery said. “Washington just really lost Brockman from last year. They’re pretty good. I don’t know how there could have been any question about Washington getting in. But if there was, it’s obviously erased. Now we just have to wait and see if they give Arizona State a tumble.”

As much as the Huskies felt they deserved to be in the NCAA tournament, if they had not beaten Cal on Saturday, there was a fairly good chance they would be sitting home next week.

After the game, Pondexter smiled as he hugged the Pac-10 tournament trophy.

“I’m going to be able to sleep tonight finally,” said Pondexter. “I’ve been going to sleep watching 'SportsCenter' every night hearing if we’re in or out, or on the bubble or off the bubble. ... We told each other if we handle business we don’t need a committee to decide if we’re good enough.”