ESPN Men's Basketball

Editor’s Note: To see our expert picks for each of the nation’s 12 top conferences, click here. To cast your vote in these races, visit SportsNation.

A quick look at the player and coach of the year races in the Pac-12:

Player of the Year

Last year, this race was easy. Derrick Williams (speaking of which, how about his line against the Clippers Tuesday night?) was simultaneously one of the nation's most exciting, important and efficient players. The 2011 Pac-10 player of the year ballot didn't require much in the way of deep, ruminative thought. Just write down "Derrick Williams, Arizona" and go enjoy the rest of your day.

The 2012 race is far less transparent. Perhaps that's an effect of the nature of this very down league, which lacks the diffuse top-flight NBA talent of the past decade. Or maybe it's just one of those years, in which the Pac-12 has a lot of solid players, and some very good ones, but no one obvious pick, no player whose performance has screamed "I'm better than everyone else here." When you look at the tempo-free stats -- offensive rating, for example -- the numbers seem to bear that out: Among players that used at least 24 percent of their team's possessions, the league's highest offensive rating belonged to Washington State's Brock Motum (108.9). By contrast, most other power six leagues have several players above that threshold, in some cases by a considerable margin.

Which, actually, is a good, quick way to insert Motum into this conversation. The chances Motum will win the official Pac-12 POY award are probably slim to none. His team's record (14-14 overall, 6-10 Pac-12, as of this writing) just isn't good enough to get him that kind of consideration. But Motum has been an efficient and versatile interior force for a team that desperately needed one when senior guard Faisal Aden suffered a career-ending ACL injury earlier this season. His surprise emergence kept an already-bad Wazzu team from totally falling off a cliff. They don't give many POY awards for "sneakily the most important player on a thoroughly mediocre team," so Motum won't win the award. But he is certainly worthy of a mention. The same can be said for Oregon State guard Jared Cunningham, who leads the league in points (18.7) and steals (2.6) average per game.

In the end, though, we have to give the nod to Washington guard Tony Wroten. Wroten has plenty of holes in his game, to be sure. He dominates the ball, and not always for the better. He's made just 9 of his 49 3-point attempts all season. His turnovers nearly eclipse his assists. And so on. But there are no perfect players in the Pac-12 this season -- there is no Derrick Williams -- and Wroten's overwhelming athleticism and playmaking ability at the off-guard spot has, for all occasional flaws, often been the difference in Washington's nine-wins-in-10-games run to the top of the Pac-12 standings this week. Cal's Jorge Gutierrez and Allen Crabbe deserve honorable mentions, as well, but Cal's strengths lie in its balance. Wroten has talent alongside him -- Terrence Ross could be a candidate, too -- but Wroten's total floor game (his averages: 16.7 points, 4.9 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 2.0 steals) make him arguably the most difficult player to gameplan for in the entire league. And as the season has worn on, the freshman has often raised his game.

It's no slam dunk. But very little in this year's Pac-12 is.

Coach of the Year

Coach of the Year is always a weird award, isn't it? Most voters seem to look at preseason predictions -- which the voters themselves (or the coaches, or both) create in the first place -- and judge a coach based on how his team performed against those expectations. This discounts the importance of recruiting, of managing elite talent, or both, and it tends to boil the award down to a pretty crude calculus.

Which is why we have to give this year's Pac-12 Coach of the Year honor to ... wait for it ... UCLA's Ben Howland.

Kidding, you guys! Kidding! Holster your angry comments! I just had to make sure you were paying attention, is all. (I have a better chance of winning the 2013 NBA Dunk Contest than Howland does of winning coach of the year. Ain't happenin'.)

All joking aside, and with apologies to likewise deserving leaders like Washington's Lorenzo Romar, Oregon's Dana Altman, Cal's Mike Montgomery and Arizona's Sean Miller, this year's Pac-12 Coach of the Year is -- or at least should be -- Colorado's Tad Boyle. Last offseason, Boyle lost his two best players (senior guard Cory Higgins and NBA-bound guard Alec Burks), and the Buffaloes were rightly expected to finish near the middle, or even the bottom half, of the Pac-12. But behind a stellar season from sophomore forward Andre Roberson, Boyle has his team currently sitting at 19-9 overall and 11-5 in the league with an outside shot -- a small one, but a shot nonetheless -- at sneaking into the NCAA tournament on Selection Sunday.

In 2011, with an NBA talent and a very productive senior leader on his team, the Buffs were one of the few deserving candidates to miss out on the Big Dance. That Boyle might yet get this year's team in that field is a testament to the job he's done in his second season.

For all the ways you can diss the Pac-12 this season -- and you can start with the 1-29 record against the RPI top 50 in nonconference play, or look at the paucity of teams ranked inside Ken Pomeroy's adjusted efficiency top 50 (there are two), and so on and so forth -- you can't dispute this: This league is in for a fascinating final week.

Why? Cal's loss at Colorado on Sunday dropped the Bears to 13-4, where they're currently a half-game behind Washington, which just snuck past rival Washington State 59-55 on Saturday. If the Huskies win at USC and UCLA, they'll finish 15-3 and in sole possession of the conference title. If they stumble -- and provided Cal can get past Stanford on Sunday -- the Bears could still earn a share of a title they've appeared destined to win for much of the season. Forget NCAA tournament bubble implications. These coaches and players have a title to win.

Oh, and speaking of the tourney: There really are no guarantees. Cal is the closest thing to an exception, because it would be hard for the Bears to fall below the coterie of teams bunched around the bubble line on the S-Curve even after Sunday's loss in Boulder. But Washington? Arizona? The operative Bubble Watch phrase here is "work to do." The basketball has been uneven all season, but you can't dispute the intrigue and what promises to be a fiery debate in the weeks leading up to Selection Sunday. Stay tuned.

1. California: On Sunday, Cal lost 70-57 at Colorado. Just three days earlier, Stanford went to Boulder and beat the Buffaloes 74-50. You figure those two results out. I really can't. Cal still looks like the best team in the conference, and its still-solid efficiency numbers (the Bears rank No. 19 overall in KenPom's adjusted efficiency and No. 2 in the league in per-possession offense and defense, the best all-around numbers of any team in Pac-12 play) back that up. But they're far from a dominant outfit, which we saw in the offensively challenged performance at CU. Now the Bears have to win at rival Stanford -- and hope for a Washington loss -- to steal a share of the league title.

2. Washington: The Huskies now control whether they win the Pac-12 title. Wins at USC and UCLA would make them outright regular-season conference champs. Most Washington fans would assume, and understandably so, such an accomplishment would seal their team's NCAA tournament bid. But in this season's Pac-12, that isn't a guarantee. Remember, the committee doesn't look at conference record (at least, it says it doesn't), but it does look at nonconference performance and top-50 wins, among other things. This conference is severely lacking in both categories. One would assume 15-3 and the league title will be enough, but UW might not want to drop a game to the LA schools and test whether 14-4 does the trick.

3. Arizona: Seniors Kyle Fogg and Jesse Perry were determined to make their final regular-season home game a win, and their second-half efforts -- in which they combined for 28 of their team's 38 points -- ensured a crucial two-point victory over UCLA. Arizona's at-large chances remain a work in progress, but the win over the rival Bruins keeps them in the discussion heading into the finale against ASU and the Pac-12 tourney.

4. Oregon: Oregon's chances of notching an at-large bid aren't great, but Dana Altman's team kept its faint hopes alive by escaping from Corvallis with a one-point win over Oregon State on Sunday. Oregon finishes up with two home games versus Colorado and Utah. E.J. Singler and Devoe Joseph have really come on down the stretch for this team, giving the Ducks efficient offense on the wing, but the narrow losses to Oregon State, Cal and Colorado in the past month have kept Altman's team from breaking through to the top of the league.

5. Colorado: When you're on the bubble fringe, as Colorado is, the best you can do is take your chances when they come. That's what Tad Boyle's team did Sunday, beating league leader (and the only team in the league with a top-50 RPI) California. The Buffs have struggled on the road all season long, so season-closing road trips to Oregon and Oregon State will present their challenges. At this point, even with the Cal win in hand, CU's profile is such that it almost certainly has to win the next two and at least get to the Pac-12 tourney final to find itself in the NCAA tournament.

6. UCLA: The 2012 Bruins are still the 2012 Bruins -- disappointing, mediocre, occasionally not-quite-mediocre and then mediocre again. This week, UCLA beat Arizona State in Tempe and lost to Arizona in Tucson. It is 9-7 in league play. its longest winning and losing streaks in league play are three games and two games, respectively. In its past five games, UCLA has lost (to Cal), won (USC), lost (at St. John's), won (Arizona State) and lost (at Arizona). I think that pretty much sums it up.

7. Stanford: Can you explain the Cardinal's week? Because I can't. On Thursday, Stanford went to Colorado -- a team that beat Cal by 13 Sunday, mind you -- and won by 24 points. Then, on Saturday, Stanford lost. Yes, lost at Utah. Utah has played better, and clearly Colorado was off, and so on, but still. This league is weird.

8. Washington State: The Cougars nearly took down the Huskies in Pullman Saturday, a win that may well have sunk Washington's at-large hopes for good. Instead, Washington escaped with the 59-55 win, as Wazzu's offense -- which, pre-Faisal Aden injury, was one of the league's best while at home -- fell short.

9. Oregon State: The Beavers' one-point home loss to Oregon on Sunday was their fifth in a row, a losing streak that began with a home loss to the aforementioned Cougars and continued against Washington, Stanford and Cal. Back in November, Oregon State lost to Vanderbilt by two points on a neutral floor just two days after putting 100 points on a solid Texas team in an overtime victory. That was months ago now, but it feels even longer.

10. Arizona State: All things considered, this has been a disastrous season for Arizona State, from the losses to the ineligibility of freshman Jahii Carson to more losses to, well, more losses after that. In any other season, ASU is probably the worst team in this league. But not in 2012! So, you know, there's that.

11. Utah: We can say much of the same for the Utes. In any other season, Utah -- which changed coaches and conferences in the matter of 12 months and saw its best and most important player (Josh "Jiggy" Watkins) dismissed by coach Larry Krystkowiak in mid-January -- would be the worst team in this league. For much of the season, including that horrendous nonconference stretch, things appeared to be heading that way. But give the Utes some credit. They improved throughout the season, played hard and gave a bunch of putatively better teams occasionally serious challenges -- and even won some, including this weekend against Stanford.

12. USC: And also, USC is worse. The Trojans are averaging .83 points per trip (adjusted) in Pac-12 play. Overall, the Trojans' offensive efficiency ranks No. 318 in the country, per KenPom, which puts them one spot ahead of Eastern Michigan and one spot behind Arkansas-Pine Bluff. In 16 Pac-12 games, the Trojans have scored more than 60 points exactly twice. Saturday's loss at Arizona State dropped them to 1-15 in the worst Pac-12 we've seen in a really long time. In short, USC is bad.

Click here to read our afternoon recap. Now back to the lecture at hand, which comes in three parts:

The Rivalry

No. 2 Syracuse 71, Connecticut 69: One of the many things to love about this Syracuse team -- besides its great zone defense and incredible depth and talent and length and pretty much everything besides defensive rebounding -- is how well it handles close games. Since the Jan. 21 loss at Notre Dame, Syracuse has taken respective best shots from Cincinnati, West Virginia, Georgetown, Louisville, South Florida and now at UConn, and each time the Orange have either pulled away late or made the key stop down the stretch to preserve the narrow win. It's a real skill, and it isn't entirely intangible; when you have a defense this good, you tend to get a lot of stops, and there's no reason why that wouldn't be true in the final minutes of any given game, too. But however you quantify it, the Orange win close games. Such traits tend to come in handy in March.

As for Connecticut? While the Huskies didn't get the win, they appear to be rounding into form, or at least starting to figure a few things out. UConn had its fair share of issues with Syracuse's zone, and there were plenty of bad shots to be had, but the Huskies were much more balanced (four players finished in double figures, while Ryan Boatright and Shabazz Napier combined for 13 assists) and competent on both ends of the floor in the second half. Unless it suddenly begins shooting the ball from outside at a much higher clip, this team probably has a ceiling. But there are plenty of realistic improvements to be made. Even better, many of them appear to be in progress. Let's not bury this team just yet.

The Upsets

Purdue 75, No. 13 Michigan 61: When Purdue guard Ryne Smith was asked what he thought about guard Kelsey Barlow's dismissal from the team last week, he was direct, even curt: "Addition by subtraction," Smith said. Apparently he was right. Whatever the reason, Purdue played its best game of the season Saturday at the most important time, containing Michigan's outside shooters and slowly stretching a second-half lead thanks to the heady play of point guard Lewis Jackson, forward Robbie Hummel and, most importantly, guard Terone Johnson, who scored a career-high 22 points and made a handful of key plays down the stretch, including two big and-1 finishes around the rim. Purdue is an unconventional team with no true post presence; the Boilermakers rely on Hummel's outside-in versatility and an extended, guard-oriented style. This makes them a great matchup for Michigan, and, in their own way, a dangerous team.

In any case, Purdue can now feel entirely safe about its at-large NCAA tournament chances. Beating Michigan at home -- the Wolverines' first home loss of the season -- is most definitely a signature victory. And it couldn't have come at a better time.

TCU 83, No. 21 New Mexico 64: Let's hear it for TCU! A round of applause is most definitely in order. At this time in 2011, the Horned Frogs were in the midst of a season-ending 13-game losing streak, en route to an 11-22 finish. This season is an entirely different story: TCU is playing its best basketball down the stretch, having won four of its past five (and eight in a row at home) and toppling ranked UNLV and New Mexico and a good Colorado State squad in the process. The key: great 3-point shooting. The Horned Frogs lead the league in long-range makes in conference play, and they're undefeated at home as a result. What a difference a year makes.

In the meantime ... um, what happened to New Mexico? Last Saturday, we watched in near-awe as the Lobos thoroughly dominated UNLV, which came just a few days after a 10-point win at San Diego State. Steve Alford's team, once a relatively unheralded efficiency darling with few good wins to show for it, looked set to run away with the Mountain West and make a deep run into March. Since then, the Lobos are 0-2 and are now in a three-way tie. A loss at Colorado State makes some sense; we know the Rams are tough, particularly at home. And this is not to take away from TCU, which (as you just read above) is giving everyone more than they bargained for in February, particularly in their own building. But a 19-point blowout loss? Isn't this the team that just rolled UNLV in the Pit and moved to 8-2 in the league? It's kind of weird, right?

Georgia 76, No. 11 Florida 62: This is an upset, of course, but I'm not sure we should be all that surprised. Frankly, I'm not sure if a Florida loss should ever truly catch us off guard. Don't get me wrong: The Gators are good. But they're a specific kind of good. When their steady diet of 3s are falling, they can shoot opponents off the floor before said opponents even have a chance to catch their breath. But if the shots aren't going down, Florida has no Plan B. Patric Young is the only true post presence, and his offensive game is still a work in progress (and he's still underutilized as a scoring threat to boot). The Gators' defense -- which ranks fifth in opponents' points per possession in SEC play, No. 10 in opponents' 3-point field goal percentage and No. 10 in block rate -- still isn't good enough to hold opponents in check when the shots clanging off the iron and the opponents start turning long rebounds into secondary breaks and easy buckets. Florida might yet get there on the defensive end, but it isn't yet. If this UF team has a lower ceiling than it should, well, that's why.

The Bubble Specials

Alabama 67, Mississippi State 50: It was instinctively easy to write off the Crimson Tide when coach Anthony Grant suspended Tony Mitchell and JaMychal Green; it was easy to predict a late collapse, even a fall off the bubble, for a team whose two leading scorers would be missing such important games down the stretch. Instead, the Crimson Tide keep, well, rolling. They've now won three in a row and prevented any hint of a collapse. Mississippi State, on the other hand, appears to be doing exactly that: The Bulldogs are collapsing. This is the Bulldogs' fifth consecutive defeat, a stretch that has included some good basketball (in the near-miss vs. Kentucky this week) but also some baffling losses (the loss at Auburn especially). It's no stretch to say Mississippi State -- which for much of the season looked like a tourney near-lock -- could wind up missing the tournament after all. The Bulldogs are, after all, 6-8 and tied with rival Ole Miss in the SEC standings. Ouch.

Northwestern 67, Penn State 66: Breathe a big ol' sigh of relief, Northwestern fans: In the chase for their first NCAA tournament appearance in school history, the Wildcats remain very much alive. Senior forward John Shurna made the game-winning free throws with just 2.6 seconds remaining, giving Bill Carmody his first win in State College since 2002. Big challenges still lie ahead: Ohio State comes to town on Wednesday, followed by next weekend's season-ender at Iowa, a team that just knocked off Indiana and Wisconsin in Carver-Hawkeye Arena. But for now, some minor rejoicing is in order. Northwestern's tourney hopes are still very real.

Rutgers 77, Seton Hall 72 (OT): Let's not take Seton Hall off the bubble just yet, eh? The Pirates got a great win over Georgetown this week, one that could have firmed up a previously shaky at-large profile. All Seton Hall needed to do the rest of the way was avoid bad losses. Well, losing to a young, 13-16 Rutgers team at home is just that. Next weekend, the Hall travels to DePaul. If the Pirates lose there, all the good vibes from the emphatic Georgetown victory will have almost entirely faded from the picture.

VCU 89, George Mason 77: First things first: Thanks to Drexel's one-point win at Old Dominion on Saturday afternoon, VCU's win over George Mason won't give them a share of the CAA title this season. Bummer, sure, but the Rams would surely settle for a spot in the NCAA tournament, something to which they're at least a little closer after this victory today. As a league, the Colonial's top teams (Drexel, VCU and GMU) didn't get quality nonconference wins (VCU's best came against South Florida, for example), so any at-large consideration will have to come from separation at the top and perhaps a pair of deep runs for both Drexel and VCU in the CAA tournament. A win here was a must, and Shaka Smart's team got it, behind Bradford Burgess' career-high 31 points.

Dayton 76, UMass 43: A home loss to UMass can't be called "bad," but for a team like Dayton -- which is desperately scrapping for a spot in the NCAA tournament -- it could have been disastrous. Instead, the opposite happened: UD won, and won big, looking very much like one of the A-10's best teams and a squad worthy of a tourney bid in the process. We'll see how the Flyers finish up, but if they're one of the last four in, they might just be one of the play-in game candidates, which are held in -- you guessed it -- Dayton!

Saint Joseph's 82, No. 22 Temple 72: Speaking of somewhat fringe Atlantic 10 tournament hopefuls, the A-10 can't offer a bubble team a better shot at a marquee win than Temple on its own floor late in the season, but the Hawks still had to overcome Fran Dunphy's typically peerless bunch, which had won its previous 11 games and 13 in the 15-game stretch beginning with its Jan. 4 victory over Duke. Phil Martelli's team is now 9-6 in the league and 19-11 overall, and it added the one thing it desperately needed to its profile: A legitimate top-25 RPI win. Temple is most definitely that.

Penn 55, Harvard 54: Just when you think it's time to plan a long-awaited Harvard hoops coronation, Penn's Zack Rosen comes along, scores 20 points, makes a huge jumper down the stretch and ices two game-winning free throws in the final 30 seconds. And all of a sudden the Ivy League race is legitimately up for grabs with both of these teams having two losses. (Another one-game playoff for the Crimson? Oh boy.) As an at-large entity, Harvard is still in decent shape, but its profile isn't so strong that it can afford to lose at either Columbia or Cornell in its final two games, lose out on the Ivy auto-bid, and still feel safe about being picked to join the group of 37 at-large teams. Big days ahead for Tommy Amaker's team.

Washington 59, Washington State 55: For the first 10 or so minutes of the first half, it looked like Wazzu was going to hand its in-state opponent the type of loss that would severely damage Washington's at-large chances. But the Huskies fought back and, as the AP report notes, won the game's most important battle -- at the charity stripe: "Ultimately, the game came down to free throws. WSU (14-14, 6-10) went 11 of 12 to keep the game tied at 28-all despite shooting 27 percent in the first half. In the second half, the Cougars shot 6 of 20 from the free throw line, while the Huskies, who only went 2 of 5 in the first half, finished 17 of 24." The win keeps Washington on the right side of the bubble for now, but UW's marginal profile might not be able to survive a loss at either USC or UCLA going away.

Xavier 65, Richmond 57: Kenny Frease's season highs in both points (19) and rebounds (14) helped carry Xavier to an ugly but ultimately victorious Saturday. A loss here would have kicked Xavier off the bubble for good and almost certainly, barring an upset in the A-10 tournament, ended Chris Mack's 100 percent NCAA tournament hit rate in his XU tenure. Instead, the Musketeers live to fight another day.

No. 21 San Diego State 74, Colorado State 66: The Rams pass at least two NCAA tournament bubble tests: The RPI/SOS numbers are great, and they sure do look like a tournament team. But will that be enough? A win in Viejas Arena would have provided a tidy bookend to this week's huge victory over New Mexico, but the loss isn't a huge deal. Colorado State, which is undefeated at home in Mountain West play, hosts UNLV in Fort Collins in just three days' time. Win that one and the Rams are probably set.

Don't look now, but we may finally have this league figured out. For the first time since we unleashed these rankings on an unsuspecting hoops populace, almost nothing has changed in the past week of games. Why? Because at this point, we basically know what these teams are: Cal steady and solid, Washington is talented and mercurial, Arizona is the defensive stalwart, Oregon is better than its record but can't get over the hump, Colorado is good but not great, UCLA has been a mess, Stanford is meh, and the rest of the league is just plain ... well, you know. Let's not be mean about it.

1. California: Cal has never been quite as fascinating to me this season as Washington. The talented but inconsistent Huskies have always represented the vague allure of the unknown; they might be the most Free Darko college hoops team in the country. Cal, on the other hand, has been much easier to read, and much less exciting for it. But with just three games left in Pac-12 play, it's probably time to give Mike Montgomery's team its due. On a per-possession basis, Cal has been the best offensive team in the league and the second-best on defense; this team is balanced and experienced and just, well, solid. The Bears were blown out by every good team they played in the nonconference, sure, but that was a long time ago. Since then, they've been pretty good. (Usually, anyway.) They won't blow you away, and I have no idea where their tournament ceiling is, but we probably shouldn't dismiss the Bears just yet. We'll see.

2. Washington: With the exception of what looks like an outlier loss at Oregon on Feb. 9, Washington has won eight of its past nine, including Saturday's nine-point home win over Arizona. The Huskies feel like a team that could -- repeat: could -- make noise in the NCAA tournament. But they have to get there first. Three straight road games (at Washington State, USC and UCLA) will close out the regular season. That's treacherous territory for a team sitting smack dab on the bubble, because a bad loss could be enough to tip the scales in the wrong direction.

3. Arizona: The Wildcats are allowing the lowest opponents' effective field goal percentage in Pac-12 play. It's tough to score on this team, and that's what led to its late-season, five-game winning streak before Saturday's loss in Seattle. But will it be enough for an at-large bid if needed? Zona closes with USC and UCLA at home and rival ASU on the road. Have to win 'em all.

4. Oregon: Poor Oregon. The Ducks have played some pretty good basketball in this league this season, but they have a knack for the brutal close loss. There was that one-point loss at Colorado, the five-point home loss to Oregon State and, of course, Thursday's three-point loss at Cal, which is about as big a resume win as you can get in the Pac-12 this season. The Ducks barely missed out, and their chances of joining this shaky Pac-12 at-large picture were slimmed as a result. Sunday night's win at Stanford was a must and they got it, but there's still work to be done here.

5. Colorado: The Buffaloes are allowing the fewest points per possession of any team in the Pac-12 this season. That's a testament to the job Tad Boyle has done in what was supposed to be a totally down, irrelevant season in Boulder. This team probably shouldn't even be this good. Colorado still has a chance to knock off Cal at home in the coming week, and there is the Pac-12 tournament, but it will require a late push to get this profile the respect of the committee.

6. UCLA: In another season, UCLA's Saturday trip to St. John's would have been a nice bit of national spotlight. In 2012, the Bruins would probably prefer no one notice. (It was a 66-63 loss, by the way.) You know the drill. We're months past the early-season mess, and this team is still just mediocre.

7. Stanford: The Cardinal were once a promising conference title contender, or at least that's what their nonconference performance seemed to indicate. They've faded rather badly since. This season should be a mark of progress for Johnny Dawkins' program -- the Cardinal have improved from last season, no question. Just not enough to contend for the conference crown yet.

8. Washington State: The Cougars have kept on fighting through the loss of Faisal Aden to a career-ending knee injury, and they're still scoring the third-most points per trip in the conference. Their league-worst defense, however, has kept them out of the picture for most of the season.

9. Oregon State: Oregon State got one of the conference's few top-50 RPI wins when it beat Texas on a neutral court in November. But the Beavers haven't done much since. They're on a four-game losing skid now. The good news? Of any of the teams down in this range, Craig Robinson's is probably the lowest-ranked squad that still has a legitimate puncher's chance to win the Pac-12 tournament. I'm not saying it's going to happen. I'm just saying there's a chance.

10. Arizona State
11. Utah
12. USC

When you're this bad in the Pac-12 this season, you're going to be really, really bad. All three teams are definitely that. The biggest question is whether USC will avoid the ignominious fate of ending the season with just one conference win in this league. The Trojans are on the road at Arizona and Arizona State, followed by home games against Washington State and Washington. There are potential wins in them thar hills. If the Trojans could manage more than 60 points here and there -- a barrier they last exceeded in January -- I'd be a little more confident about their chances.

It's the second week of February. The college hoops season's version of crunch time is upon us. Where does the Pac-12 stand?

Exactly where it stood three weeks ago. Or three weeks before that. Generally speaking, this is a league in stasis. Because the various at-large résumés are so weak, we've been waiting for one team -- first Cal, then Washington, and now maybe Arizona -- to congeal toward the end of the season and distinguish itself above the otherwise mediocre fray. It hasn't really happened. But there has been some movement of late, so let's dig in and check it out.

1. California: The Bears are back atop the rankings this week, but not thanks to any sudden surge of brilliance. Rather, given Washington's loss this week (more on that in a second), the fighting Mike Montgomerys get the top nod after sweeping the L.A. schools on the road. Cal hasn't been dominant in league play, but it has the best overall per-possession numbers by far (it ranks No. 15 in Pomeroy's rankings; the closest conference team to the Bears is No. 40 Arizona) and the top efficiency margin within league play. This isn't a dominant team, and I seriously doubt it's anywhere near as good as that KenPom rank, but with minimal exception, the Bears have been the Pac-12's top team.

2. Arizona: Want to know how fluid and open this league really is? Just a few weeks ago, the Wildcats were ranked No. 8 in this space. True story. They seemed dead in the water, trading wins and losses, unable to break out of the early-season struggles and unable to really put it together. But lately, thanks to the Pac-12's top-ranked efficiency defense, the Wildcats have put together a four-game winning streak, beginning with wins at Cal and Stanford and ending with two handy victories over Colorado and Utah last week. The Wildcats' defense is their calling card, but if their offense builds on the recent improvement, Arizona may just get in the tournament after all.

3. Washington: Sometimes you lose on the road. It happens. But Washington's loss at Oregon this week was more than that. It was an 82-57 beating at the hands of the Ducks, and it was the kind of loss that makes you question whether we'll ever be able to believe in this Washington team. The Huskies were No. 1 last week. They were rolling. And they're still, at least to this humble writer's eye, the most talented team in this league. They're also still tied for first with Cal at 10-3 (one game ahead of Arizona, Colorado and Oregon). But the inconsistency lingers, and the thin at-large ice grows ever thinner.

4. Oregon: Were it not for that somewhat mystifying home loss to Oregon State, the Ducks would be 8-1 in their past nine with only a one-point loss at Colorado -- on a disputed last-second foul call, no less. Despite the UW blowout, I can't put them above the Huskies just yet. That loss to Oregon State did happen, after all, and the Ducks, despite their league-leading offensive efficiency, are allowing opposing offenses (at least opposing offenses not named Washington) to do pretty much anything they want. Still, with former Minnesota transfer Devoe Joseph in the fold and playing well, Dana Altman's team certainly seems to be improving.

5. Colorado: This was a big week for Colorado, and the results were mixed. A win at Arizona State doesn't do much for me (does it do much for you?), and a loss at Arizona tends to reinforce the notion that this squad can't beat decent teams on the road. (Its only Pac-12 road wins came at USC and ASU.) Still, when you go down the Buffs' résumé, none of their losses are particularly bad. There is some fringe at-large potential. The question is whether that status can survive the remaining schedule, which goes like this: at Utah, versus Stanford, versus Cal, at Oregon, at Oregon State. Your guess is as good as mine.

6. UCLA: The Bruins are in a dead-end season, but they're not fading nearly as fast as Stanford, so they get a bump up to the No. 6 spot. The vibes are bad in Westwood, the fans are restless, the basketball is substandard (particularly for a program with UCLA's tradition) but not so bad as to call it horrible. Nothing much to see here.

7. Stanford: The Cardinal has lost five of its past seven, with the only wins since Jan. 14 coming at home against Arizona State and at USC. There was a time when Johnny Dawkins' team seemed set to contend for the league title. Remember that? When Stanford held Syracuse to a six-point margin in Madison Square Garden? Back then, Stanford's defense looked like it might be the best in the league. Alas, it is merely mediocre (No. 5 in adjusted efficiency in conference play), and without much offense to back it up, Stanford's wheels have long since come off.

8. Washington State: Is Ken Bone's team as good as Craig Robinson's? I don't know. Probably not, all things considered. But I'm allowing the Cougars to leapfrog the Beavers here if only because Washington State -- having lost leading scorer Faisal Aden to a devastating, career-ending knee injury -- still fought hard enough to take a 10-point win in Corvallis on Thursday. With Aden gone and the Cougars' tournament chances nonexistent, it would be easy for this team to merely trudge toward the finish. That they aren't is worthy of some small commendation.

9. Oregon State: The Beavers played Washington close Sunday night but fell short, making that three losses in the last four, including the aforementioned home defeat to Wazzu. When Oregon State beat Texas in the nonconference, there was some hope that this was the year Robinson's once-bereft program would conquer the letdowns of recent seasons. That hasn't happened, and it doesn't look likely now.

10. Arizona State: As usual, the Sun Devils lead the "I almost feel bad for these teams" portion of the proceedings, and little has changed down here since last week. But ASU does have four conference wins, so it gets the nod at No. 10.

11. Utah: The Utes, winless in their past six games, were at least feisty in two losses in the Grand Canyon State (57-52 at Arizona State, 70-61 at Arizona).

12. USC: Then there are the Trojans, who are scoring well below a point per possession in league play (.83 ppp, to be painfully exact) and, after another sub-50-point performance at home, have still won just one game in the worst power-six league we've seen since, well, I don't know. A long time. The Trojans are just ... actually, you know what? My mom always told me that if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. So let's just end this here.

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.

No time to waste with the preamble this week. Anyway, you know the drill. Let's hop right in:

1. California: Just as Cal appeared set to create some separation between itself and the rest of the Pac-12 -- separation it deserves, given its statistical superiority and meaty efficiency margins thus far -- the Bears lost a two-point heartbreaker at Washington State. So why are they still No. 1? Two reasons:

• Because Washington State, for all its struggles on the road, is a different team at home. The Cougars have averaged 1.17 points per possession in their four home conference games to date. Ken Bone's team is 3-1 at home. It's tough to beat Wazzu in Pullman.
• Because, based on the season to date, Cal still looks like the best team in this league. That's been the case pretty much all season, and a road loss here and there isn't going to change that perception. And rightfully so.

This is hardly a great team, of course, but the Pac-12 is hardly a great conference. You don't have to be great to be the best team in this league. You merely need to be good, and we can safely say that much about this Bears team.

2. Oregon: Let's take a moment and pass some credit in the direction of Oregon coach Dana Altman, who for the second straight season is building his team into a force to be dealt with in Pac-12 play. On Saturday, the Ducks posted a solid, if unspectacular, home win over UCLA. Don't look now, but that's Oregon's fourth victory in a row and one that moved the Ducks into a first-place tie with Cal at 6-2.

3. Washington: The Huskies appear to be rounding into a collective form proportionate to their talent-rich parts. Thursday's home loss to Cal was tough, but UW nearly came all the way back from a 13-point deficit on their way to a near miss in the final moments. Washington handily dispatched Stanford at home Saturday, moving to 5-2 in league play in the process. Has this team turned a corner? Meh. It's hard to say. But inconsistent as they are, the Huskies seem to be piecing together longer stretches of quality performance.

4. Stanford: Tough week for the Cardinal. Johnny Dawkins' team took it in the teeth twice on the road this week, losing 81-69 at Washington State and 76-63 at Washington. We've already established that Washington State is particularly tough at home, and that Washington is improving, so it's not as if either loss is all that damning. Taken together, though, it's hard to fight the impression that Stanford isn't quite good enough to stay afloat when it goes on the road, and if it can't do that, it will struggle to keep pace with Cal at the top of the league.

5. Colorado: This is a big week for the Buffaloes. Thursday and Saturday's home wins -- the latter of which was a 64-63 win over Arizona -- moved them to 5-2 in league play, but the biggest tests lie ahead. Colorado hasn't won a Pac-12 road game yet. This week, it travels to USC and UCLA. How Tad Boyle's team fares on the road will be the defining characteristic of their season.

6. Oregon State: Oregon State's record isn't particularly attractive -- the Beavers are still just 3-5 in the standings -- but they did take care of business at home this week, topping UCLA 87-84 and easily dispatching winless USC. The Beavers, like so many of the teams around them, aren't setting the world ablaze by any means, and they'll have to toughen up in upcoming road games if they want to bounce back from their 1-5 start and make some noise at the top of the league before the season is out.

7. UCLA: The Bruins just can't get over the hump. Every time we think this team is going to get it together, they toss in another uninspiring and/or just plain bad performance, and their still-shaky record (now 10-9) takes another hit. There was some hope that the departure of Reeves Nelson would stabilize this bunch. More and more, it's looking like the Bruins just are what they are -- which is not as bad as their nonconference performance, but certainly not good enough to stage a second-half season redemption.

8. Arizona: Speaking of teams that seem like they should be improving, but probably aren't? The Arizona Wildcats fit that bill. There was some inclination, at least in these parts, that Arizona's highly touted young guards (especially Josiah Turner) would overcome their early setbacks and make good on their immense talent in the second half of the season. That hasn't really been the case, at least not yet, and until it is -- which is still a matter of "if," not "when" -- Arizona doesn't scare anyone.

9. Washington State: Hey, Ken Bone's team isn't half bad! Provided, of course, it is playing at home. Everyone's more comfortable at home, of course, but few teams in the country seem to suffer such a disparity between their play on their own court and their play away from it. That's why I'm not ready to put Washington State much higher than this spot this week. The Cougars have to show some of that efficient offense in another team's building before I'm willing to let the excitement boil over into a thrilling rise to, like, fifth or sixth. These are the conference power rankings, Smokey. There are rules.

10. Utah: Believe it! A few weeks ago, I thought it would be a miracle if Utah got out of last place in these rankings even once. The Utes did that last week. This week, the unthinkable happened again. Yes, it's a move to No. 10. What gives? The Utes are playing some pretty decent basketball. Or, at the very least, they're playing much better than they did for the first two months of the season, when they were easily the worst major-conference team in the country. Since then, though, Utah has played a host of its Pac-12 foes close. This week, it did more than that -- blowing out Arizona State in its own building 64-43. OK, so it's just Arizona State. But compared to where Larry Krystkowiak's team was this season, and considering it just dismissed its best and most frequently used player (Josh "Jiggy" Watkins, the nation's leader in usage rate), a move two whole spots out of the Pac-12 cellar is legitimate cause for celebration. Cheers, Utes!

11. Arizona State/12. USC: For the first two months of the season, the only thing keeping Arizona State from being the undisputed worst team in this league was Utah. Now, it's USC. The offensively offensive Trojans are still winless in this brutally bad league; they inhabit a special area of ineptitude here. Arizona State, meanwhile, is going to struggle the rest of the season. That much was clear in Salt Lake City on Saturday. But at least the Sun Devils have toppled a couple of so-so opponents at home. We can't even say that much for Kevin O'Neill's team.

Player of the Night -- Faisal Aden
Faisal Aden scored a career-high 33 points off the bench to lead Washington State to an 81-69 win over Stanford. It’s the most points off the bench by a Pac-12 player since Cal’s Amit Tamir scored 39 against Oregon in 2002. Aden was a perfect 13-for-13 from the line. That’s the second-best free throw performance off the bench this season behind Duke’s Ryan Kelly (14-14).

Breakout Performance -- Robert Thurman
California picked up a tough road win over Washington thanks to the unlikeliest of players. Robert Thurman had only played in 15 of 19 games this season, averaging 7.2 minutes and 2.4 points when he did appear. But with Richard Solomon ruled academically ineligible, the Bears called on the 6-foot-10 walk-on. He responded with 16 points on 7-11 shooting from the field.

Second-Half Star – Harrison Barnes
North Carolina trailed Virginia Tech by five at halftime. But the Tar Heels quieted the Blacksburg crowd pretty quickly in the second half with a 19-0 run to take a 55-44 lead. Harrison Barnes had nine of those 19 points as part of a huge second half. The sophomore went 6-for-6 from the field on his way to 21 points after the break. Barnes finished with a season-high 27.

Woeful Performance -- Georgia Tech
Georgia Tech had its worst scoring output in 30 years in a 70-38 loss to Virginia. It’s the fewest points by Georgia Tech since a 58-36 loss at Wake Forest in February 1982. What made Thursday even worse? The Yellow Jackets were at home. It’s their fewest points at home since 1980. Georgia Tech shot just 29.2 percent from the field and hit 1-of-15 from 3-point range.

Ugly Stat Line of the Night -- Tony Mitchell
It’s tough to win when your leading scorer doesn’t score a point, and that’s exactly what happened to Alabama on Thursday. Tony Mitchell went scoreless on 0-for-8 shooting from the field, as the Crimson Tide lost at home to Vanderbilt, 69-59. It’s the only time in 85 career games that he’s failed to score.

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.

We're still very much in wait-and-see mode in the Pac-12, but we do have a few results to chew on after last week's league-opening games:

1a. California
1b. Stanford

This configuration might be just a tad bit unfair to Stanford, which was No. 1 in last week's rankings and which beat the exact same teams -- UCLA and USC -- that Cal defeated in the first two days of Pac-12 play. So, as a peace offering, I didn't fully relegate the Cardinal to No. 2. Technically, they're still tied for the top spot. To me, the gap between these two teams, based on their nonconference performance and their near-identical first week of play, is too minor to forge any significant distinctions.

Still, I thought Cal looked a bit more impressive in its two season-opening wins (particularly in its 85-69 handling of UCLA), and the Bears have the benefit of efficient offense to go with stifling defense. Right now, Stanford's stagnant offense still looks like it could hold Johnny Dawkins' team back. Until that gets sorted out -- and/or another challenger to the throne emerges -- Cal looks like the favorite to win this league.

3. Washington: Is UW that aforementioned emerging contender? OK, OK, let's not get ahead of ourselves -- the Huskies still have their fair share of issues on both ends of the floor. That said, it was hard not to notice this team's improvement in last week's victories over Oregon State (95-80) and Oregon (76-60). Sure, both came at home, but so did Washington's loss to South Dakota State. The team we saw last week looked nothing like the one that yielded 92 points to the Jackrabbits.

Instead, the Huskies -- led by freshman guard Tony Wroten, who notched 43 points, 13 rebounds and 9 assists in those two wins -- look like they're building the chemistry and defensive toughness that plagued them so frequently in their 6-5 start. There is much more work to be done, of course, but this team could yet round into a bona fide conference title favorite in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.

4. Arizona: The Wildcats had few issues with in-state rival Arizona State in their Pac-12 opener, but that was their only result of the week and ASU is simply not a very good team. So I didn't award a lot of credit here. But the Wildcats handled business, and they, like Washington before them, are still improving in a variety of ways. Buy low, I suppose.

5. Oregon: The Ducks didn't look all that impressive in Saturday night's loss to Washington -- or maybe the Huskies were simply better -- but in either case, they deserve credit for going into a tricky neutral-court venue in Spokane and coming out with an easy win over Washington State. A 92-75 victory over Wazzu doesn't mean much in a vacuum, but on the road, this early in league play, it's still a solid accomplishment.

6. Oregon State: Why is Oregon's win at WSU impressive? In part because the Ducks' sworn enemies -- the hated Beavers of Corvallis, which sounds like an army regiment from the French and Indian War -- were unable to do the same. Instead, OSU went 0-2 in its first two conference games, following up that 95-80 loss at Washington with an 81-76 loss in Pullman. This team jumped out to a 10-2 record in the nonconference, including its efforts to secure the Pac-12's only moderately impressive win (Texas). Still, Oregon State was hardly going gangbusters before league play started, even against a relatively meager nonconference schedule. Was that record a mirage? Or is it simply that tough to win on the road? For now, I'm going with the latter. But we'll see.

7. Washington State: The Cougars had been getting by on offensive efficiency for much of the season, and that trend seems likely to continue going forward. It needs to, anyway. Bone's team simply doesn't defend all that well, and it paid dearly for it in that 92-75 home loss to Oregon. Wazzu's next three games are all on the road, and while the first two opponents (Utah and Colorado) don't strike fear into anyone's heart, a slip-up in either game ahead of Jan. 15's trip to Washington could be make-or-break, at least in terms of perception.

8. UCLA: Bruins fans holding out hope that the Pac-12 season would bring fresh success to this struggling club were left wanting last week, as UCLA began conference play with two consecutive losses. To be fair to the Bruins, those losses were entirely understandable -- both came on the road, one to Cal, one to Stanford. The Stanford loss -- a 60-59 defeat -- was particularly forgivable. Sure, UCLA isn't used to looking for positives in one-point league losses; that's not how this program rolls. But as far as encouragement goes, that's what I've got. Had a possession or two swung in the Bruins' way, they'd surely be ranked much higher than this. That's a step in the right direction at least.

9. USC: The Trojans fell to 0-2 in league play and 5-10 overall last week, but I'm willing to cut them some slack. Like UCLA, USC played on the road in the Bay Area, and its defense -- SC is an excellent defensive team -- kept both games within striking distance throughout. The Trojans lost 53-49 to Cal and 51-43 to Stanford. Expect to see a lot of those kinds of results from this team, which can defend with the best teams in the country. Unfortunately, it just can't seem to score.

10. Colorado: I could see ranking Colorado above USC; after all, the Buffaloes are 9-4 overall and 1-0 in conference play after their opener. But I couldn't pull the trigger, and here's why: USC, for all of its problems, has at least one definable skill: defense. Colorado, at least thus far (and to my eye, which I admit is far from omniscient), doesn't. And, sorry, but I can't move a team up just because they beat poor Utah's brains in (73-33) at home. I mean, a win's a win, and you play your schedule, and so on ... but I still need to see more.

11. Arizona State: The Sun Devils didn't get Utah-style-crushed in their league opener at Arizona (final score: 68-51), so that's something. And Herb Sendek's team does appear to be improving on the defensive end. But make no mistake: This team is bad. That didn't change in the past seven days.

12. Utah: Alas, as has been the recurring theme of the Pac-12 power rankings, the Sun Devils are bad -- just nowhere near as bad as Utah. (When you think about how ugly ASU's play has been -- and you consider the fact that a player like Chris Colvin is using 25.8 percent of his team's possessions despite a 69.0 offensive rating, and that's just one example -- that's saying something.) On Saturday, the Utes were utterly crushed, 73-33, by Colorado, by my lights the 10th-best team in one of the worst power-six leagues we've seen in years. Last week, Utah ranked No. 313 in Ken Pomeroy's adjusted efficiency rankings. This week, they rank No. 334. No. 334 out of 344! That's three places below SIU-Edwardsville and two below Maryland-Baltimore County. And it's only the first week of Pac-12 play. Man. It's going to be a long season in Salt Lake City.

The Pac-12 only gets more convoluted and confusing with each passing week, but the conference power rankings, like any good Broadway show, must go on. Here's my latest attempt to make sense of this muddled West Coast landscape as the Pac-12 prepares to commence league play this week. (Spoiler alert: The Pac-12 is bad.)

1. Stanford: Surprised? So am I. After all, Stanford's only result since last week's rankings was a 71-66 home loss to Butler, which came after the Cardinal allowed the offensively bereft Bulldogs to streak to a downright shocking 45-point second-half. Considering Stanford has no great wins, and much of its early ranking hinged on that close contest with Syracuse in November, you'd think Johnny Dawkins' team would take a tumble in the conference power rankings. When I sat down to write these rankings, I didn't think Stanford stood any chance of staying in the top spot. But as you dig in to the rest of this league, you realize that Cal remains the only other contender for this spot, and I find it difficult to move Stanford below the Bears when Mike Montgomery's squad was so thoroughly trounced by UNLV last week. So Stanford remains. Someone has to be No. 1, I guess.

2. California: The Bears may well be the best team in this league. Ken Pomeroy's advanced metrics indicate as much. But Cal isn't doing anything to inspire confidence that its efficiency in wins over inferior opponents can be replicated against top competition. Consider Friday's drubbing at UNLV. The Bears entered Friday's game having outscored their last four opponents 301-189. Then, in Vegas, Montgomery's squad looked absolutely dreadful -- stagnant offensively, weak defensively and arguably timid in many respects -- as the Rebels blitzed for 40 minutes en route to an 85-68 blowout. This was Cal's second game against a ranked opponent. Its first, against Missouri, ended 92-53. Add it all up, and you get a team that has 10 wins against inferior opponents, one forgivable one-point road loss to San Diego State, and two absolute blowouts at the hands of top competition. So, yeah, maybe Cal is the best team in this league. But if they only look good against bad teams, what does "good" even mean, anyway?

3. Arizona: The Wildcats didn't do much last week, but they'll hold steady at No. 3 if only because they didn't lose. Rather, Zona got past a tricky Oakland team at home and put 100 points on Bryant two nights later, and that -- plus their promising if uneven performances throughout the nonconference schedule -- doesn't offer any obvious reason to move them below any of the teams that follow.

4. Oregon State: OSU is now tied for the best record in this conference, with its 10-2 mark matched only by Stanford. And that record isn't all fluff, either: A Nov. 19 win against Texas might in fact be the best nonconference win the league has (as sad as that is). But since Dec. 9's home loss to Idaho, Oregon's State's four wins have come against Illinois-Chicago, Howard, Portland State and, this week, Chicago State. Those are some of the worst opponents in Division I hoops. For that reason, it's hard to trust that gaudy record, not until the Beavers can test this apparent improvement against someone ranked higher than No. 230 (that would be Portland State) in the Pomeroy rankings.

5. Oregon: The Ducks notched three wins in three days last week, but all three (NC Central, Prairie View A&M, Stephen F. Austin) were cupcakes. Meanwhile, last week's missed opportunity -- when Oregon let Virginia escape from Matthew Knight Arena with a second-half comeback win -- is still a cause for concern. Given Dana Altman's track record as a coach, and the way he got the maximum from his first team in Eugene last season, it's fair to expect some improvement in Pac-12 play. But the Ducks still have a long way to go.

6. Washington: The Huskies looked much sharper in a home win over Cal-State Northridge last Thursday, but really, there's nothing new to report here. The Huskies still look like the most talented team in this league. They should still be considered a favorite to contend for the regular-season crown. Unfortunately, they're still maddeningly inconsistent, confused about their offensive roles, defensively porous and, to paraphrase Washington coach Lorenzo Romar's words, missing that distinct, hard-to-define chemistry all good teams must develop before they can become more than sum of their parts. The talent here is undeniable, but league play starts this week, so the clock is already ticking. This could go either way. We'll see.

7. Washington State: The lack of movement in these rankings is the theme of the week, and Ken Bone's team is no different. The Cougars are getting decent play out of senior guard Faisal Aden and aggressive interior work from junior forward Brock Motum, but they remain sloppy and turnover-prone and have spent their December racking up five wins against decidedly inferior competition. This team isn't bad, per se. But we can't exactly call it good, either.

8. UCLA: If you can't always tell by my tone, yours truly tends to get a little frustrated when teams spend huge stretches of their nonconference schedule toasting cupcake teams. Go out and play somebody, you know? But UCLA's December of inferior competition couldn't have come at a better time. After a November that featured blowout home losses to Middle Tennessee and Loyola Marymount, a disastrous trip to the Maui Invitational and the eventual dismissal of forward Reeves Nelson, UCLA needed some comfortable, confidence-inspiring victories, and it appears to be paying dividends. At the very least, this record -- 2-5 through a Dec. 3 loss to Texas -- is back above .500 in time for the start of Pac-12 play. We don't know if UCLA is actually better, or just beating up on bad teams, but either way, it doesn't really matter. This is why (or at least partially why) coaches schedule so many cupcakes. Sometimes, your team just needs a few wins.

9. USC: Unlike most of the Pac-12, USC actually had an important fixture on its calendar last week, a date with Kansas at the Galen Center in LA. And USC was essentially USC. The Trojans played a slow-paced game and held KU to 63 points, a product of the rapacious defense Kevin O'Neill's team has played so often this season. The only problem with this, of course, is that SC just can't score. The Trojans scored a mere 45 points against the Jayhawks. They rank No. 245 in the country in adjusted offensive efficiency. You should expect O'Neill's squad to stifle more than a few of their Pac-12 opponents in the coming months, and they'll no doubt steal a few wins against allegedly superior squads between now and March. But this putrid offense is like an invisible ceiling. Without at least some offensive output -- something, anything! -- this team can only go so far.

10. Colorado: The Buffaloes' 7-4 record is better than the Trojans' and Bruins' and the Huskies'. So why does Tad Boyle's team still rank so low in this league? Because unlike those teams, the Buffs don't do any one thing particularly well. For the sake of brevity, Colorado is average offensively and awful defensively. I wouldn't be surprised if this team shows real improvement in the weeks to come, but with per-possession numbers this pedestrian, I'm hesitant to make that prediction.

11. Arizona State: If Herb Sendek didn't have more pressing things to worry about -- namely, how to get his apparently awful team moving in a positive direction -- he could some spend time lavishing everyone responsible for bringing Utah to the Pac-12 (conference commissioner Larry Scott, Utes brass, even Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany) with gifts. For yet another week, only Utah's near-historical ineptitude is keeping this Sun Devils squad out of the power rankings cellar. In any other season, we'd look at this team -- now 4-8 with three straight home losses to Northern Arizona, Southern Miss and Fresno State -- as the "worst power-conference team in the country" contender it would have been. Either way, Arizona State is in a bad way, and if the current trend continues into league competition, the nascent questions about the "future of the program" (read: Sendek's job security) will only grow more vociferous.

12. Utah: And then there's Utah. (Last week, I tried on a few alternate, Utah-related headlines for this column. But I think "And then there's Utah" might be our winner.) The good news first: The Utes topped Idaho State and Portland two weeks ago. Wins are wins. The bad news? Both teams are ranked outside the top 225 or so teams in the nation in adjusted efficiency. Even worse, Larry Krystkowiak's team followed those meager signs of progress with an 80-51 road loss to Weber State, a thrashing at the hands of a team that, for reference's sake, lost by 20 to Cal. In the meantime, the 3-9 Utes are ranked No. 316 in the country in adjusted efficiency; the list of teams in their statistical vicinity (The Citadel, Radford, Mount St. Mary's, Texas Pan-American, et al.) is comprised those for whom a trip to the NCAA tournament play-in game is a basketball season's ultimate hope. This is some historically bad basketball coming from Salt Lake City. With Pac-12 play commencing this week, where do the Utes go from here? I don't know. But it could be fascinating to behold.

Based on results and not preseason expectations, here's my attempt at ranking the Pac-12:

1. Stanford: The Cardinal were No. 1 in the first edition of these rankings, and nothing in the week since has invalidated that idea. Johnny Dawkins' team is far from perfect, of course: Stanford is still turning the ball over on 21.4 percent of its possessions, a trait that has held back this offense for much of the season. But this team really defends. Josh Owens and Co. possess the seventh-stingiest defense in the country per Ken Pomeroy's adjusted efficiency rankings. If that trend continues, the Cardinal won't need to be great on offense. They'll be very tough to beat all the same.

2. California: The Bears have blitzed opponents in the past two weeks, beating San Jose State and Jackson State by a combined score of 154-82 before easily handling a good Weber State team -- and the nation's leading scorer, Damian Lillard -- 77-57 on Friday. In the preseason, Cal's backcourt duo of Jorge Gutierrez and Allen Crabbe was touted as its unique strength, and both players, alongside impressive transfer Justin Cobbs, have delivered efficient, intelligent performances with rare exceptions.

3. Arizona: This is where the Pac-12 starts to get tricky. (It seems safe to assume the middle of these rankings will be as volatile as any conference in the country the rest of this season -- or at least the next few weeks.) I'll stick the Wildcats at No. 3, because while their record (7-4) isn't exactly pretty, this team's last two losses (at Florida in overtime, vs. Gonzaga in Seattle) are hardly reasons to abandon ship. Its other two losses? To Mississippi State and San Diego State. Given how well both opponents have played thus far, Sean Miller's team hasn't yet suffered a truly bad loss. When you factor in this team's youth, the Wildcats' stock should only improve as the season moves forward.

4. Oregon State: Thanks to a rather light nonconference schedule, the Beavers are a bit of an enigma. Craig Robinson's team didn't do much to change that perception in the past week, easily handling cupcake opponents Illinois-Chicago and Howard. The Beavers beat Texas in overtime and lost by just two to Vanderbilt, both on a neutral court, but they also lost by 14 to Idaho at home. Flawed and confusing though they are, the Beavers are forcing the sixth-most turnovers per possession in the country, and they are very good at getting to the foul line. In what appears to be another down season for the conference in general, that might just be enough to keep Robinson's team in the mix.

5. Oregon: Sunday's home game against Virginia was a nice opportunity for the Ducks, who had yet to distinguish themselves with five expected home wins and two forgivable away losses (to Vanderbilt and BYU). With a nice home win over Virginia, Dana Altman's team would have at least inspired a little "Hey, look out for the Ducks, that Virginia win was solid" talk. Alas, the Ducks yielded a series of second-half runs to the Cavaliers, eventually losing 67-54. When you consider UO's somewhat ugly efficiency stats -- barely among the 100 or so best teams in the country per Pomeroy's metrics -- the end result is that I have no idea how good this team is. Right now, I'm leaning toward "meh." But we'll see.

6. Washington: Look, Sunday's loss was ugly. A team as talented as Washington shouldn't give up 92 points to anyone, let alone South Dakota State, let alone at home. But a couple of things are worth remembering here. For one, South Dakota State is a pretty good team. (The mighty Jackrabbits are 10-4 and feature one of the nation's best mid-major guards in Nate Wolters, who averages 20.5 points, 5.9 assists and 5.1 rebounds per game.) Two, this is the same team that went toe-to-toe with Marquette and Duke on neutral courts just last week. Three, the rest of the Pac-12 is hardly better. Yes, this team's record is frustratingly ugly, given its solid efficiency indicators. (Gee, that sounds like ... well, pretty much every Washington team ever.) But I still think the Huskies are much better than the "5-5" next to their name.

7. Washington State: The Cougars moved to 7-4 with Sunday's relatively painless home win over Western Oregon. That's good news, I suppose. To its credit, Wazzu is winning the games it should win. (That's more than we can say for some of the other teams in this league. Yes, Huskies, I'm talking about you.) But Ken Bone's team still hasn't gotten anything resembling a quality win, so it's hard to give the Cougars too much of that aforementioned credit. Their only remaining nonconference game is Thursday's home date with a bad Pepperdine team, so the fact is we won't know exactly where this team stands until the Pac-12 starts to sort itself out in conference play. Until then, this spot -- hardly a league contender but hardly a doormat, either -- seems fair.

8. UCLA: I can practically see your reaction through your computer screen. (Just practically, not actually. That would be creepier than Chat Roulette.) "Wait," you're saying, "how did UCLA jump two spots in a week? All it did was beat Penn, Eastern Washington and UC Davis. Big deal!" Astute observation, Mr. or Mrs. Pac-12 Conference Power Rankings Reader. Thing is, when you get this low in this league, simply beating bad opponents is actually something of an accomplishment. That the Bruins managed to avoid another ugly home loss is more than we can say for some. Whether or not this team will turn a corner in the wake of Ben Howland's decision to (finally) dismiss Reeves Nelson is yet to be seen. But for now, simply "not losing" is enough to move the dial in a positive direction.

9. USC: Believe it or not, at 4-7 the Trojans are the only Pac-12 team with more than six losses. So why aren't they ranked lower? See: Arizona State or Colorado. Sure, the Trojans' two losses since Saturday -- home defeats against New Mexico and Georgia -- aren't exactly confidence-inspiring results. And Kevin O'Neill's team is still atrocious offensively. (The Trojans scored just 41 points in 61 possessions against the Lobos. They rank No. 256 in the country in adjusted offensive efficiency. It's bad.) But just as we said in the first version of these rankings, this team does defend, and I'm willing to grant some measure of credit for a) that defense, b) the losses not coming to obviously bad teams, and c) the combined margin of defeat of seven points. It's something, at least.

10. Colorado: Wyoming is far from horrible -- the Cowboys are ranked No. 95 in Pomeroy's rankings, and they've played fantastic defense in their impressive 11-1 start. But when you combine Wyoming's 65-54 win in Boulder with Colorado's other struggles to date, including some revealingly bad efficiency metrics like that No. 217-ranked defense (and a ranking of No. 328 in opponents turnover percentage; the Buffaloes simply do not pressure the ball well), it's clear Tad Boyle's team has much to improve upon.

11. Arizona State: The good news for Arizona State? Utah is now a member of the Pac-12. It's that fact, and that fact alone, that is keeping this 4-6 team -- which just lost at home to Northern Arizona (national Pomeroy rank: No. 286!) -- out of the power rankings cellar. All together, the Sun Devils' six losses are hardly complimentary. They've come at home (to Pepperdine, New Mexico, Nevada and Northern Arizona) and on neutral courts (Fairfield and DePaul). The best win actually came in the team's only road game (at Tulsa). But you get the idea. Herb Sendek's team appears to be undermanned and overwhelmed, and ASU fans who recall the James Harden years fondly must be confused at this program's sudden and precipitous dive.

12. Utah: And then, of course, there is Utah. If there was an alternate title to this little power rankings feature, it would be "Conference Power Rankings: Pac-12, Based on the Novel 'Push' By Sapphire." If there was an alternate to the alternate title, it would be "Eamonn's Weekly Search For New Ways to Politely but Forcefully Assert Just How Bad Utah Is." Then again, let's give the Utes some credit. After all, they did get a win this week. Sure, it was merely a home win over D-I bottom-dweller Idaho State, but a win is a win. If Utah can put a few more of those together, it may be able to avoid the historical depths it has flirted with throughout its 2-8 start this season. At this point, that appears to be Larry Krystkowiak's most realistic short-term goal.

Dana O'Neil previews the field at the 76 Classic, which begins Thanksgiving afternoon in Anaheim, Calif. To read O'Neil's written preview of the event, click here.

Freshman Kevin Pangos tied a school record with 9 made 3s as Gonzaga held off a furious second-half rally by Washington State and kicked off the Tip-Off Marathon with an 89-81 victory.