While Sunday’s battle between Arizona and California solidified the top tier of the Pacific 10 Conference, the majority sits at a sub-par record. At the halfway point of Pac-10 play, it’s officially time to see the standouts emerge. Here’s a look at this week’s rankings.
1. Arizona (12-9, 6-3 Pac-10): In a statement sweep against the Bay Area schools, the Wildcats have established themselves as the target on top. Hostile crowds will wait to take down the leader of the Pac-10, beginning with a difficult trip to Seattle on Thursday.
2. California (14-7, 6-3): Clearly the Bears are talented, with enough senior leadership to make the NCAA Tournament. It’ll be difficult to prove themselves if the Pac-10 is a one-bid conference — which looks foreseeable at this point.
3. ASU (15-7, 5-4): Stanford should be embarrassed. At one point in the Sun Devil’s 88-70 win against the Cardinal, the score was 41-11. And Herb Sendek even replaced Derek Glasser with a freshman in the starting lineup.
4. Washington (14-7, 4-5): There’s not much difference between Nos. 1 through 4 in these rankings — the Huskies round off the upper tier of teams after whipping Washington State 92-64, ignited by Quincy Pondexter’s 29 points.
5. UCLA (10-11, 5-4): An overtime loss to Oregon keeps the Bruins mediocre at best. UCLA pulled through a late 12-2 run to come back against Oregon State on Saturday.
6. Stanford (10-11, 4-5): After shooting 25 percent in the first half against ASU, the Cardinal showed second-half resiliency, scoring 48 points in a game that was over shortly after it started. The same way teams are beginning to solve ASU’s zone defense, they’re beginning to understand Stanford’s two-man show of Jeremy Green and Landry Fields.
7. Oregon (12-9, 4-5): A win against the Trojans gave them the No. 7 spot — that’s how fragile the bottom half of the Pac-10 is. Bright spot: Jeremy Jacob scored a career-high 19 points and Malcolm Armstead had 18 of his own.
8. USC (12-9, 4-5): Here’s when you know things are getting bad: A Trojan student manager cost USC the game against Oregon when he was whistled for a technical foul. Kevin O’Neill released the manager on Sunday.
9. Washington State (14-7, 4-5): Would be seventh place in the Mountain West Conference.
10. Oregon State (9-12, 3-6): Would be eighth place in the Mountain West Conference.
