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MEDIA DAY PRESEASON POLL:
- UCLA
- Arizona
- Oregon
- USC
- Stanford
- Colorado
- Arizona State
- Washington State
- Washington
- Utah
- California
- Oregon State
MEDIA DAY PRESEASON ALL-PAC-12 1ST TEAM:
-Tyger Campbell – SR, G – UCLA
-Branden Carlson – SR, C – Utah
-Boogie Ellis – SR, G – USC
-Mouhamed Gueye – SO, F – Washington State
-Harrison Ingram – SO, F – Stanford
-Jaime Jaquez – SR, G/F – UCLA
-Spencer Jones – SR, F – Stanford
-Drew Peterson – SR, G – USC
-Will Richardson – SR, G – Oregon
-Azuolas Tubelis – JR, F – Arizona
MEDIA DAY PRESEASON ALL-PAC-12 2ND TEAM:
-Marcus Bagley – SO, F – Arizona State
-Tristan da Silva – JR, F – Colorado
-DJ Home – JR, G – Arizona State
-Kerr Kriisa – JR, G – Arizona
-Pelle Larsson – JR, G – Arizona
COMMENTS FROM DAVID:
-UCLA is again the preseason favorites to win the conference and could once again advance beyond the Sweet Sixteen this year. With Tyger Campbell returning along with some other key players and some great new additions, they should be very strong defensively and have enough on the offensive end to finish atop the league and end up with a protected seed.
-Many were wondering, including myself, if Arizona could compete on a high level last year with a new head coach and with the threat of NCAA sanctions hovering over them. Well, they did. They won 33 total games, finished first in the league, and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen. Tommy Lloyd has settled in rather nicely as head coach and they look to have another top-25 team this year that is good enough to repeat their first-place finish. Some high-level players are gone, but they have enough coming back and enough coming in to where they should still be competitive.
-Oregon missed the NCAA Tournament a year ago, but a lot of people, including most of Hoops HD, are high on them this year. We think they will be in the Top-25 before everything is said and done. Three key starters are back, they have several offensive weapons, a really good-looking freshman in Kel’el Ware, and some pretty strong transfer players as well.
-USC is a program that in recent years always seems to start each season off with minimal expectations and then exceeds them in a huge way. They won 26 total games last year, made the NCAA Tournament, and have a couple of key starters back and some impressive looking incoming players as well. I think they will be back inside the bubble again this year.
After that there is a bit of a drop-off…
-Stanford is picked 5th, and while four starters are back and that experience should help them improve this year, they were pretty far outside the NIT last year (much less the NCAAs), and I just do not see them improving so much that they are going to end up making the field.
-I personally always seem to overvalue Colorado, but I once again kind of like them this year as being a “Best of the Rest” type of team. They have a really solid player in Tristan da Silva, they have some good looking recruits coming in, and I like Tad Boyle as a coach.
-It has been a while since we have seen Arizona State solidly inside the bubble…and I do not think we will see it this year. Their leading scorer is back and they are adding some decent looking transfers to the roster, but if I had to guess if that is enough to get them inside the bubble: I am guessing not.
-Washington State is nowhere near a Tournament-caliber team, but their program is going in the right direction and Kyle Smith seems to be building it up. I think they are good enough to finish a little bit better than 8th this year. They won 22 games a year ago and made it all the way to the NIT semis, which for Wazzu is amazing. They have lost a lot from that team, and I do not think they will be quite as good as they were a year ago, but I still think they are going in the right direction.
-It has been a while since Washington has been nationally relevant, and they likely will not be again this year. Mike Hopkins appeared to have this program on track when he first got there, but they have done very little since then. Just one starter returns from last year so the Huskies are looking to rebuild.
-Utah has all five starters returning and because of that experience some are picking them as a dark horse. The problem is they finished in 11th place last year and showed no real signs of being able to compete with the top of the league with that roster, so the fact that it is all back may not mean all that much.
-California has three starters back and we may see some improvement out of them this year, but I do not think it will be enough to land them in the top half of the conference.
-Oregon State was pretty bad three years ago. Two years ago, they were decent during the regular season but still not all that special. They went on a crazy run where they won the Pac-12 Tournament and then advanced all the way to the Elite Eight. Last year, they followed that up with one of the worst seasons in Pac-12 history, winning just three total game. They are picked to finish 12th this year and I will be shocked if they end up finishing 11th.