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College hoops junkies: how did the PAC-12 become a mid-major?

  • Seriously, what happened over the years to sink a power conference so low? They've been crap for as long as I've been in school.

    The farting birds will stop when the crappy topics do

    Seer

  • How long have you been in school?

    Achtung Baby

  • UCLA imploded. Stanford got a new coach. Oregon got a new coach. Arizona got a new coach.

    Give it three seasons. Any league going through that kind of turnover/instability will have issues.

    Arizona is on its way back. Check out their recruiting class for next season.

    Anyone. Anyplace. Anytime.

    rookmsu ●

  • UCLA went to the final four from 06-08. Also, Arizona's recruiting class is ridiculous.

    KamState

  • Travis Walton destroyed SoCal, they have yet to recover.

    WBill19542

  • Yeah, Arizona will be back in a year or two with the way Sean Miller has been recruiting. UCLA has had some bad luck with recruits but I'd be surprised if Howland didn't put things back together within a couple years.
    Washington is a team I thought would be better this year and would maybe get in the top 25, but apparently they have their own set of issues. Outside of those three teams, there really aren't any programs in the conference that have had any consistency recently. Some teams have had a good year or two, but have promptly fallen off once their star player/s graduate.

    gvsparty ●

  • Stanford said no to Jeremy Lin...now Harvard is in the tourney and they aren't.

    WBill19542

  • I like WBill's theory, but basically what rookmsu said. The 2 perennial top-10 powers were Arizona with Lute Olsen and Stanford with Montgomery. Neither did a good job with replacing them. Meanwhile, the most fertile ground is LA, and UCLA did very well just a few years ago (3 final fours). USC is a mystery. Washington has been getting the most consistent talent but Romar can't coach worth squat so they never really crack the upper echelon. Throw into the mix a ton of NBA players from the league who left school early. It's the perfect storm. They'll be back. They'll always have a slight disadvantage because the games are played too late at night for maximum exposure. The star high school players will want to go east where they can become household names. Nobody stays up to watch UCLA on a Thursday night at 10:30 EST. But they'll be back.

    mark_v

  • i think part of usc's downfall has to do with all the violations with oj mayo hitting the fan.
    SI covered ucla's downfall, although i think that program won't stay down very long with or without howland.
    washington just happened to be an average team in a bad conference this year, i could def see a 1st round exist for them.
    washington state seems to have recruited garbage, remember how they used to have respectable teams?
    arizona will be back next year, back in the top 20 for sure.
    stanford will bounce back a little, but keep in mind that they are similar to northwestern with higher academic standards.
    oregon still believes that nike can make them look like a good team, i doubt they ever will actually be one.
    the others are mostly irrelevant. the pac-10 really only had a couple years where they had a bunch of good teams, and even then they didnt come close to the other power conferences. i think arizona and ucla are the only ones that will be great again

    603spartan

  • UCLA will be back, Arizona too most likely.

    You would think Cali would be able to support 1 or 2 top 15 teams and 2-3 top 50 teams alone. Maybe there has just been a few generations of bad eggs\students that ended up in the WCC and that's why that conference has been pretty good.

    signature image signature image signature image

    Btothejizer ●

  • Seer said...

    Seriously, what happened over the years to sink a power conference so low? They've been crap for as long as I've been in school.

    I wouldn't expect it to be a trend that continues for much longer, but I follow the Pac and here are some things that have happened recently that are hurting the league right now:

    - Lots of early departures to the NBA

    - Only three coaches have been there long enough to have a full recruiting and development cycle. All of the other nine schools have had recent coaching changes: USC, Arizona, WSU, Oregon, Oregon St, Stanford, Utah, Cal, and Colorado.

    - Reeves Nelson fiasco at UCLA and OJ Mayo fiasco at USC.

    - Washington is on solid ground as a program, but has had a combination of early departures, near misses on recruiting battles, and season-ending injuries to team leaders (last year, McD All-America PG tore ACL, this year, senior captain SF broke his toe).

    Draymond Green, Magic Johnson, and Oscar Robertson are the only players to have two triple-doubles in the NCAA Tournament.

    red_cedar

  • a lot of empty seats at the Pac 12 Tournanment games

    SpartanDude81

  • WBill@ said...

    Travis Walton destroyed SoCal, they have yet to recover.

    Ah yes, the first of four straight teams in the NCAA tournament that were supposed to run MSU out of the gym.

    Beardy

  • SpartanDude81 said...

    a lot of empty seats at the Pac 12 Tournanment games

    I wouldn't watch tonight's doubleheader if I lived in the Staples Center.

    Achtung Baby

  • rookmsu said...

    UCLA imploded. Stanford got a new coach. Oregon got a new coach. Arizona got a new coach.

    Give it three seasons. Any league going through that kind of turnover/instability will have issues.

    Arizona is on its way back. Check out their recruiting class for next season.

    UA has a top 5 class coming in next year

    RCMB Premium Poster

    Count gHostula ●

  • SpartanDude81 said...

    a lot of empty seats at the Pac 12 Tournanment games

    It looked worse than a Pistons home game with the crowd that showed up for the ASU Stanford game

    MIST

  • they are actually not that bad. they are a victim of low preseason ranks. no matter who you beat, they arent ranked, nobody notices, and you never move up. similar idea to how last year everyone in the big east was ranked, so when you lost you never dropped.

    i definitely think this is a down year for them, but they arent horizon league bad.

    thebandit

  • Although the B10 didn't turn out to be quite as dominant of a conference top to bottom as I thought it would be earlier this year, it's extremely refreshing to compare it to how shitty the PAC 12 is.

    Frank Caliendo

  • thebandit said...

    they are actually not that bad. they are a victim of low preseason ranks. no matter who you beat, they arent ranked, nobody notices, and you never move up. similar idea to how last year everyone in the big east was ranked, so when you lost you never dropped.

    i definitely think this is a down year for them, but they arent horizon league bad.

    Actually they are that bad -

    RCMB Premium Poster

    Count gHostula ●

  • Btothejizer said...

    UCLA will be back, Arizona too most likely.

    You would think Cali would be able to support 1 or 2 top 15 teams and 2-3 top 50 teams alone. Maybe there has just been a few generations of bad eggs\students that ended up in the WCC and that's why that conference has been pretty good.

    In the RPI St. Mary's is 24th, SDSU is 25th, and Long Beach State is 35th.

    So California can hold 2-3 top 50 teams. I haven't looked, but I wonder if the mid majors have done better in recruiting and putting kids into the pros. It seems like there is better competition in these mid major conferences than in the PAC12.

    This post was edited by Io Triumphe on 3/8/2012 at 9:11 AM

    Io Triumphe

  • Frank Caliendo said...

    Although the B10 didn't turn out to be quite as dominant of a conference top to bottom as I thought it would be earlier this year, it's extremely refreshing to compare it to how shitty the PAC 12 is.

    The bottom teams in the B1G have more quality wins and top 25 wins that any other conference's bottom teams. Hell Iowa alone probably has more than the bottom 6 in the BE. If Iowa had not played terrible out of conference and Mbakwe not gotten injured for Minnesota, there would be 9 teams in tournament. 10 had Weber not lost control of his team. They started out 15-3.

    This post was edited by Spartyshannon on 3/8/2012 at 5:24 AM

    signature image signature image signature image

    Spartyshannon

  • thebandit said...

    they are actually not that bad. they are a victim of low preseason ranks. no matter who you beat, they arent ranked, nobody notices, and you never move up. similar idea to how last year everyone in the big east was ranked, so when you lost you never dropped.

    i definitely think this is a down year for them, but they arent horizon league bad.

    Actually they are. The PAC 12 as a whole went 9-37 OOC against the RPI top 100 (just Oregon State and Stanford had winning records at 2-1). The "scalps" were:

    1. Denver (bubble NIT team)
    2. Weber State (missed the NCAA tournament)
    3. Valparaiso (missed the NCAA tournament)
    4. New Mexico State (not projected to make the NCAA tournament)
    5. Penn (not making the NCAA tournament)
    6. Colorado State (bubble team)
    7. North Carolina State (bubble team)
    8. Montana (hey an NCAA tournament team)
    9. Texas (bubble team)

    sprtnbrn

  • sprtnbrn said...

    Actually they are. The PAC 12 as a whole went 9-37 OOC against the RPI top 100 (just Oregon State and Stanford had winning records at 2-1). The "scalps" were:

    1. Denver (bubble NIT team) 2. Weber State (missed the NCAA tournament) 3. Valparaiso (missed the NCAA tournament) 4. New Mexico State (not projected to make the NCAA tournament) 5. Penn (not making the NCAA tournament) 6. Colorado State (bubble team) 7. North Carolina State (bubble team) 8. Montana (hey an NCAA tournament team) 9. Texas (bubble team)

    That is craptacular

    Has No Left ●

  • sprtnbrn said...

    Actually they are. The PAC 12 as a whole went 9-37 OOC against the RPI top 100 (just Oregon State and Stanford had winning records at 2-1). The "scalps" were:

    1. Denver (bubble NIT team) 2. Weber State (missed the NCAA tournament) 3. Valparaiso (missed the NCAA tournament) 4. New Mexico State (not projected to make the NCAA tournament) 5. Penn (not making the NCAA tournament) 6. Colorado State (bubble team) 7. North Carolina State (bubble team) 8. Montana (hey an NCAA tournament team) 9. Texas (bubble team)

    I should've added just as a comparison. Here were the Big 10's 9 biggest scalps:

    1. Kentucky
    2. Duke
    3. UNLV
    4. Temple
    5. Memphis (for those keeping score, we're still in the RPI top 20)
    6. Florida State (still in the RPI top 25)
    7. Gonzaga twice (still in the RPI top 25)
    8. Florida (win number 9 OOC against the top 30)
    9. Iowa State (only 31st in the RPI)

    For those keeping score, the Big 10 had more wins against the RPI top 31 OOC than the PAC 12 did against the top 100. That's why the PAC 12 is thought to be down.

    sprtnbrn

  • I would argue it is more than a regular cycle down. 1 tourney team, that's it, that's an awful conference. when has the B10 had any less than 5?

    Even if a few teams rebound you are still left with a ton of crappy teams.

    SD Spartan

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