Pac-10’s prospects are booming

Welcome to the Pacific 10 Conference tournament, also known as one-stop shopping for NBA scouts.

With a mother lode of prospects who might give the league a record showing at the NBA draft in June on display, 42 scouts representing 26 of the 30 NBA teams are expected to be on hand.

“The Pac-10 this year is deep and rich in talent,” Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchak said.

Jerry Reynolds, director of player personnel for the Sacramento Kings, didn’t hesitate to assess it.

“The Pac-10 in my opinion is stronger than any league in the country, and most people, I think, agree,” he said.

Mock drafts can be a little breathless, and there’s no way to know for sure which underclassmen will make themselves available, but DraftExpress.com predicts there could be eight first-round picks from the Pac-10, and nbadraft.net counts nine.

If those predictions are even close, this year’s draft will be a record year for the Pac-10, which has never had more than five first-round picks in a year. The 1979 class led by UCLA’s David Greenwood set that mark, and the 1995 group that included Arizona’s Damon Stoudamire and UCLA’s Ed O’Bannon tied it.

The record for any conference is eight from the Atlantic Coast Conference in 1995, with a group led by No. 1 overall pick Joe Smith from Maryland and North Carolina’s Jerry Stackhouse and Rasheed Wallace.

Kupchak said players’ decisions and NBA team needs will sort things out as time goes on, calling it “way too early to say who’s first round.”

That doesn’t keep people from making a cottage industry out of trying. The two mock drafts’ consensus first-rounders are Stanford’s Brook Lopez, Arizona’s Jerryd Bayless, USC’s O.J. Mayo, UCLA’s Kevin Love and Darren Collison and California’s Ryan Anderson and DeVon Hardin, although some NBA scouts see Anderson and Hardin as borderline first-rounders and Anderson said last week he wouldn’t consider leaving school unless he was a sure first-rounder.

Among others in the mix are UCLA’s Russell Westbrook -- probably a first-rounder this season but a likely lottery pick in 2009, when he could be more prepared for the NBA after taking over the point from Collison -- Arizona’s Chase Budinger, whose stock has slipped during his college career, and Washington State’s Kyle Weaver, whose skills and athleticism are sometimes hidden in the Cougars’ system.

Mark Arizona State’s James Harden as a future first-rounder because he is expected to stay another year, and count USC’s Taj Gibson -- a high second-round prospect at the moment -- and Stanford’s Robin Lopez, Arizona’s Jordan Hill, Washington’s Jon Brockman and USC’s Davon Jefferson among the wild cards who might eventually reach first-round status.

“I think in this league right now we’ve got a lot of kids who will be first-round draft picks over the next couple of years, and bottom line, that’s why this league is the best league in the country,” said UCLA Coach Ben Howland, who counts more than a dozen potential first-round picks.

Arizona interim Coach Kevin O’Neill, who has divided his career between college and the NBA, hasn’t counted the prospects, but sees them everywhere.

“I don’t know a number off my head but you look on almost every team and there’s a draft pick, and some teams have two, three, four,” O’Neill said. “This is the deepest league I’ve seen with young talent.”

Oregon Coach Ernie Kent compares it to the latter days of the UCLA reign under John Wooden, when Kent was a player at Oregon.

“The Pac-8, it was that strong,” he said. “It really reminds me of now, when every team has one or two NBA players on the roster and every game, home and road, was just a dogfight. UCLA was a pretty dominant team, then as now, but it was a dogfight. This is very unusual if you look back at the history of the Pac-10 and where it’s been.”

Don’t count it as a permanent shift. Not with a raft of freshmen and sophomores likely to leave.

“It cycles,” Howland said. “The Big East will have it. The ACC. The interesting thing is most of these kids are from the West. Mayo is from outside the area, but other than that. . . .”

Mayo is one player whose stock slipped during his freshman season but is rising now.

“I thought early, ‘Whoa, he is overrated,’ but the last month he has settled,” one scout said. “I tell you, he is getting better and better.”

Consider this: The league is so laden in NBA prospects that Cal’s Anderson led the Pac-10 in scoring at 21.5 points a game and was third in rebounding at 9.9, but wasn’t even close to being the player of the year, an honor won by Love for leading the Bruins to the regular-season championship.

Westbrook and Budinger are potential first-round picks, and they were only third-team all-conference.

Come June, the results will be tabulated. Chances are fewer players leave and fewer go in the first round than predicted during the excited weeks of March.

Still, no more than 11 Pac-10 players have ever been taken in a two-round draft, which happened in 2001 when Arizona’s Richard Jefferson and Stanford’s Jason Collins went in the first round and Arizona’s Gilbert Arenas led off the second.

This much is certain, there will be an exodus -- and then Pac-10 coaches will be out recruiting again, this time armed with the statistic about how many players the league just sent to the NBA.

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robyn.norwood@latimes.com

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Automatic bids

Teams that have earned spots in the NCAA tournament:

MEN

Austin Peay, Ohio Valley Conference

Belmont, Atlantic Sun Conference

Butler, Horizon League

Cornell, Ivy League

Davidson, Southern Conference

Drake, Missouri Valley Conference

George Mason, Colonial Athletic Assn.

Oral Roberts, Summit Conference

San Diego, West Coast Conference

Siena, Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference

Western Kentucky, Sun Belt Conference

Winthrop, Big South Conference

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WOMEN

Chattanooga, Southern Conference

Connecticut, Big East Conference

E. Tennessee State, Atlantic Sun Conf.

Marist, Metro Atlantic Athletic Conf.

Murray State, Ohio Valley Conference

North Carolina, Atlantic Coast Conf.

Oral Roberts, Summit Conference

Purdue, Big Ten Conference

San Diego, West Coast Conference

Southern Methodist, Conference USA

Stanford, Pacific 10 Conference

Tennessee, Southeastern Conference

Western Kentucky, Sun Belt Conference

Xavier, Atlantic 10 Conference

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The Times’ rankings

ROBYN NORWOOD’S RANKINGS AND COMMENTS:

*--* Rk. Team (Rec.) Comment (last week’s rank) 1 N. CAROLINA (29-2) Tar Heels might not have to leave state to earn a trip to the Final Four. (1) 2 TENN. (28-3) Bruce Pearl could ask Pat Summitt for directions to title game. (2) 3 UCLA (28-3) Great week for Bruins. Awful week for Pac-10 refs. (3) 4 MEMPHIS (30-1) Sticking with prediction Tigers’ season will end with missed free throws. (4) 5 KANSAS (28-3) The ghosts of early NCAA exits should keep the Jayhawks on their toes. (5) 6 DUKE (26-4) Lack of inside game gives Blue Devils only outside chance to win it all. (6) 7 GEORGETOWN (25-4) The Hoyas put a halt to resurgent Louisville’s hot streak. (8) 8 STANFORD (24-6) Cardinal was swept in L.A., but it easily could have gone the other way. (7) 9 WISCONSIN (26-4) What’s this? Badgers are led by a senior, Brian Butch. (9) 10 TEXAS (26-5) Hometown call: Augustin, not Beasley, is Austin paper’s player of year. (10) 11 XAVIER (26-5) No Xavier player on first-team A-10 is “ridiculous” to Burrell. (11) -- LOUISVILLE -- 12 (24-7) Pitino says Big East tourney is tougher than first three NCAA games. (13) 13 CONNECTICUT -- -- (24-7) Thabeet has blocked 141 shots this season -- almost 4.6 a game. (12) 14 BUTLER (28-3) Bulldogs took care of business by winning Horizon title game. (17) 15 NOTRE DAME -- -- (24-6) Harangody’s averages: 21.0 points, 10.3 rebounds. (19) 16 VANDERBILT (25-6) Senior Shan Foster is the pick as SEC player of the year. (16) 17 PURDUE (24-7) Matt Painter was chosen the Big Ten’s coach of the year. (18) 18 MICHIGAN -- -- STATE (24-7) Spartans aren’t exactly rolling going into the postseason. (14) 19 INDIANA (25-6) Dakich isn’t making any case for the job with a loss at Penn State. (15) 20 WASHINGTON --- -- STATE (23-7) Kyle Weaver was a solid pick for Pac-10’s all-defensive team. (20) 21 DRAKE (28-4) Now auditioning for role of Sweet 16 sweethearts. (22) 22 DAVIDSON (26-6) Wildcats belong in NCAA tourney, but were wise to win automatic bid. (24.) 23 BRIGHAM -- -- YOUNG (25-6) Lee Cummard ranked in top 10 in nine MWC statistical categories. (25) 24 GONZAGA (25-7) Mark Few isn’t complaining WCC tourney is headed for Las Vegas. (23) 25 USC (20-10) Yes, Trojans have double-digit losses, but what team wants to play them? *--*