The Pac-10 Is Seeking a Little Redemption

Leave it to Washington State’s Coach Dick Bennett to say what so many are thinking.

On the eve of the Pacific 10 Conference basketball season, Bennett assessed the nonconference performance of league teams.

“I don’t think the conference has done all that well, to be perfectly honest,” Bennett said Tuesday. “I don’t believe we’ve raised the banner of Pac-10 basketball particularly high, aside from, perhaps, Washington. But even they have not been on the road and haven’t been tested to a great extent.”

The computer system used by the NCAA to evaluate teams and conferences -- the Ratings Percentage Index or RPI -- has the Pac-10 at 10th best, behind normally middling leagues such as the Missouri Valley and Atlantic 10.

Arizona, which has carried the league’s banner well for two decades, has three losses. Stanford, picked to finish second, already has losses to UC Irvine, UC Davis and Montana. Oregon, supposedly a dark-horse contender, has been blown out by 30 by Illinois and lost to Portland. Oregon State, seemingly on the rise after an unexpected trip to the NIT last year, has stumbled against Tennessee Tech and Portland. The brightest spots have been Washington’s 10-0 start and its scintillating 99-95 victory over Gonzaga; UCLA’s winning performances against then-undefeated Nevada and Michigan; and -- ta-da! -- USC’s upset of North Carolina.

But, as spoilsport Bennett noted, Washington has left the state only once, going to the Arrowhead Pond for the Wooden Classic.

Otherwise it has been an out-of-conference mess for the league.

“Obviously, the bright spot has been USC’s win over North Carolina,” Arizona Coach Lute Olson said. “Tim [Floyd] and his staff have done a great job there. Tim’s always been an excellent defensive coach and it seems like he’s loosened up on the offensive end. He’s letting those kids play a little more than probably he did before he went to the pros.

“The fact that Stanford has struggled as much as it has, that’s probably surprised people. Oregon has been a little bit disappointing.

“There have definitely been some really devastating losses in the conference early.”

Oregon State Coach Jay John admitted the Pac-10’s RPI “is not good and as coaches we have to notice that.”

“We’ve had some bad losses here and there,” John said. “Right now, that’s not my problem but it could be when the NCAA gives out those at-large bids.”

Arizona, which was one Illinois miracle comeback away from the Final Four last year, was the strong preseason favorite to win the Pac-10 regular-season title. Taken separately, the Wildcats’ losses aren’t disturbing -- to No. 2-ranked Connecticut, No. 9 Michigan State in overtime and at Houston -- but they also have struggled against the lesser teams. The Wildcats needed overtime to subdue Western Kentucky.

“Don’t worry about Arizona,” John said. “Lots of teams will lose at Houston. Losing to Connecticut and Michigan State? That’s not embarrassing.”

Washington Coach Lorenzo Romar was unwilling to call his team the conference favorite. “We haven’t played away from home except at a neutral site, we have a couple of freshmen in the starting lineup,” Romar said. “I’m just not quite sure how good we are. I guess we’ll find out here in the next few weeks.”

But the Huskies do lead in eight of the 19 team statistical categories kept by the conference.

USC’s Floyd wasn’t eager to accept praise either, not for the Trojans’ nine consecutive wins or the big upset of North Carolina.

“I’m still very guarded about who we are,” Floyd said. “We haven’t really beaten any teams of note, other than North Carolina, who came with a bunch of freshmen on the road and happened to get us when we played our best game that night. I’m a little hesitant to anoint this team anything because I have vivid memories of our first two games, where we didn’t do anything at all.”

Those first two games were losses to Cal State Northridge and Oral Roberts and those are two of what Olson called “really bad” losses conference teams have suffered.

There is one team without a “bad” loss, yet even among Pac-10 coaches, this team isn’t being hailed. Yet. UCLA is creeping into the top 10 and is getting injured players back. The Bruins’ sole loss was to No. 4 Memphis. They’ve left California to test themselves at Madison Square Garden in the preseason NIT and at Michigan.

“I like where we are,” Coach Ben Howland said.

He may be the only Pac-10 coach so optimistic.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Pacific 10 Conference early returns

Good Wins, Bad Losses

Some of the more impressive victories and most disheartening losses by Pac-10 men’s basketball teams this winter, heading into conference play:

*--* THE WINS

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* Dec. 4: Washington 99, Gonzaga 95 -- The Huskies ended a seven-game losing streak to the then-No. 6 Zags and stretched their home winning streak to 29 games despite a 43-point effort by Gonzaga’s Adam Morrison.

* Dec. 17: UCLA 68, Michigan 61 -- The Bruins scored an impressive road victory, handing the Wolverines their only loss of the season, behind Arron Afflalo’s 20 points.

* Dec. 21: USC 74, North Carolina 59 -- So what if the Tar Heels lost all their starters from last year’s national championship team? The Trojans’ strong play down the stretch over No. 19 North Carolina at the Sports Arena signaled that Tim Floyd may be reviving USC’s program.

*--* THE LOSSES

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* Nov. 18: Eastern Michigan 67, California 65 -- Proof that you can’t go home again: California Coach Ben Braun opened the season by returning to Ypsilanti, Mich., where he took a loss from his previous employer.

* Nov. 19: UC Irvine 79, Stanford 63 -- The No. 13 Cardinal not only got beat in its home opener, it was thrashed by a team picked to finish in the middle of the pack in the Big West.

* Nov. 20: Tennessee Tech 90, Oregon State 62 -- The Beavers got their season off to a disastrous start on the road against an Ohio Valley team that had lost its own opener by 21 points two days earlier.

* Nov. 20: Cal State Northridge 81, USC 76 -- The Pac-10’s problems with the Big West continued when USC opened its season with an overtime loss.

* Dec. 3: Houston 69, Arizona 65 -- This loss was unexpected enough to drop Arizona out of the AP top 25 for the first time in 312 weeks, since the end of the 1986-87 season.

* Dec. 4: UC Davis 64, Stanford 58 -- Score an improbable double for the Aggies, who also defeated Stanford in football, 20-17.

* Dec. 10: Utah Valley State 75, Arizona State 71 -- The Wolverines, playing only their third season as a four-year school after 30 years as a junior college, outscored the Sun Devils, 12-3, in the final 3:09 to win in Tempe.

* Dec. 22: Portland 80, Oregon 72 -- The Pilots ran their record to 2-1 against the Pac-10, 3-6 against the rest of the world. In addition to the upset of the Ducks, Portland beat Oregon State, 76-62, 12 days earlier.

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*--* STANDINGS School Pac-10 Overall Washington 0-0 10-0 UCLA 0-0 10-1 USC 0-0 9-2 Washington State 0-0 7-2 Arizona 0-0 7-3 Arizona State 0-0 6-3 California 0-0 6-3 Oregon State 0-0 6-4 Oregon 0-0 6-6 Stanford 0-0 4-4

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*--* SCORING LEADERS Player, School G Pts PPG Leon Powe, California 5 104 20.8 Hassan Adams, Arizona 10 193 19.3 Arron Afflalo, UCLA 11 200 18.2 Matt Haryasz, Stanford 7 127 18.1 Nick Young, USC 11 178 16.2 Jordan Farmar, UCLA 9 144 16.0 Brandon Roy, Washington 10 160 16.0 Chris Stephens, Oregon State 10 159 15.9 Jamaal Williams, Washington 10 155 15.5 Malik Hairston, Oregon 11 168 15.3 Gabe Pruitt, USC 11 167 15.2 Bryson Krueger, Arizona State 9 135 15.0 Kevin Kruger, Arizona State 9 135 15.0 Dan Grunfeld, Stanford 8 118 14.8 Ayinde Ubaka, California 9 126 14.0

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*--* REBOUNDING LEADERS Player, School G Reb PPG Matt Haryasz, Stanford 7 71 10.1 Leon Powe, California 5 47 9.4 Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, UCLA 11 98 8.9 Maarty Leunen, Oregon 12 96 8.0 DeVon Hardin, California 9 67 7,4 Jon Brockman, Washington 10 72 7.2 Marcel Jones, Oregon State 10 69 6.9 Hassan Adams, Arizona 10 67 6.7 Ivan Radenovic, Arizona 9 56 6.2 Nick Young, USC 11 67 6.1

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