1. By the time you read this, odds are good that the new AP poll will have been released with Arizona topping the list for the first time in more than a decade. After Michigan State fell at home to North Carolina earlier in the week, all the Wildcats had to do to solidify their position was to take care of business at home against a UNLV team that has yet to congeal. However, as the game on Saturday entered its 40th minute, the outcome was still very much in doubt. But a spectacular Aaron Gordon block was followed up by a driving layup from Brandon Ashley, and the Wildcats escaped. With newly top-rated teams having a habit of dropping games quickly, watch out for Arizona’s tough road trip to Michigan next Saturday morning.
2. Oregon was one of several Pac-12 teams with tough road games scheduled for this weekend. But, while UCLA and California came up on the short end of the stick in their first true away games of the season, the Ducks took to the road with aplomb, getting a steady performance from Jonathan Loyd and plenty of production from talented transfers Mike Moser, Joseph Young, Jason Calliste and Elgin Cook to withstand the Marshall Henderson show at Mississippi. With the Bruins’ defeat at the hands of Missouri, Oregon and Arizona now stand alone as the two remaining undefeated teams in the conference.
3. Colorado, meanwhile, got to spend its weekend at home in frigid Boulder, but their test was no less stringent. The Buffaloes welcomed in a talented Kansas team and came away with their first win over the Jayhawks in more than a decade. That 0-for-19 streak is now in the past, as the Buffaloes rode a surprise contribution from little-used senior center Ben Mills, versatile and efficient play from sophomore center Josh Scott, an inspired performance from sophomore forward Xavier Johnson – including a ferocious early dunk – and, of course, a deep buzzer-beating runner from Askia Booker to inspire a good old-fashioned rushing of the court. Not everybody found the court rushing so fun, as Paul Klee of the Colorado Springs Gazette recounts photographers getting trampled, some near-misses and even Booker himself sustaining a shoulder injury in the celebration.
4. USC scored a solid win for itself on Sunday night, thumping Boston College behind an impressive second half. While the Trojans got balanced scoring with five different players reaching double figures, junior guard Byron Wesley continues to stand out as the team’s leader. Head coach Andy Enfield regularly praises his veteran wing for his fundamental soundness, while teammate Omar Oraby says that just watching Wesley’s work ethic helps his teammates get better.
5. Lastly, Utah bounced back from its first loss of the season by scoring 50 second-half points to get past Fresno State. Sophomore Jordan Loveridge broke out of something of a slump by scoring all 13 of his points in the second half, while junior point guard Delon Wright continues to fill up stat sheets, setting a new career high with 12 assists and tying his career high with 23 points for his third double-double of the year. Wright came up four rebounds shy of a triple-double, but with his complete game, expect him to register at least one of those by the time the season is done. Oh, and while we’re on the topic, Wright has made 52 of his 70 shots from the field this season. Combined with his solid free throw shooting, that put’s Wright’s true shooting percentage at 76.6 percent, good for fifth in the nation to this point.

Out of the country? Living under a rock? Here’s what you missed in the third week of Pac-12 basketball.

Power Rankings (As voted upon by Connor Pelton, Andrew Murawa, and Adam Butler):

Nick Johnson Is Arizona’s Leading Scorer Through Seven Games, And He Also Led The Wildcats To A 72-66 Win Over Duke On Friday. (Christian Petersen)

1. Arizona 
2. Oregon
3. UCLA 
4. Colorado 
5. California
6. Arizona State
7. Stanford
8. Utah
9. USC 
10. Oregon State
11. Washington 
12. Washington State

Best Game – Arizona vs Duke: Marquette-Arizona State seemed destined for this slot earlier in the week, what with ASU getting its first marquee win of the season in thrilling fashion in front of a raucous Wells Fargo Arena crowd. Instead, that game was topped by Sun Devils’ rival Arizona, which five days later defeated #6 Duke in the NIT Season Tip-Off Championship in New York City. Neither team led by more than five points in the first half, and it was the Blue Devils who took a 36-33 lead into the locker rooms after a Tyler Thorton bucket. With great effort on the defensive end of the floor, Arizona eventually took the lead for good on a Brandon Ashley tip-in with nine minutes remaining. The lead swelled to double figures at three different points in the last quarter of the game, and when the final buzzer sounded it was 72-66 Wildcats. Junior guard Nick Johnson scored a team high 15 points in the win.

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The early season exempt tournaments are a great opportunity for teams to get in several games over the course of a few days, often against pretty good competition. By the time these events are over, we begin to have a good idea about the overall quality of teams, how their resume is shaping up, and what they will need to do from here on out. Pac-12 teams had some mixed results over the past week, but below we will take a quick look at how some of the teams from the conference fared in their events.

Arizona – The Wildcats are the one Pac-12 team that had an unquestionably great event. They swept through four games against increasingly tough competition in the NIT Season Tip-Off, capping it off by scoring an impressive win over Duke at Madison Square Garden on Friday. Sean Miller’s club has done everything you want a young team to do early in the year: improve every game, compete hard, and maintain focus, all while piling up the wins. As a result of last week’s performance, Arizona now finds itself at #2 in both major national polls, with two #1 votes in the AP and a single #1 vote in the Coaches poll.

Arizona Got Balanced Scoring And Great Defense In A Big Win Over Duke (USATSI)

Arizona State – While their in-state rival had a great tournament, the Sun Devils’ weekend at the Wooden Legacy was disastrous. Getting blown out in the opening game against Creighton is one thing; certainly not ideal, but at least against a good team. The problem was that put Arizona State in the consolation bracket with a bunch of teams that would provide little benefit if beaten, but a major strike if defeated by. After knocking off College of Charleston on Friday night and looking solid in the first half against Miami on Sunday, it looked like the Sun Devils would get out of Orange County with just disappointment rather than disaster. But then Jahii Carson turned it over three times and went 0-for-9 in the second half, including a couple of missed layups in the final minute, and Arizona State fell to Miami. Now, with no remaining non-conference games that will do anything to improve their resume, the Sun Devils will head into Pac-12 play with a win over Marquette last week as the lone victory against a team in KenPom’s top 100.

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1. California Golden Blogs meets in roundtable form to discuss some leftovers (get it?) from California‘s recent trip to Hawaii for the Maui Invitational. Included is some projections as to how the Golden Bears would have fared with senior forward Richard Solomon playing in the final two games, as well as the impression David Kravish made on everyone during the trip. While the tournament ended on a bit of a downer thanks to an 18-point loss against Dayton, Monday’s victory over Arkansas was huge as it not only gave the Cal an extra notch in the win column but also put it in the winner’s bracket and match-ups with a pair of solid RPI-enhancing opponents. Where the Golden Bears go from their performance in Maui before conference play is very important. Finishing 10-3 against the non-conference slate is definitely possible, but Mike Montgomery has to make sure the team avoids slip-ups against intrastate rivals UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara, and Fresno State.
2. UCLA‘s Steve Alford has led the Bruins to a 7-0 start this season, and believe it or not, that is a record among first-year coaches in Westwood. And while critics will be quick to point out that the best UCLA win has probably come against Drexel or Northwestern, 7-0 is still 7-0. This article takes a look at other Bruin head coaches and how each started their careers. The Bruins will go for their eighth consecutive victory tonight against UC Santa Barbara.
3. Arizona joined the 7-0 club on Friday with its NIT Season Tip-Off Championship victory over Duke, and the Wildcats climbed to number two in the week five AP poll as a result. The poll can be found in full here, where you’ll see the Cats also earned two first place votes. A couple of other 7-0 Pac-12 teams, Oregon and UCLA, checked in at #13 and #18, respectively. If you go down to the “Also Receiving Votes” category you’ll find 7-1 Colorado garnering enough votes to put itself at #36. Arizona State remains without a vote despite having already won seven games, including a victory at UNLV and at home against Marquette.
4. Sticking in Tucson, USA Today‘s Nicole Auerbach says Arizona is in midseason form three weeks into the season. Head coach Sean Miller didn’t back away from high expectations back in October, and for good reason, because with a true point guard in junior T.J. McConnell and a do-everything scorer in shooting guard Nick Johnson, the Wildcats are winning games and looking good while doing it. A second straight undefeated non-conference season is possible if Arizona can get past Michigan on December 14.
5. We close with this feature on Utah guard Parker Van Dyke. Van Dyke, a freshman from Salt Lake City, was planning on a two-year church mission immediately after graduating from high school, but decided that his best opportunity for playing time for the Utes would come this season. The mission was put on hold, and the decision has paid off in spades. Van Dyke is typically one of the first guards off the bench for coach Larry Krystkowiak and has already emerged as one of the top shooters on the undefeated Utes.

1. Things didn’t start out great for the Pac-12 on Wednesday night, as Arizona spotted Drexel 19 early points in the first half of their NIT Season Tip-Off Semifinal, and, make no mistake, Arizona looked completely awful in that first half. The Wildcats recorded zero assists in 20 minutes, their frontcourt looked overmatched against a smaller Dragons frontcourt and in no way, shape or form, did the Wildcats look like a Top 25 team, much less the top five team that both the most recent AP and RTC polls declared that they were. But, after what was likely a blistering halftime locker room speech, Kaleb Tarczewski, Nick Johnson and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, in particular, were impressive in leading their squad back from the brink to earn the much-sought-after match-up with Duke in the championship game on Friday evening. Must-see-TV, indeed. Oh, and those of you who wrote off UCLA after a similarly tough battle with Drexel, do you care to re-assess? Likely not.
2. At roughly the same time as the Wildcats were struggling with the Dragons, California was in the process of getting pretty well handled by Dayton. Certainly, the fact that the Golden Bears were again playing without one of their best players in Richard Solomon — out due to a corneal abrasion — didn’t do much to help their cause. But, aside from senior point guard Justin Cobbs, who scored Cal’s first 12 points of the second half and wound up with 31 on the night, and David Kravish (12 points, 14 rebounds, five blocks), Mike Montgomery got almost zero production out of the rest of the gang. After an intriguing start to the Maui Invitational, with that win over a tough match-up in Arkansas, Golden Bears fans are left wondering what could have been had Solomon been able to go.
3. Utah had quite a bit more success on Wednesday night, albeit against lesser competition. Still, if you haven’t gotten around to taking a peek at Ute junior college transfer point guard Delon Wright, it is about time you avail yourself of that opportunity. Once again, Wright proved himself to be a versatile, jack-of-all-trades guy for head coach Larry Krystkowiak, scoring 23 points, handing out seven assists, swiping seven steals, snatching four boards and even swatting a shot. And, for good measure, he made a statement about the supposed weakness in his game: his outside shot. Wright knocked down both of his two attempts from beyond the three-point arc as well in the Utes 19-point win over Ball State.
4. We take a step away from the court to mention that Oregon head coach Dana Altman was awarded with a three-year contract extension by his university on Wednesday. After the extension, his current contact keeps him in Eugene through 2020, dialing in his compensation at $1.8 million. Given the highs to which  Altman has led the Ducks in his three-plus years on campus so far, this formality is a no-brainer. It wouldn’t be a complete surprise if Altman, by the time his tenure at Oregon is up, has vaulted the Duck basketball program to the levels that Chip Kelly, et al., have launched the Oregon football progam.
5. And, while we don’t actually have any football games in conference until the day after Thanksgiving, just in case we don’t get a chance to assemble a Morning Five tomorrow night, due to some combination of turkey, stuffing, beer and Arizona State/Creighton (not necessarily – but likely – in that order), we thought Connor and I would unveil our picks for the football weekend herewith. Last week, again, both of us went 3-3 on the week, bringing our totals on the year to 64-21 for Connor and 63-22 for me. In case you need a little help with those numbers (believe me, I can relate), that puts me a game back. With this the last big weekend of football, it is fitting that Connor and I have enough differences of opinion in our picks this weekend to make this interesting. We’ve selected USC/UCLA as our game of the week, even though it is as meaningless as any other game this weekend in the grand scheme of things. But, really, in a week with USC/UCLA, Oregon/Oregon State, Washington/Washington State and Arizona/Arizona State, there clearly ain’t anything approaching a meaningless game on the slate. Anyway, our picks:

Out of the country? Living under a rock? Here’s what you missed in the second week of Pac-12 basketball.

Power Rankings (As voted upon by Connor Pelton, Andrew Murawa, and Adam Butler):  

1. Arizona
2. Oregon
3. UCLA
4. Arizona State
5. Colorado
6. California
7. Stanford
8. Oregon State
9. Utah
10. USC
11. Washington
12. Washington State

Jahii Carson Went Off On Tuesday In Las Vegas. (Joe Nicholson)

Best Game – Arizona State @ UNLV: In a week where Harvard-Colorado was probably the second best Pac-12 game, Arizona State and UNLV provided greater drama. Intensity was high from the outset as both teams battled back and forth in the first 20 minutes. Neither team led by more than four points in the first half, and that was the margin when junior Deville Smith hit a jumper as time expired to put UNLV up by a score of 38-34. The crowd of over 12,000 was quieted with about five minutes remaining when the Sun Devils went on a critical 8-2 run to lead by seven, and Jahii Carson made sure the Devils stayed in front with a clutch jumper and two key free throws. When all was said and done, Carson had finished with 40 points and seven assists, a performance you may not see topped this year in conference play, and Arizona State left the Thomas & Mack Center with an 86-80 win to remain undefeated. The 5’10” sophomore also made 14 of his 16 buckets from the field at the rim, a ridiculous stat for someone of his stature.

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1. Did everyone survive the tipoff marathon? Only one team from the Pac-12, Stanford, got to participate this season, and the showing was not a good one. BYU took an eight point lead into the locker rooms at halftime at Maples Pavilion, and the deficit was held right around there for the final 20 minutes. The Cardinal defense was atrocious, allowing 112 points and allowing two Cougar players to score over 25 points.
2. Nike unveiled its turquoise “N7” uniforms on Tuesday, and Oregon State will be one of five teams to don them this November. Florida State, New Mexico, and both the Nevada men’s and women’s teams had unis designed for them by Nike. Click here for a closer view at the Beaver threads, featuring a blue, ghost Beaver on the back and an orange and black tartan print running all the way from top to bottom. The Beavers will debut the jerseys against Southern Illinois Edwardsville on November 26.
3. Oregon head coach Dana Altman raised a few eyebrows when saying that he wasn’t disappointed in two of his starters, Dominic Artis and Ben Carter, for selling their team-issued shoes. The violation earned a nine game suspension for each of them, but Altman said he is only disappointed for the pair, and not in them. The suspension didn’t come around to hurt the Ducks in their opener, an 82-75 triumph over Georgetown in South Korea.
4. While the rest of the nation was watching Michigan State-Kentucky and Kansas-Duke, California was busy handling a Denver team that made the NIT last season. The Golden Bears got their second win on the young season thanks to a tremendous performance on the defensive end of the floor, something rarely seen across the NCAA this year with the new fouling rules. Sophomore guard Tyrone Wallace recorded three steals, while both Justin Cobbs and Sam Singer added two more. Down low, forward Richard Solomon had two blocked shots and pulled down 16 rebounds.
5. If you grill it, they will come. That’s the plan brought forth by the Colorado athletic department, who will be giving out 10,000 free strips of bacon to students who attend the Jackson State game on Saturday. This definitely goes down as one of the top college hoops promotions of all time.

It’s opening week and we’ve already gotten a taste of what’s to come through the first weekend of college basketball. As we head into the start of the 24 Hours of Hoops Marathon tonight, culminating in tomorrow night’s top-five double-header at the Champions Classic, it’s time to take a look at how oddsmakers view the upcoming season. As we mentioned last week upon the release of the RTC Preseason Top 25, there appears to be a consensus top five (Kentucky, Michigan State, Louisville, Duke and Kansas), followed by a second-tier group of six more teams (Arizona, Florida, Ohio State, Syracuse, Oklahoma State and Michigan). Although the order might be a little different, that is also more or less how Las Vegas is viewing the 2013-14 national championship race. Keeping in mind that unlike those of us who can make any ridiculous prediction we can think of without an appreciable fear of repercussion, oddsmakers stake their livelihoods on this practice. Therefore, they generally have a good idea of what they’re doing.

Let’s first take a look at the odds below (NCAA basketball lines taken from a prominent international sportsbook, where the listed odds are not much different from those in Vegas), then we’ll analyze some takeaways after the jump below. (ed. note: for those unfamiliar with futures odds, +380 represents the amount of money a potential gambler would receive back if he placed a $100 wager on that team and it won.  He would, in other words, win back 3.8 times his original wager.)

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We here at the Pac-12 Microsite have previewed the conference from every possible angle over the last month. You can check out our work in its entirety at the links below while your dribbling off time until your team tips off. Have a great season!

The March to Vegas and Beyond Begins Now

Non-Conference Schedule Previews

• Colorado and Utah
• UCLA and USC
• Washington and Washington State
• Oregon and Oregon State
• Arizona and Arizona State
• California and Stanford

Team-by-Team Previews

• USC
• Utah
• Stanford
• UCLA
• Colorado
• Arizona
• Washington State
• Oregon State
• Washington
• Arizona State
• California
• Oregon

Marching to Vegas

• The Pac is Back
• Who Will Breakout in 2013-14?

Miscellaneous

• Offseason Wrapup
• California a Top Ten Team? 
• The Inane Ramblings of a Pac-12 Homer
• 20 Questions – Alford or Enfield
• Rating the Hot Seats
• Biggest Question Mark
• All-Newcomer Teams

1. It was upset weekend in the Pac-12 to start the month of November. What are we talking about, you may be wondering? The world of secret scrimmages, of course. SMU apparently handled Colorado on the road this weekend, with one source even saying that the Mustangs won by at least 20 points. In Tempe, San Francisco got by Arizona State with ease, another surprising result for the conference. Because of the nature of these controlled scrimmages, the results should certainly be taken with a grain of salt, but they are also not good news by any means. Lots of work is still left to be done before the regular season starts this weekend.
2. Colorado forward Chris Jenkins chose to transfer out of the program Monday. He is a redshirt freshman who wasn’t expected to contribute under head coach Tad Boyle for the second straight season. Colorado opens its regular season Friday against Baylor in Houston.
3. Washington has missed the NCAA Tournament in back-to-back seasons, and senior guard C.J. Wilcox wants to finish his career in Seattle with a trip to the Big Dance. Wilcox is a fifth-year senior and will have to carry the Huskies if they are to return there. “This is my team,” says Wilcox. “I have to make sure I get these guys back to the NCAA Tournament and we can try to do some special things.” However, he will not be able to sneak up on anyone this season after averaging 16.8 PPG last year. If Washington is to navigate the tough Pac-12, the Huskies will need strong performances from new starters Nigel Williams-Goss and Andrew Andrews, who will be playing alongside Wilcox in the backcourt when Lorenzo Romar chooses to go small.
4. Most fans around the country like it when a high school senior signs with their favorite team in the spring. They then watch the player get acclimated to the program during his freshman season, play increased minutes his second year, and start as a junior and senior with the team. Oregon fans have come to expect something a little different. Duck fans rarely get a sense of familiarity with their roster as Dana Altman has built his team the last few seasons through one- or two-year transfer players. This year’s team is filled with six transfers, all of which are expected to contribute immediately. Altman’s squad opens its season on Friday at Camp Humphreys, South Korea, against Georgetown.
5. The guys over at California Golden Blogs met in roundtable form on Monday and discussed California‘s 83-61 exhibition win over Humboldt State. The Bears scored the ball with efficiency and showed off their improved depth over last year’s squad. Head coach Mike Montgomery debuted a 10-deep roster without much of a worry as it appears the majority of the newcomers are already ahead of the curve. As evidenced by that, freshman guard Jordan Matthews led Cal with 15 points off the bench. Forward Richard Solomon added nine rebounds to go with his 11 points.