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Arizona Wildcats Basketball: Voted No. 1 by Pac-12 Media Poll

By Shereen Rayan

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The results of the Pac-12 Media Members basketball poll are in and the Arizona Wildcats basketball team ended up on top.

The Pac-12 media usually know more than the Pac-12 coaches who don’t usually vote for Arizona, and Wildcats fans felt some of our Wildcats were overlooked in last season’s award list. That said, the Pac-12 Media voted for which school’s team would end up in first place at the end of the season, the voted for Arizona by a mile.

Following Arizona in the poll in order is No.2 Cal (9 votes), No. 3 Utah (7 votes), No. 4 Oregon (1 vote) and No. 5 UCLA (1 vote). The rest of the Pac-12 schools in the list of 12 are as follows: No. 6 Oregon State, No. 7 Colorado, No. 8 Arizona State, No. 9 Stanford, No. 10 USC, No. 11 Washington, and finally, No. 12 Washington State.

Pac-12 commentator and former UCLA head coach Steve Lavin thinks there will be eight teams dancing in the NCAA tournament from the Pac-12. “I think, come February, there’ll be eight teams in contention for NCAA berths,” he said, “I think it’s the deepest league in 15/20 years that we’ve seen in the Pac-12.”

Don’t feel too badly about the other schools, most of them have recruited top classes for the 2016 season, whereas Arizona has yet to receive its first commitment.

The hope is that Arizona recruit Mitch Lightfoot ( 6-8 Center) and Finnish Lauri Markkanen (6-11 Power Forward) should decide shortly and commit to the Wildcats. Markkanen’s top three schools are Arizona, North Carolina and Utah according to Scout. Mitch Lightfoot took an official visit during Arizona’s Parents Weekend when the Wildcats football team beat OSU, 44-7.

"Tucson here we come"

There is no hiding how much Mitch is into Arizona, but he has his roots in Kansas, which is the ‘other’ school in the running. Expect a decision soon.

Arizona hopeful Josh Jackson, who Millers staff have heavily recruited, seems may commit to Michigan State since his friend Miles Bridges just committed to the Spartans. Josh and Miles played together over the summer, and they play extremely well together. According to our fellow Fansided site, Spartan Avenue, Sean Scherer crystal balled Jackson to choose the Spartans over the Wildcats a couple of weeks ago:

"Sean Scherer is considered one of the top recruiting experts in the Midwest while the director of basketball scouting for 247Sports, Jerry Meyer, also crystal balled Jackson to Michigan State on Sunday night."

Other recruits offered by Arizona and not yet committed are De’Aaron Fox, who cancelled his visit to Arizona and is likely going to go with Kentucky, Kobi Simmons who will probably not come to Arizona, and 6-4 shooting guard Andrew Jones who scout says he has Arizona in his top five along with Baylor and Louisville (escort scandal) and may take another visit to Arizona.

Arizona has not offered point Guard Mike Bibby Jr. yet; maybe it’s time? Would hate to see him play for Oregon, Oregon State or USC just on principle.

More from Wildcats Basketball

One theory recruits are not committing to Arizona could be that most of the players who joined Arizona in recent years did so possibly because of former Arizona Wildcats coach and former NBA player, Damon Stoudamire. Stoudamire left Arizona to coach at the University of Memphis to be close to his family. Players from past seasons mention the impact on them from their former Wildcat coach often in interviews. Maybe the lure of playing for and being coached by a former NBA player was the draw for top players who wanted to get into the NBA. That’s just one theory.

RELATED STORY —> Assistant Coach Damon Stoudamire is Moving to Memphis

Whatever the case is for the class of 2016, it’s looking good for this season’s Wildcats, they have a lot of seniors with experience and fresh young talent eager to prove themselves.

To document Media Day, the Pac-12 Networks took a photo of coaches and their key players. Notice the who they put in the back row, the future Pac-12 Player of the year, Kaleb Tarczewski. Is this telling? Anything one can take away from this? Are they just jealous? Wonder how it went down?

Then there is this photo, priceless! Notice our head coach Sean baby is dead serious..there has to be a story behind this, dying to know what it is!

More to come.

Next: Arizona Wildcats Basketball: New Players, New Uniforms, Media Day

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