Arizona Basketball: The case for an NCAA Tournament bid

The Pac 12 this year, is wide open, and there is no favorite heading into conference play

Steve Alford’s departure from UCLA is indicative of the overall inconsistency and frustration of the Pac-12 conferences’ basketball season as a whole this year.

The “favorites” heading into this year have not shown up. Oregon is sitting at 9-5 and came into the season as the conference favorite and their tournament hopes may have just taken an even bigger hit with the loss of their best player Bol Bol to injury.

The Washington Huskies look good but not great. They have no bad losses but also no great wins with a record of 10-4.

UCLA is a dumpster fire, and just fired their head coach, but they are still a threat because of how much talent they have and they won their first two games in conference play. Finally, ASU was once thought to be the best hope for the conference with the win over No.1 ranked, at the time, Kansas, but they have since lost to Princeton and Utah at home. The Sun Devils did beat Colorado but those previous two losses are very concerning if you are an ASU fan.

Arizona is 11-4 and 2-0 in conference play, so as of now the Wildcats are in a three-way tie for first place in the conference. There is an argument to be made that the conference is Arizona’s to lose.