Pac 10 Power Poll 1/9/06

Pac 10 Power Poll 1/9/06

RPI loves a few Pac 10 teams but I really have to wonder how great the conference is on a national level. Andy Katz from ESPN mentioned the Missouri Valley getting 4 bids this year, I agree that is a very good possibility and the leagues that are likely to be hurt by that are the Pac 10 and Big XII (who is getting hammered in RPI because of the struggling of the conference and the zero games played by Baylor). Teams of the week have to be OSU and WSU, the Cougs won on Washington’s home court and have a highly superior RPI while the Beavs gave Cal its first loss in conference play. Jay John has to be a happy with being 1-2 after a tough 3 game road streak.

1. UCLA (4) Winning on the road in Tucson is hard, they struggled to beat ASU but did win the game so I put them number one . . .

2. Arizona (1) Losing to UCLA at home could come back and bite these guys . . .

3. WSU (6) Don’t look now but who has the better resume for March for the Pac 10’s Washington schools, it is the boys from Pullman who sport the higher SOS, RPI and have a win in Seattle . . .

4. Cal (3) All primed to be ranked #1 and then they go and lose to Oregon State at home?

5. UW (2) Managed to go from being in the discussion for a 1 seed to being a bubble team . . . their RPI sucks, they have lost 2 in a row at home and outside of Gonzaga have played a pathetic OOC schedule.

6. OSU (9) Road wins at Berkeley are a rare thing . . . now they get to play back in Gill and should be able to split at worst against the Arizona schools

7. USC (5) Beat ASU barely to get to 2 wins on the Pac 10 season, obviously they are much improved from last year

8. Stanford (7) Yeah they swept the Oregon schools but injuries and lack of athleticism doom this team

9. Oregon (8) Well in 2001-2002 they were swept in the Bay as well . . . some controversy at the end of the Stanford game . . . ASU on Thursday should provide some relief for this beleaguered squad

10. ASU (10) 0-4 facing a 2 game road swing . . . a split would be huge

Finally I wanted to say good luck to Haloti Ngata in the NFL draft, thanks for all the great memories #96!