Pac 10 Power Poll 2/27/06

This week’s marks the final week of Pac 10 regular season basketball and the championship is still up for grabs. Washington at Arizona and UCLA at Cal will highlight this week’s slate.

1. UCLA (1) In great shape to win the league championship. Only getting swept in the Bay and having UW sweep the Arizona schools can keep and Cal beating USC can keep the Bruins from at least a share of the Pac 10 championship.
2. UW (2) Beat Stanford and Cal solidly at home and they are peaking at just the right time. UW is rising up the seeding chart and it will be interesting to see if they get to play UCLA again in the Pac 10 tourney.
3. UA (4) ASU brought no challenge to the Cats. I think they are solidly off the bubble and in to the NCAA’s. They can look back at slipping past Oregon as the game that kept the Cats streak alive of attending NCAA tournaments.
4. Cal (3) The Bears appear to be slipping lately. Getting swept at home and a first round loss is the only way I could see them slipping out of the NCAA’s but Ben Braun can’t be happy with how his team has performed down the stretch. It has been since 1960 since a Berkeley squad has won a Pac 10 title but Cal still holds the chance to get a tie for the title if they can sweep UCLA and USC this weekend.
5. Stanford (5) Barely snuck past WSU and got hammered by the Huskies. Trent Johnson’s team severely lacks athletes. They will be NIT bound unless they can win the Pac 10 tournament.
6. Oregon (7) Easily the leagues biggest disappointment but I won’t discount their chances of putting up a NCAA tournament run next year.
7. USC (6) I had to put them behind Oregon based on Thursday’s loss to the Ducks. A road sweep in the Bay and then a run to the Finals of the Pac 10 tournament and then maybe they get in the conversation. Easier said than done though I like them as a dark horse at Staples to make a run.
8. ASU (8) Got run at McKale, have lost 22 of 23 to in-state rival Cats.
9. WSU (10) I’ll move them up a notch for effort but they still lost twice this week.
10. OSU (9) Up 6 on UCLA at halftime and then got run in half two. They could put a ton of extra pressure on Bill Moos if they can beat the Ducks on Saturday.