Pac-10 Not Dominant in Pac-10/Big 12 Hardwood Series

That's Oregon Ducks coach Ernie Kent, apparently throwing some bows.

The Pac-10 had a chance to do something of a similar nature in the Pac-10/Big 12 Hardwood Series that went from Thursday through Sunday. The West Coasters had a chance to establish itself as the dominant conference in the country by taking out the pretty decent Big 12.

The Pac-10 won six games to the Big 12's four, but that's not exactly dominant.

Oregon, USC (over Oklahoma, the Kansas game wasn't part of this series), Cal, Washington State, Arizona (over A&M, not Kansas) and Stanford were all winners.

Washington, UCLA, Oregon State and Arizona State did not help the conference's reputation.

What did we learn from all of this?

-Arizona is good. An impressive come-from-a-lot-behind victory over a good Texas A&M team will look great come seeding time.
-UCLA isn't No. 1. Give Texas all the credit in the world for going to LA and taking out the Bruins, who were with Darren Collison, back from injury.
-The Pac-10 isn't as strong as some thought. Winning the series 6-4 is fine, but Oregon, Wazzu and Arizona barely won. The Big 12 could have easily turned things around and gone 7-3.

Nevertheless, it was a fun set of games. (If you root for one of the winning teams, otherwise it sorta blew.) It'll be fun to see some Pac-10/Big 12 match ups come when things really matter, like in March.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

12-03-2007 @ 10:50PM

gogo said...

It strange ARIZONA hardly gets mentioned after beating AM Top 10 rating and taking KANSAS to over time seems strange

12-04-2007 @ 2:48PM

Gman said...

The Big 12/Pac 10 challenge is currently at 6-5 for the Pac 10. The KU/Arizona game counted in the challenge. I know, I was there, and the logo was on the floor. What's more, there's one more game. The Dec 22 game between Stanford and Texas Tech counts. Check out the schedule on Big12sports.com. http://www.big12sports.com/sports/m-baskbl/sched/big12-m-baskbl-sched.html

Rick Barnes insisted that all Big 12 teams had to play every year for the challenge to work. When he was in the Big East and they did the challenge with the ACC, a number of teams couldn't participate because the ACC was 8 teams at the time. Stanford and Arizona played twice for the Pac 10.

KU over Arizona
Oregon over KSU
USC over Oklahoma
WSU over Baylor
ISU over Oregon St
Okla St over Wash
Cal over Missouri
Neb over Ariz St
Stanford over Colo
Arizona over Tex A&M
Texas over UCLA

12-04-2007 @ 1:56PM

John said...

We also learned that the top five (projected) teams in the Pac 10 went 4-2 (Arizona played twice), while the bottom five went 2-3. Some people would say Stanford is better than Arizona, so you could argue that the top five went 4-1 (though I'm sure Colorado isn't considered a Big 12 powerhouse this year) and the bottom five went 2-4. This seems to indicate that the Pac 10 isn't as "strong, top to bottom" as the talking heads like to say, but they are still obviously strong at the top.

12-04-2007 @ 2:49PM

TBP said...

thanks for the clarification. i was under the impression it was those games mentioned (that's what I saw from a Pac-10 newspaper writer's blog, but you guys seem more informed).

appreciate that. sorry about the confusion.