Football was forgotten all over the West Coast last weekend, as the Pacific-10 Conference men’s basketball season opened with fanfare and sadness.
The sadness came mostly from Arizona, where a disheartened Wildcat team fell hard to top-ranked Stanford. Southern California and UCLA made some noise in taking care of the Washington schools. Closer to home, Oregon proved itself with a big win over in-state rival Oregon State.
Heads up, folks, there’s still nine more weeks of this.

Bobbie remembered
Arizona has been trying to play through the sad memories of Bobbie Olson, head coach Lute Olson’s wife, since she passed away Jan. 1. Bobbie Olson was not only married to Lute, but to the team as well. Her memorial service, held Sunday, proved that she was as much a Wildcat as some of the players.
“Mrs. O meant so much to all of us,” Wildcat forward Richard Jefferson said at the service, according to the Arizona Daily Sun. “She always knew what to say, when to say something and how to say it.”
Bobbie Olson’s death has hit the team hard, and the Wildcats have dropped from preseason No. 1 to 21st in the AP poll. Arizona is 8-5 overall, and 1-1 in the Pac-10 after losing to Stanford Saturday.
“We really wanted to win for coach (Olson), for Mrs. Olson, for ourselves,” Arizona’s Luke Walton told the Arizona Republic after Saturday’s loss. “We just couldn’t get it going when we had to.”
Rumors have Lute Olson returning to coaching the Wildcats as early as next week, when Arizona will take on Washington and Washington State in the Northwest.

Trees on top
With Stanford’s victory over Arizona Saturday, the Cardinal proved that their December win over Duke and the Cardinal’s 13-0 record are no fluke. Mix that with Michigan State’s last-second loss to Indiana Sunday, and the Cardinal is cooking in the No. 1 spot in both the AP and ESPN/USA Today coaches polls. Stanford was a unanimous choice for the top spot in the AP poll, and received 27 of the 31 possible first-place votes in the ESPN/USA Today coaches poll.
The Cardinal will next face Oregon State and Oregon in its first home Pac-10 games of the season.

We are family
As if the wins and the top ranking weren’t enough for Stanford, Jarron and Jason Collins were named the Pac-10’s Men’s Basketball Co-Players of the Week for the conference’s opening games. The twin centers combined for 72 points and 34 rebounds against Arizona State and Arizona. The Collins brothers shot a combined 27-for-30 from the free-throw line
Still think Jarron and Jason don’t have an impact on their team? When the twins start together, Stanford is an amazing 22-0.

Higher and higher
The third Pac-10 team to break the top-20 this season isn’t UCLA or Oregon — it’s USC. The Trojans are ranked 18th in the most recent ESPN/USA Today coaches poll and 19th in the AP poll, following blowout wins over the Washington schools. USC takes on UCLA in Southern California’s rivalry game this weekend.
Oregon was the only other Pac-10 team to receive votes in either poll, garnering 15 votes in the AP poll.