At the halfway point of the Pacific-10 basketball schedule, there has been one prevailing theme: No team is better than the next. The worst team in the conference — Oregon State — is only three games below .500, and five teams are only two games out of first place.
It’s been a wacky, mixed-up first half, with California (14-7, 6-3) and Arizona (12-9, 6-3) emerging as the mid-point leaders — but just barely. At 12-9 overall and in the group of teams only two games off the pace, the Ducks are in a spot to get a few weekend sweeps and win the conference.
First place: California (14-7, 6-3). The Golden Bears may be tied for first place right now, but this weekend the team travels to Southern California to play USC and UCLA, followed by a trip to Oregon mid-February. Two of Cal’s three losses in conference have come on the road, and the away team has not been treated nicely so far in conference play.
First place: Arizona (12-9, 6-3). Perhaps the hottest team in the Pac-10 right now, the Wildcats have won their last four games and five of the last six. The only negative is the team has to travel to Seattle to play the Huskies and to Berkeley to play the Golden Bears.
Second place: Arizona State (15-7, 5-4). The Sun Devils are right in the mix for the Pac-10 title if they can continue to play the inspired play that has led them to their current record. It’s only the third time in the last 15 years the Sun Devils have had a winning record at the halfway mark of the Pac-10 season.
Second place: UCLA (10-11, 5-4). The Bruins have been the enigma of the Pac-10. They dropped games to Portland and Cal State Fullerton to start the year and haven’t looked like the UCLA of the past few years. The Ducks won the first battle with the Bruins, a thrilling 71-66 overtime victory in Eugene.
Third place: Washington (14-7, 4-5). The defending Pac-10 Huskies have had a rough go through the first half of the season. They dropped three straight after beating OSU on Dec. 31, 2009, and got swept by UCLA and USC in Los Angeles on Jan. 21 and Jan. 23. But the team has won two in a row and has Arizona and Arizona State at home this weekend.
Third place: Washington State (14-7, 4-5). The Cougars have lost four of their last six games and still find themselves muddled in the middle of the conference. Led by Klay Thompson’s 21.6 points per game, the Cougars are a dangerous team down the stretch.
Third place: Oregon (12-9, 4-5). The Ducks sandwiched a five-game conference losing streak with two weekend sweeps to salvage what would otherwise have been an abysmal first half. But there is still another concern for Oregon. The team hasn’t scored more than 71 points in a month (Jan. 2 at Washington when it scored 91) and the offensive production has tapered off. The good news is Oregon’s newfound zone defense has held opponents to under 70 points the last two games.
Third place: USC (12-9, 4-5). The Trojans have lost three of their last four games and are reeling after a close game gone sour against Oregon last week. With Oregon up two, graduate manager Stan Holt was given a technical and the Ducks went on to win by 10. That ended a weekend in which the team was swept by the Oregon schools.
Third place: Stanford (10-11, 4-5). The Cardinal just can’t string together more than two wins in conference. They swept the Southern Cal schools but turned around and lost two games in Washington. Then they swept the Oregon schools at home but lost two games on the road in Arizona. The second half of the conference schedule will be critical for them to make a run into the top half of the conference.
Tenth place: Oregon State (9-12, 3-6). The Beavers sit at the bottom of the conference, but with a big showdown with Oregon on Saturday in Corvallis (who they beat already), they aren’t that far out of the race. Let’s not forget, at 3-6 they are just three games out of first place. That point alone sums up why this year, the Pac-10 has been the craziest conference in America.
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