From the ESPN Bracketology page…

[astUTE]

 …Number of teams by conference expected into the NCAA tournament.  This is embarrassing.  With the turmoil at Arizona and UCLA, those two (historical Blueblood) teams are not likely to be lifting the reputation of the league next year.  Washington, and ASU should be at least as good next year, Oregon will improve.  I hope/expect Utah to improve, but I’m afraid we will still be looked upon as on-par with MWC and WCC.

What happened?  Is this a temporary downturn due to poor recruiting, or perhaps a lot of losses of talented underclassmen to the NBA? Both? The FBI investigation that hurt USC, Ariz? Other?

Can someone who is more knowlegable in college hoops please help me understand?

HE RUNDOWN

CONFERENCE	TEAMS
ACC	9
Big 12	8
SEC	7
Big Ten	7
American	4
Big East	4
Mountain West	2
West Coast	2
Pac-12	2

[utefansince79]

PAC12 had about 5 teams projected in the earliest bracketology.  But had a horrendous pre-season with few quality wins and a heap of bad losses.

 

 

[PlainsUte]

Pac-12 needs to do a much better job of OOC scheduling.  Big-12 is excelling in November and December without relying on patsies.  I think that is how the Big-12 is projected to get 2/3rds of their teams into the Big Dance.   

For example Oklahoma benefitted from playing in both the Battle for Atlantis (2-1, wins over Dayton and Florida, loss to Wisc) and the Jimmy V Classic (1-0 vs Norte Dame); they also played Creighton and at USC.  Only patsies were their exhibition games and one game vs. North Texas.  So although Oklahoma is only 4-10 vs Quadrant One teams, they are 6-2 vs Q2, 9-0 vs Q3 and played zero Q4 teams.  That gets them 39 in the NET rankings.

In contrast Ariz State (21-9) is 3-3 vs Q1, 8-2 vs Q2 (similar or better than OU), but 4-2 vs Q3 and 6-2 vs Q4 (two really bad losses, there). They have won 5 of their last 6, so maybe they can make a run in the Pac-12 tourney and either take the title or move up in NET.

Lesson learned:  Aviod scheduling Q4 teams, take care of business vs Q3 teams.

[Charlie]

Strange year to be sure. I have watched a lot of Pac, WCC and MWC games. If they were all lumped into a super conference, I think the top 10 would be heavily Pac teams. I would fear several Pac teams in a tournament more than the top WCC or MWC teams. I would feel more confident with a rematch with Nevada than with Washington or ASU. As a conference we had an awful preseason following a poor year last year. The improvement of several teams will only be realized by wins in tournaments or OOC games next year.