Washington No Lock in Rebuilt Pac-10

Unless you're the most diehard of fans, college hoops probably isn't too high on your radar right now. You've got the NFL and college football days from kick-off, the baseball pennant race, the ongoing train wreck that is Tiger Woods, and whatever racing fans watch.

But for those who go looking, the slow rise to March Madness has begun. It's found in the preview-before-the-preview stories, like Joe Lunardi's "Bracket scenarios for Summer Buzz teams," published a few weeks back on ESPN.com.

In the piece, based off the ESPN Summer Buzz series, Lunardi took a look at 20 teams from around the country and gave a brief upside and downside for each team.

The scenarios for one team in particular, the Washington Huskies, caught my eye:

Lunardi's upside: the Huskies emerge as the class of the Pac-10.

Lunardi's downside: the Huskies emerge as the class of the Pac-10.

Well then.

The Huskies, you might remember, were last seen in the Sweet 16 as an 11-seed being bounced by West Virginia. The fact they made the Sweet 16 was nice. The fact they had to do it as an 11-seed should tell you they were fairly far from juggernaut status.

The Huskies' leading scorer from last season was Quincy Pondexter, who parlayed one year of consistent production into a first-round slot in the NBA draft. Pondexter was also their leading rebounder.

I mention this because it's important to realize that what Lunardi is actually saying is that the downside for a team that lost its leading scorer and leading rebounder (not to mention their best three-point shooter in Elston Turner, who left for Texas A&M) is being the best team in the Pac-10.

So either Lunardi has a huge amount of faith in Huskies coach Lorenzo Romar and the returning cast, or he just really thinks the Pac-10 is going to suck next season.

Or, in the words of the great Abe Simpson, perhaps it's "a little from column A, a little from column B."

With four returning starters, the Huskies' cupboard is far from bare. Back is junior guard Isiah Thomas, a first-team All-Pac-10 selection last year and their second-leading scorer at 16.9 points per game, as are senior forward Matthew Bryan-Amaning (8.8 ppg, 5.9 rpg), senior guard Venoy Overton (Pac-10 All-Defensive Team), and sophomore guard Abdul Gaddy, a highly-touted recruit who disappointed slightly as a freshman, but spent the summer working on his game with the Team USA U18 National Team.

They also added in transfer center Aziz N'Diaye, who stands 7-foot and 255 pounds, and incoming recruit Terrence Ross, the Oregonian Class 5A Player of the Year in 2008 and No. 30 ESPNU Top 100 recruit.

On the flip side, Thomas is a shoot-first guard who doesn't shoot very well (41 percent overall, 33 percent from three), Bryan-Amaning will always be undersized and doesn't have much range, Overton is a total non-threat offensively, and Gaddy was just an end-of-bench scrub on that USA U18 team.

Oh, and N'Diaye is coming off an ACL tear and Ross lost his senior season of high school eligibility after transferring from his original high school to another and then transferring back. Neither played in the 2009-2010 season, so expecting a major contribution from them this year would be asking a lot.

So yeah, Washington has some pieces. But they're not the only Pac-10 team with some conference championship and NCAA tournament viability.

In Ken Bone's second season at Washington State, the Cougars return all five starters from last year's 16-15 squad, including the top returning scorer in the conference in Klay Thompson (19.6 ppg).

Also in his second season, Arizona's Sean Miller lost senior point guard Nic Wise to German pro ball, but brings back a group of talented sophomores who got valuable experience as freshmen. Among that group is Pac-10 Freshman of the Year Derrick Williams, plus Solomon Hill, Kevin Parrom, Kyryl Natyazhko and Momo Jones, who will likely step into Wise's role at point guard.

Speaking of experience, Herb Sendek at Arizona State brings back three senior starters with Ty Abbot, Rihards Kuksiks, and Jamelle McMillan, plus the suffocating style of defense that held 14 opponents to 55 points or fewer last year.

You don't know exactly what Oregon will look like in Dana Altman's first season, but they do bring back a solid inside-outside duo in juniors Malcolm Armstead at the point and Michael Dunigan in the paint.

And though the shine has certainly come off Ben Howland and the UCLA Bruins, they do bring in center Josh Smith (No. 20 ESPNU Top 100) and guard Tyler Lamb (No. 28) to go along with junior guards Malcolm Lee and Jerime Anderson.

So are the Huskies the favorites? Yeah, sure. But the conference isn't so weak that their worst case is still finishing first. Lunardi should know better.

Or maybe it was just a typo.