The once-mighty Pac-10 is in a sad state of disrepair these days, and there's not much hope on the horizon as the conference expands to 12 teams next season. Why? That's a question that's tough to answer, but there are a couple possible reasons.
As we look at where the Pac-10 has been over the past couple decades, it's clear that it goes through times of prosperity and times of drought. From the 2006-2007 through 2008-2009 seasons, the conference saw its greatest collective success with six teams being selected to the NCAA tournament in each of those three years. But then things dropped off drastically last season when only two teams — Washington and California — made it to the Big Dance. Even mighty Arizona fell upon lean times when it missed the tournament for the first time in more than two decades.
This season doesn't look like it will shape up to be much better. Currently, only one team is ranked in the AP top 25 (Washington at No. 20), and Arizona squeaks into the Coaches Poll at No. 25. Other than that, nobody else is really getting much attention nationally.
There were shades of brilliance in the non-conference part of the schedule, though: Washington's win over Texas A&M, Washington State roasting Gonzaga and Baylor, and USC beating Texas. But since the conference schedule began, those who once looked like pleasant surprises have turned out to be mediocre and the top teams are still not on par with the elite of the nation. Three weeks into the games that matter and both Arizona and Washington have lost to lesser teams, Washington State is 3-3 after going 10-2 in non-league, and even lowly Oregon has won a Pac-10 game. If the conference gets more than two teams into March Madness this year, it will be a miracle.
When trying to surmise why the sudden drop off in competitiveness, one can only look at two factors — early entrants to the NBA and below-average recruiting.
First, the conference was fortunate to not lose any underclassmen to pro basketball last year, but three jumped ship in 2009 and two others in 2008. Imagine how different the conference might look this year if Kevin Love and Jrue Holiday had decided to stick out their four years at UCLA. And wouldn't USC probably be better with O.J. Mayo and DeMar DeRozan still on the roster? Both Love and Mayo would be seniors this year, and Holiday and DeRozan would be juniors. Plus, Arizona State would still have James Hardin, who entered the draft as a sophomore in 2009. Those are some pretty good players to lose early.
But what is the conference doing to plug those holes? Not much, it appears. In the past two years, the Pac-10 has signed 15 of the top 100 recruits, according to MaxPreps.com. This year so far, only seven have either signed or committed to playing at a Pac-10 (or 12) school next season. Every other major basketball conference (ACC, Big East, Big 10, Big 12, and SEC), except for Conference USA, has more top 100 recruits coming their way next year. That's not a good sign, especially when two of those conferences — the Big East and SEC — are getting three times as many blue chippers to come to their schools as the Pac-10 does.
Digging a little deeper, the conference is also losing top recruits from their own states to schools elsewhere. Of the top 100 high school players this year, 10 of them come from schools within the four Pac-10 states. Four of them are going to schools outside the Pac-10, and two have yet to decide. On the flip side, the conference isn't pulling in top recruits from outside its home states, either. Only three recruits from states other than Washington, Oregon, California, or Arizona are heading west, and one of them is coming from Nevada, so he doesn't really count.
Along with that, it seems to be a trend that's been happening for at least a couple years. Looking at the current rosters of the AP top 25, except for Washington (for obvious reasons), San Diego State, and St. Mary's (both in California), all but eight of the remaining 22 teams have at least one player from a Pac-10 state. In reverse, about a third of the players in the Pac-10 came from states outside the four. In summary, that means that the conference is losing players to schools elsewhere and is struggling to attract top talent from elsewhere in the nation.
So when Colorado and Utah enter the conference next year, will that boost the national image of the Pac-Twelve? It's doubtful that the rest of the country will look at the new line up and say, "Ooh, scary!" Utah, a once perennial tournament team, has fallen on hard times, making the Dance just once in the past five years. And Colorado has been there only twice in the past 20 years. It's not exactly what one would call adding traditional powerhouses to the fold.
But don't think it's all doom and gloom for a conference that is experiencing one of its leanest times in recent history. Will it ever see the same success it had in the three seasons prior to last year? Maybe not, but if the ebb and flow of college basketball and of Pac-10 history is any indication, it will be back sooner than later — maybe even better than ever.
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