West Coast
1. Gonzaga
2. BYU
3. Saint Mary's
4. Santa Clara
5. San Francisco
6. Loyola Marymount
7. Pepperdine
8. Portland
9. San Diego
BYU certainly could challenge Gonzaga for the title, but I think there is too much unfamiliarity for the Cougars to hold off all of those lesser opponents on the road. St. Mary's just hasn't reached that elite level yet. Santa Clara, San Francisco, and Loyola have played well at home but they have been pathetic on the road and won't challenge the top three. Pepperdine is the closest of the bottom three to getting out of the "cellar" group, but they lost to a couple of bad teams AT HOME already this year, so don't expect them to knock Loyola Marymount down. Portland gets the nod over San Diego, in spite of their loss to Utah.
Pac 12
1. Arizona
2. California
3. Stanford
4. Oregon
5. UCLA
6. Oregon State
7. Washington
8. Washington State
9. Colorado
10. Arizona State
11. USC
12. Utah
Zona will be good. Cal and Stanford really haven't been tested yet. UCLA started slow but has come on of late. Oregon gets the fourth spot over UCLA because the one and only head-to-head matchup comes at Oregon, which is a pretty tough place to play. Spots 6-9 are really up for grabs. Oregon State and CU only play once, and it's at CU. The Washington's have both been a bit scrubby early in this season, but they have had too much recent success to expect them to fall too low. Plus, they only play Cal and Stanford once, and they get those games at home, so I give them a slight nod over Colorado, who starts former Utah 6th man Carlon Brown. CU probably starts off hot, but I think they'll fade a bit down the stretch. I honestly don't know if Utah will win two Pac 12 games this season. I think over the past three years they have had 9 players transfer out of the program. The players they had weren't that good to begin with, so to downgrade from that AND move into a BCS conference (albeit one that is currently in a worse state the MWC) is not a good combination.
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