I think it is going to be a great year and hopefully we get a lot of teams in the NCAA Tournament.” “Looking forward to a great season for the Pac-12,” said Washington coach Mike Hopkins. Takeaways from Runnin’ Utes’ 93-58 exhibition win over Westminster CollegeĪlso, the league welcomes four McDonald’s All-Americans and seven of the top 50 recruits in the country, per ESPN’s recruiting rankings.Runnin’ Utes host ‘mysterious’ Long Island in their season-opener Monday.Zaninovich said having 13 returning all-conference players “will be important to our success this year.” One reason for the optimism is that many top players opted to return to school, rather than jump to the NBA. “We are proud of not only the top of our conference, but also the depth,” Zaninovich said. Zaninovich noted that Arizona, UCLA and USC were ranked in the AP Top 25 for all 18 weeks of the season, and in January all three were in the top six. We aspire for more than that, but we had three highly seeded teams last year, Arizona a one, UCLA a four and USC a seven.”Īdded Zaninovich: “We are very optimistic about the season.”Ī record six Pac-12 teams won 20 or more games last year, the sixth time in the last 20 years that has happened. … Three teams made the NCAA Tournament last year. “Our goals are to optimize for national championships, and for NCAA Tournament bids. “As a conference, our goals remain the same,” Kliavkoff said. Optimism abounded at the recent Pac-12 men’s basketball media day in San Francisco, partly because expectations are high that Oregon, Stanford and maybe even Colorado have what it takes to join Arizona, UCLA and USC in March Madness next spring.Ĭommissioner George Kliavkoff and deputy commissioner Jamie Zaninovich, who oversees men’s basketball, both predicted a big season for the conference in 2022-23. It seemed to be a breakout year for the so-called Conference of Champions, which hasn’t won a men’s basketball national championship since Arizona cut down the nets in 1997.īut last year, the conference took a step backward as only three teams qualified for the Big Dance - Arizona, UCLA and USC - and No. is important to us.” - Oregon coach Dana Altman on USC and UCLA leaving the Pac-12 for the Big Ten in 2024 We have 10 good teams (after 2024) and it is our challenge to improve and get better.
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