Can The Pac-12 Be A One-Big League?

Oregon 78, Stanford 67
Oregon St 92, California 85
Utah 62, Washington State 60
Arizona State 62, USC 53
Colorado 87, Washington 69
UCLA 65, Arizona 58

I'm going to break my usual format to talk about a truly horrid night that the Pac-12 had on Thursday. All 12 teams were in action, and the inferior team won all six games. If you wanted to draw up a path to a one-bid BCS league, this would be the night you'd come up with. So it made me talk on twitter a bit, and wonder offline, is it really possible that the Pac-12 could be a one-bid league?

First of all, there has never been a one-bid BCS league in the 64/65/68 team NCAA Tournament era. The worst seeds that any conference has received belong to the 1985/86 Pac-10 conference, which earned a 9 seed and a 12 seed. The only other BCS league to only receive two bids was the 2009-10 Pac-10 team, which earned an 8 and 11 seed.

Sadly, the advanced computer ratings only go back about a decade, so we can't look back at that 1985-86 Pac-10 league. But we can look at the Pac-10 team from two years ago. One thing that stands out to me immediately is that as bad as the conference was, it was still the sixth rated conference in both Sagarin and Pomeroy. In fact, the only time in the past decade that the six BCS conference weren't the six highest rated conferences was the 2003-04 season, when the Pac-10 finished 9th in both the Sagarin and Pomeroy ratings. This season, so far, the Pac-12 is rated 7th by Pomeroy and 8th by Sagarin.

But the reality is that, despite what many people think, NCAA Tournament bids aren't doled out to conferences, but to teams. Two years ago when the Pac-12 got two Tournament teams, the lower rated Atlantic Ten earned three and the even-lower rated Mountain West earned four. Why? Because those conferences had several teams that did damage out-of-conference and had nice conference records, and that was enough to earn a bid despite the weakness of some of their conference foes. The same was true with the 2003-04 Pac-10, which earned three bids because Arizona won a couple of nice games in their non-conference slate and then held on with an 11-7 conference record. Stanford, at 17-1, couldn't get left out. Washington was the dicey team, at 12-6 and without any big non-conference wins. They did get a quality win over Stanford, though, and swept Arizona, and then ran all the way to the Pac-10 title game where they played a competitive game again versus Stanford. Those sorts of quality wins won't be available in this year's Pac-12.

Very good conference records will still put these Pac-12 teams in the Tournament. Stanford, California, Arizona and possibly others will likely be NCAA Tournament teams if they can get to 12-6 or better. But that's why Thursday night was such a disaster: All the wrong teams won. A team like Utah isn't going to the NCAA Tournament no matter what. Any game Utah wins in conference play is bad for the conference's Tournament hopes.

So obviously we've got a long way to go. Stanford and Cal could each still go 13-5 and be Tournament locks on Selection Sunday. But they might not. Let's do a quick breakdown:

Stanford and Cal have the two strongest non-conference resumes. Stanford beat NC State and Oklahoma State, and had just one iffy loss (Butler). Assuming they avoid any losses to the real bottom-feeders (Utah, Arizona State and maybe USC), they should make the NCAA Tournament if they can get to 12-6. California had no big wins (their best win was either the one over Georgia, Denver or UCSB) but they had no bad losses either. Assuming they can avoid any really bad losses, they also should be in good shape if they can get to 12-6 in conference play.

Arizona was the team I picked preseason to win the Pac-12, and they're still the team I think is most talented. But they've had bad luck in close games (they took Florida to overtime and took San Diego State down to the final seconds, but lost both), and so they're going to end up without any big wins on Selection Sunday. They entered Pac-12 play with only a 9-4 record, which means that even a 12-6 finish would make them 21-10 and would put them on the Tournament bubble. They'd probably have to win at least one game in the Pac-12 tournament.

The other teams that could realistically make a run at an at-large bid? I'd include both Washington, Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State and UCLA, in no particular order. Though in all cases I think a 12-6 record is the bare minimum to have a realistic shot at an at-large bid.

And since I've said all that, I'll point out that (naturally) the team winning the conference, and the only team still undefeated in Pac-12 play, is a Colorado team that went 7-4 against Division I teams out-of-conference, with zero quality wins and bad losses to Maryland, Wyoming and Colorado State. Even if they get to 12-6, Colorado would still need a win or two in the Pac-12 tournament to have a chance at a bid.

So if California and Stanford somehow only finish 11-7, and if no more than one team finishes better than 12-6? Yes, a single NCAA Tournament bid would absolutely be very realistic. And if the conference wants to point to a single dreadful night that created that embarrassment? Thursday, January 5th would have to be near the top of the list.