Pac-12 Basketball Power Rankings: ASU leads, UCLA falls after non-conference play

Pac-12 Basketball collectively had the worst early season performance of any major power conference. How do the teams stack up going into conference play?

You know how people say that the start of conference play is like hitting the reset button on a season? No one is hoping that’s true more than the entire Pac-12.

Arizona State is the only team in the conference that enters 2019 ranked and every single team has at least one extremely disappointing loss. The Pac-12’s struggles have become a nightly punchline that just keeps snowballing on itself.

UCLA’s struggles have been so bad that they’ve already fired head coach Steve Alford, an early move that is extremely rare in college basketball. It has allowed the Bruins to begin searching for a permanent replacement but, in reality, the school made the move because he had lost the team and – perhaps more importantly – the fan base.

The downside of everyone’s struggles is that there are virtually no opportunities for resume-boosting wins in conference play. But, on the flip side, there is no dominant team, which should make everyone feel like they have a shot to do really well.

Despite a loss to Princeton in their last outing, Arizona State remains the clear No. 1 team in the Pac-12 heading into 2019 (that alone should tell you how poorly the conference is playing). How does everyone else stack up behind the Sun Devils?

Here are our latest Pac-12 Power Rankings heading into conference play.