With some impressive new recruits coming to Pac-12 Basketball, let’s take a closer look at some of the impact players for next season in this conference.
In recent years, the landscape in Pac-12 Basketball has been quite a struggle. Oregon took advantage last season, getting hot at the right time and marching to the Sweet Sixteen as an underappreciated 12-seed. Aside from them and an upstart Washington squad, many of the teams struggled mightily.
Arizona still deals with FBI aftermath, while UCLA breaks in a new head coach. Teams like Stanford and USC have played poorly these last few seasons, while cellar dwellers California and Washington State break in new head coaches. There has been promise from Arizona State and Oregon State, but promise isn’t going to turn this conference around.
Moving forward, each of these programs knew that they’d need to bring in high-class recruits to turn around their programs. There is some impressive young talent headed to the Pac-12 this coming season, with higher expectations definitely surrounding most of the conference. The tricky part about recruiting is putting these prospects in the best position for success, and we’ll just have to see how many of these programs can accomplish this.
Looking ahead, we’re going to focus on the fifteen freshmen expected to have the highest impact on the upcoming season. They were all highly ranked by recruiting websites and every single one of them was highly sought after. When they get on campus and start playing games, we’ll see how many of them live up to the hype, because the Pac-12 is a very winnable league going forward.
As Mick Cronin, Mark Fox, and Kyle Smith familiarize themselves with Pac-12 Basketball, the rest of these coaches welcome in a new batch of recruits, hoping to progress in a positive direction. Without further ado, let’s start running through some of these new names and see just what kind of players this conference has landed.