Pac-12 Basketball: Why league in 2020-21 hasn’t been as bad as you think

Stanford Cardinal and Arizona Wildcats

Stanford may have a bunch of losses, but they absolutely have the best win in the conference. Knocking off Alabama early on in the season will do wonders for their resume. Since then, they have certainly had their fair share of adversity. Nobody is going to feel sorry for you, but not having three key players out for an extended period of time will not help things.

Luckily for the Cardinal, Oscar Da Silva is on the court playing at an extremely high level. He certainly deserves to be the player of the year in the PAC-12. Without that trio against UCLA, Da Silva hit a buzzer-beating layup in overtime to knock off UCLA. That was one of the grittiest wins of the season, and it showed on Jerod Haase’s face. Stanford is a good team, but they have to get healthy.

Lastly, the Arizona Wildcats are kind of, sort of in the mix. Nothing about them this year screams tournament. They don’t have the top tier talent of previous years, as well as them taking the non-conference for granted. They didn’t schedule anyone and their best win from the non-conference was a 70-67 win against Eastern Washington.

Their best win is a home win early in the season against Colorado. They can play themselves into the dance if they take care of business, but they don’t have much room for error. The transfer, James Akinjo, is leading Sean Miller’s Wildcats averaging close to 15 points and six assists a game.

All said and done, this conference has a bad reputation, but if half the teams are realistically vying for a tournament bid, maybe they should warrant a little more respect.