Pac-12 Basketball: Preseason power rankings for 2021-22 season

The Pac-12 Basketball season returns with a feeling of unfinished business. In terms of national dialogue, you would have thought that the UCLA Bruins are the returning victors of the Conference of Champions. And that in some regards is fair, as they were the last remaining Pac-12 team the last weekend of a tournament that saw the Pac-12 an astounding 12-5 in their matchups, far exceeding their 2-5 projection by seeding.

But this is a conference with a lot of storylines that make this season feel a bit like a part two. The Ducks return a solid portion of their roster and try to fight the injury bug to recapture the regular-season title. The aforementioned Bruins are back with their key contributors, solid newcomers, and a full season of Mick Cronin’s schemes. USC will try to maintain the course with just one Mobley brother this go around and the Cinderellas from Corvallis, the Oregon State Beavers look to see if the slipper still fits.

There are new characters in the conference, however. The Arizona Wildcats tried their best to save face with possible impending sanctions by hiring the affable longtime Gonzaga assistant Tommy Lloyd. Meanwhile, after another disappointing season, the Utes brought in Craig Smith to reshape the program and help them become a tournament threat as he did with Utah State.

From a publicity standpoint, it appears that this is the Bruins’ conference to lose. They were voted second in the preseason AP Top 25 poll with eight first-place votes (they were ranked third in the Busting Brackets preseason poll. But how close is their competition? In a league where no one walked away with less than four conference losses, can we expect another season of parity with no nights off, or will the top tiers of the conference continue to pull away from the rest?