Pac-12 Basketball: UCLA, Oregon atop WTE offseason rankings for 2022-23

We’re now a few days removed from the deadline for players to remove themselves from the NBA Draft pool. We’ve had a few months of heavy activity on the Transfer Portal and the coaching carousel has basically come to a stop. It’s been long enough into the offseason that these rosters are really starting to take shape.

The Pac-12 has been quite the conference in recent years, albeit a bit disappointing for a power conference. Teams like Arizona and Oregon have been perennial contenders in the league, but UCLA has come on strong in recent years. USC has also put together some impressive teams and we’ve seen glimpses of success from Colorado, Oregon State, and Washington State recently. Unfortunately, this league has also produced some pretty rough teams in recent years as well.

At this point in the year, we’re going to take a closer look at the teams in the Pac-12. These rosters are still not finalized, but we have a much better idea on these teams right now than we have these last few months. We’re going to dive into these teams and rank them how they currently stand.

12. Oregon State

Back in 2021, Oregon State was one of the surprises of the postseason, not just making the NCAA Tournament but marching to the Elite Eight as a 12-seed. This past season was the complete opposite, with a 3-28 mess that included an 18-game losing streak to end the year. We’re not so sure this season’s going to be much better than the last.

Oregon State loses their top five leading scorers, with Jarod Lucas transferring to Nevada and Dashawn Davis off to Mississippi State. The Beavers are left to depend more on sophomore forward Glenn Taylor Jr. (6.9 ppg last season) and senior guard Dexter Akanno, who worked his way into the starting lineup last year. They’ll add Christian Wright, a guard from Georgia who struggled mightily with his shooting, and hope that returning players like Ahmad Rand and Isaiah Johnson can take that next step forward.

There’s no player on this roster that screams future star and the Beavers might be in for another season of struggle. One positive is that this lineup is very young and has the potential to mesh together if they don’t transfer in the next couple of seasons. For this year, there’s a certain lack of talent at Oregon State and it won’t be a shocker if they’re pulling up the rear in the Pac-12 again.