2023-24 Pac-12 Week 8
Evaluating the pre-conference schedules
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Most Pac-12 teams will start their conference season this week. The Washington schools and the Arizona schools got things started earlier in December with Arizona and Washington taking the wins in their rivalry games, but the other eight teams tip things off just before the new year. It’s time to take stock of their nonconference performances.
There are a lot of gaudy records in the league. Undefeated and one-loss Pac-12 teams are up and down the national rankings. That doesn’t necessarily mean those teams will end up at the front of the pack when the season ends, though. The fact is that some of the teams—including some ranked very well in the Associated Press Top 25—played few if any quality opponents or rarely left the cozy environments of their home arenas.
How do the nonconference schedules and results of the 12 teams compare? While women’s basketball doesn’t officially use the quadrant system that the men’s NET uses, it’s still a helpful concept for comparing schedules. Warren Nolan has nitty gritty sheets for women’s basketball that include quadrant breakdowns. What do they reveal about the Pac-12?
Arizona Wildcats (8-4, 1-0 Pac-12)
NET ranking: 41
Quad 1 record: 0-3
Quad 2 record: 2-1
Quad 3 record: 3-0
Quad 4 record: 3-0
It’s rare for Arizona to play a tough nonconference schedule. This year was an aberration in that head coach Adia Barnes scheduled a lot tougher than she has in the past. This season, that has turned into the 24th-toughest nonconference schedule based on the old RPI formula and the 41st-best based on the NET. The NET SOS is the toughest in the Pac-12 while the RPI SOS is third behind Stanford and UCLA. The losses have come against teams with an average NET of 26. The problem is that the wins aren’t very impressive; the average NET of those teams is 159. UA has one nonconference game left against Seattle, which is ranked No. 318 in the NET. That’s not going to help the team, but the rest of the schedule was relatively challenging. With a young team and short bench on top of that, the record isn’t as good as it has been going into Pac-12 play in recent years, but it might have prepared the team better for what it will face in the coming months.
Arizona State Sun Devils (8-4, 0-1 Pac-12)
NET ranking: 135
Quad 1 record: 0-1
Quad 2 record: 0-1
Quad 3 record: 3-2
Quad 4 record: 3-0
ASU’s only two games outside the bottom two quadrants were blowout losses to Texas in the Virgin Islands and Arizona at home. The Sun Devils also sport losses in quad three games at Grambling and against Grand Canyon at home. The out-of-conference schedule was not terribly challenging and they still struggled with it. ASU has one more pre-conference game to play when it faces Santa Clara at home on Dec. 30. A win against the team ranked No. 59 in the NET would help, but the nonconference slate is still going to have some glaring stumbling blocks to overcome. The Devils were chosen to finish last in the Pac-12, and both the start of their conference season and their overall record make that look likely.
California Golden Bears (10-2, 0-0 Pac-12)
NET ranking: 47
Quad 1 record: 1-2
Quad 2 record: 2-0
Quad 3 record: 2-0
Quad 4 record: 5-0
The Golden Bears have a feather in their cap with a road victory over Auburn that qualifies as a first-quadrant win. What’s dragging them down is that they played so many of their games against the bottom part of Division I and only left Haas Pavilion twice in nonconference play. Based on RPI, their strength of schedule is ranked a solid 49th. The NET is less impressed, placing it 122nd. They will find out quickly if it was enough to get them ready for conference play when they face Stanford on Friday, Dec. 29. The team looks better situated than it has during the rest of the Charmin Smith era.
Colorado Buffaloes (10-1, 0-0 Pac-12)
NET ranking: 24
Quad 1 record: 1-1
Quad 2 record: 2-0
Quad 3 record: 3-0
Quad 4 record: 4-0
The Buffaloes made a huge statement with their early season win over defending champion LSU. They dropped their other quad one game, a neutral site game against NC State, but the win over the Tigers will go a long way. It does most of the heavy lifting of CU’s current NET considering that the average NET of the 10 teams the Buffs have defeated is 165. The next step is taking on the Utah Utes to start Pac-12 play. Something’s gotta give between the Buffs and the Utes, who are ranked fourth in the NET.
Oregon Ducks (9-4, 0-0 Pac-12)
NET ranking: 88
Quad 1 record: 0-1
Quad 2 record: 2-2
Quad 3 record: 5-1
Quad 4 record: 2-0
Last season, Oregon head coach Kelly Graves had one of the toughest schedules in the country. Despite finishing just above .500, that schedule put the Ducks in the top 20 of the NET at season’s end. It just didn’t get them into the NCAA Tournament. This year, Graves did not put his young team against that kind of competition. Using traditional RPI, they played the 92nd-toughest nonconference schedule. According to NET, it’s No. 187, but they did avoid games against a lot of the very bottom of Division I. Unfortunately for them, they still dropped a lot of games. The average NET of teams they have losses to is 93 because of defeats against teams like Portland (100) and Utah Tech (206). The Ducks certainly have some things to figure out if they hope to make their absence from the tourney a short one.
Oregon State Beavers (10-0, 0-0 Pac-12)
NET ranking: 27
Quad 1 record: 0-0
Quad 2 record: 3-0
Quad 3 record: 4-0
Quad 4 record: 3-0
The Beavers are one of the teams whose gaudy record is hiding some things. They played no games that qualify as quad one. They did not leave Corvallis until the last two games before the holiday break, and they have played no true road games this season. They will not play a true road game until Jan. 5 when they have to make the trip to face USC followed by UCLA. The Beavs’ best win is a neutral-site victory over Texas Tech. They have one more out-of-conference game against Morgan State, which is No. 298 in the NET. Again, it will be at home. They are getting a lot of production out of Raegan Beers and are likely ready to take on an unsteady Oregon Ducks team at home when Pac-12 play opens this weekend. The question is what happens when they have to take a real step up in competition and leave Gill Coliseum.
Stanford Cardinal (10-1, 0-0 Pac-12)
NET ranking: 2
Quad 1 record: 3-1
Quad 2 record: 2-0
Quad 3 record: 3-0
Quad 4 record: 2-0
The Cardinal are doing what they always do: playing the best in the country and having success while doing it. They are tied with UCLA for the second-most games in quad one. Their only loss in those games was a road game at Gonzaga when Cameron Brink got hurt early and played just 11 minutes. Four of their games were played either on the road or at neutral sites, so they have experience playing away from Maples Pavilion. That tallies up to an out-of-conference schedule ranked 12th according to RPI and 53rd according to NET. They should be more than ready when they open conference play against Cal at Haas Pavilion on Friday, Dec. 29.
UCLA Bruins (11-0, 0-0 Pac-12)
NET ranking: 6
Quad 1 record: 4-0
Quad 2 record: 1-0
Quad 3 record: 1-0
Quad 4 record: 5-0
The Bruins loaded up on games against the best and the worst of Division I with little in between. It hasn’t mattered that almost half their games were quad four since they were so successful in their quad one games. No one in the league won more quad one games than the Bruins. They head into Pac-12 play ranked second in the Associated Press Top 25 and look to have all the pieces to cover all the bases. Great guards combined with great inside play make them extremely balanced. The coaches and media didn’t select them to finish first in the Pac-12. They got my vote in the media poll, though, and that’s still a comfortable vote.
USC Women of Troy (10-0, 0-0 Pac-12)
NET ranking: 11
Quad 1 record: 3-0
Quad 2 record: 2-0
Quad 3 record: 1-0
Quad 4 record: 4-0
The Women of Troy look great behind the play of super freshman JuJu Watkins. On the other hand, their strength of schedule ranks 43rd according to RPI and 68th according to the NET. Why? Because despite going 3-0 in quad one competition, they’ve only played one true road game (in Long Beach, barely 25 miles away) and they have teams like LeMoyne on their schedule. LeMoyne is in its first year of Division I play and stands at 311 in the NET. Almost half of USC’s schedule has a NET of 204 or worse. It also played the toughest part of the schedule early in the season. Its quad three wins all came before Thanksgiving, as did one of its quad two wins. That doesn’t erase the fact that the team is 10-0 and has five wins in the top two quads. It just raises questions about whether it’s ready to jump back up into the teeth of tough play when UCLA rolls around on Dec. 30.
Utah Utes (8-2, 0-0 Pac-12)
NET ranking: 4
Quad 1 record: 1-2
Quad 2 record: 0-0
Quad 3 record: 3-0
Quad 4 record: 4-0
Utah’s own accounting of its schedule says it has a 10-2 record. Everyone else, including the official NCAA stats, says it’s 8-2. Scheduling Division II Alaska-Anchorage and NAIA Carroll College will do that. Those games don’t count for NCAA stats purposes, including the NET. The fact that the Utes have a NET ranking of four is a bit puzzling considering that seven of its official 10 games fall into quads three and four and it’s 1-2 in the other three games. The answer to that puzzle is that the Utes faced No. 1 South Carolina and No. 10 Baylor, so their losses come to teams with an average NET of five. With the NET’s formula, that outweighs the fact that their eight official wins are against teams with an average NET of 223. The Utes have the reigning Pac-12 Player of the Year. Alissa Pili is still Alissa Pili. However, they lost Gianna Kneepkens for the season when she broke her foot in early December. Can they overcome that when they start facing other teams ranked in the top 20 of the NET on a weekly basis? Colorado will be their first chance to prove that they can.
Washington Huskies (11-1, 1-0 Pac-12)
NET ranking: 30
Quad 1 record: 1-1
Quad 2 record: 0-0
Quad 3 record: 3-0
Quad 4 record: 7-0
Tina Langley looks to have the Washington Huskies back on the right track after many years of struggling. Like several other teams, she’s done it by getting wins against a softer schedule. However, despite only playing two games in the top two quadrants and only five in the top three quadrants, UW has a resume-building quad one win against Washington State in Pullman. It may have a nonconference schedule ranked 224 in RPI and 289 in the NET, but a quad one win is a huge boost. The Huskies also played Louisville close in a 59-51 road loss. Those two quad one games suggest that their success isn’t entirely about playing overmatched opponents. UW looks like it’s legitimately on its way up, but there are still a lot of teams in its way if it hopes to finish in the top half of the conference.
Washington State Cougars (11-3, 0-1 Pac-12)
NET ranking: 23
Quad 1 record: 2-3
Quad 2 record: 2-0
Quad 3 record: 2-0
Quad 4 record: 5-0
The Cougars didn’t start Pac-12 play the way they hoped. A home loss to Washington put them officially in last place in the league before any other conference games had been played. In nonconference play, they proved that they can compete with the best, though. Wins over Gonzaga and Maryland put them just under .500 in quad one games. They have also played more quad one games than anyone else in the Pac-12. The Cougs’ nonconference strength of schedule ranks 36th in RPI but a puzzling 90th in the NET despite four of their 13 pre-conference games ranking in the toughest group. The mysteries of the NET are many. The mystery of Washington State is whether the home loss to Washington was a fluke or a sign of things to come in the Pac-12.
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Fixed the information about UW. They are 11-1. North Carolina Central is hidden in our database as "NC Central". They used to be DII but no longer are.
This is the last Pac-12 season ever. By seasons end it will be the Pac-2. Wondering how that factors into ranking equations. Ten teams are leaving the Pac-12 conference at seasons end. Its going be an emotionally brutal season for everyone.