UW is back in the AP poll at #23. They are 28th in the ESPN/USA Today poll. This is likely the first year the AP poll has favored us more than the Coaches poll. Arizona also received some poll votes.
The latest bracket came out from "bracketologist" Joe Lunardi. He currently has three Pac-10 teams in the tournament, one on the bubble, and one in the Next Four Out list. UW is a 5 seed, UA is a 10 seed, WSU is an 11 seed, USC is on the bubble as an 11 seed, and UCLA is in the Next Four Out category.
As awesome the OSU upset of Arizona is, it also kills the conference RPI. Because OSU lost to several terrible teams they have a poor RPI. Now that UA has lost to OSU their RPI also drops meaning any team they play also suffers some drop in RPI.
If the conference wants to return to its glory days of 4-6 tournament bids teams like UO and OSU need to lose and lose often. No more upsets. The loss is nice though as it effectively gives UW a 1 game lead on Arizona if UW gets things done this week at home against UO and OSU.
With our average home victory margin at 33.4 ppg it is hard to imagine that we will lose to either school, but stranger things have happened. Last season UO beat us at home by a sizable margin. OSU upset UA on Sunday. If the Huskies want to remain in the polls and gain a higher seed they need to play well at home and sweep anyone who comes into our house. They also need to win tough games on the road. So far they picked up what may be two of the toughest games of the year. Both USC and UCLA could have resulted in losses and no one would have been surprised. The fact that we swept LA came as a big surprise to many people.
Also, Matthew Bryan-Amaning won the Pac-10 Player of the Week award for averaging 19.5 points per game and 9 rebounds per game during UW's sweep of the LA schools, UCLA and USC.
I will have a preview for Oregon up sometime late Wednesday.
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