Arizona was left out of the Associated Press preseason Top 25 poll Monday for the first time in seven years.
The Wildcats have been in every AP preseason Top 25 since the beginning of the 2010-11 season, when they were coming off an entirely unranked season during Sean Miller's first year at Arizona in 2009-10. But the Wildcats rose as high as No. 10 during the 2010-11 season and reached the NCAA Sweet Sixteen behind the leadership of Derrick Williams and MoMo Jones.
While the Wildcats have spent the vast majority of the Miller era in the Top 25 preseason and weekly polls, Arizona also spent most of its 2011-12 NIT season unranked and was unranked for two weeks early last season after going 0-3 in the Battle 4 Atlantis.
In this season's preseason poll, three Pac-12 teams were ranked: Oregon at No. 14, UCLA at 21 and Washington at 25 (and the Huskies already may have proven themselves worthy by blowing out No. 7 Nevada in an exhibition game).
Three teams in the Maui Invitational bracket were also ranked: No. 3 Gonzaga, No. 4 Duke and No. 11 Auburn. The Wildcats will open with Iowa State and will face Gonzaga in the semifinals if both teams win their first games.
Iowa State, however, returns a strong core of players and is ranked No. 25 in Kenpom's preseason rankings.
The Wildcats were ranked No. 76 by Kenpom and were not in most major Top 25s though Lindy's has UA at No. 16 and Mike DeCourcy of Sporting News has them at 25.
The AP asked me to be Arizona's voter this season. Here was the preseason ballot I submitted:
1 Kentucky
2 Kansas
3 Gonzaga
4 North Carolina
5 Tennessee
6 Duke
7 Nevada
8 Virginia
9 Villanova
10 Auburn
11 Michigan State
12 Kansas State
13 Oregon
14 Virginia Tech
15 Florida State
16 West Virginia
17 Syracuse
18 TCU
19 Michigan
20 UCLA
21 Indiana
22 Loyola
23 Cincinnati
24 Washington
25 Wisconsin
Here's the box score from that Washington-Nevada game. The Huskies were without the injured Noah Dickerson, too.
Terry Armstrong's trainer said the two had a good visit to New Mexico. Armstrong joined an estimated 6,700 fans for the Lobos' Cherry-Silver game.
The jury has begun deliberations in the trial of three figures around college basketball.
