With ASU dropping out after its loss to San Diego State and close call against GCU, no Pac-12 teams remain in the Associated Press Top 25.
However, Arizona was one of four Pac-12 teams also receiving votes, the 37th most points in voting overall. Oregon finished 31 in point totals, with ASU at 34 and UCLA at 35.
Gonzaga (1) and SDSU (18) are the only two teams in the poll located west of the Central Time Zone.
Since it mutually agreed to postpone a Dec. 5 game at Gonzaga (which would have been canceled anyway after the Bulldogs ran into COVID issues that day), the Wildcats have no currently ranked teams on their schedule. Their schedule strength so far is ranked No. 283 by KenpomΒ (far right column) and 290 by SagarinΒ (just right of W-L mark) out of 357 Division I teams.
FWIW, I usually factor in a constantly declining amount of preseason expectations in my vote until about three or four weeks into the season (though this is a tricky season because of all the COVID-19 stoppages) so this time I dropped Virginia and Duke out.
Here was the ballot I submitted to the AP:
1 Gonzaga
2 Baylor
3 Villanova
4 Kansas
5 Iowa
6 Michigan State
7 Texas
8 West Virginia
9 Houston
10 Wisconsin
11 Texas Tech
12 Tennessee
13 Ohio State
14 Florida State
15 Creighton
16 San Diego State
17 Missouri
18 Illinois
19 Michigan
20 North Carolina
21 Clemson
22 Oregon
23 Xavier
24 Oklahoma State
25 Louisville
After its three home wins, Arizona nominated Jemarl Baker for Pac-12 Freshman of the Week and Bennedict Mathurin for Freshman of the Week. The awards will be announced Monday afternoon.
Baker's case will rest largely on having hit his first seven 3-pointers en route to a 33-point game against NAU on Dec. 7.
His top competition for the award may be Oregon's N'Faly Dante, who had a double-double of 12 points and 10 rebounds in the Ducks' win at Washington and 22 points on 10-for-10 shooting at home against Florida A&M.
In three games overall on the week, Baker averaged 19.7 points on 64.7% shooting while making 10 of 20 3s. He also averaged 2.0 assists, 2.0 turnovers and 1.0 steals.
Mathurin, meanwhile, averaged 13.0 points, 6.0 rebounds and shot 57.1% in UA's three home wins.
Also nominated for the freshman award were USC's Evan Mobley, who had 22 points and 11 rebounds in the Trojans' home win over UC Irvine, and WSU's Andrej Jakimovski, who averaged 11.5 points and 5.5 rebounds in the Cougars' two home wins.
