Arizona moved up two spots to No. 19 in the AP Top 25 poll after beating NAU and Illinois to open the season.
The fact that there are now three other Pac-12 teams in the poll for the first time since January 2017 is another sign the Wildcats have a challenging conference season ahead of them, too.
#Pac12Hoops with four teams in AP Top 25 for first time since 1/9/17 - a span of 50 polls:#14 Oregon#19 Arizona#20 Washington#25 Colorado https://t.co/onHzAJWFWD
— Jesse Hooker (@TheJHooker) November 11, 2019
Oregon moved to No. 14 while Washington jumped in at No. 20 after beating Baylor and Colorado moved in at No. 25 after beating ASU in China. Washington and Colorado were the two top vote-getters among unranked teams in the preseason AP poll.
Colorado's appearance was its first in nearly six years.Β
FWIW, I moved Arizona in at No. 23 on my ballot.
Collectively, the Pac-12Β went 18-1 to start the nonconference season -- and the lone loss was actually a bit of cannibalization (ASU's loss to Colorado win in China was technically a nonconference game).
Removing the China game put the Pac-12 at 17-0 with a 3-0 mark against major conference teams, according to Pac-12 publicist Jesse Hooker.
#Pac12Hoops off to an encouragingly solid 18-1 start to 2019-20 non-conference play, including 4-1 vs. major conference opponents - 17-0/3-0 removing COLO/ASU result.For context, opened 18-5/0-4 in 2018-19.
— Jesse Hooker (@TheJHooker) November 11, 2019
Kenpom and Sagarin both rank UA the highest among Pac-12 teams.
Kenpom has UA 16, Oregon 22, Colorado 34 and Washington 43 while Sagarin has UA 8, Washington 17, Oregon 20, Colorado 33 and USC 39.
While there wasn't time for postgame comments in our print game story about UA's 90-69 win over Illinois, the postgame blog post has reaction from Sean Miller, Nico Mannion and Josh Green. We'll have more posted later Monday and in Tuesday's print edition.
