At 7-0 in Pac-12 play so far, UCLA jumped into the Associated Press Top 25 poll Monday at No. 23, while Colorado and USC were just outside.
Oregon remains the highest-ranked Pac-12 team (21), though the Ducks are on a COVID pause and didn't play ASU or UA last week. Colorado received the 27th most points in voting while USC was 30th.
No other Pac-12 teams received any votes but Arizona continues to show up in the metrics in line for a potential NCAA bid if the Wildcats had left themselves eligible. UA is No. 31 in the NET, 29 in Kenpom and 41 in Sagarin.
Not surprisingly, Arizona has nominated Bennedict Mathurin for both Pac-12 Player of the Week and Freshman of the Week after his 31-point performance at OSU.
The major obstacle Mathurin could face is that his stats came off only one game, while two other top Player of the Week candidates, Colorado's McKinley Wright and USC's Evan Mobley, led their teams to three victories last week.
Mathurin shot 10 of 12 overall and 6 of 7 from three in the Wildcats' 98-64 win at OSU, while Wright averaged 12.0 points and 8.0 assists in Colorado's wins over Utah, Cal and Stanford, and Mobley averaged 17.7 points and 6.7 rebounds in USC's wins over UC Riverside, Washington and Washington State.
Mobley was also nominated for the Freshman of the Week award, while Colorado's Jabari Walker was nominated after a breakout week in which he averaged 16.3 points and 9.7 rebounds in the Buffs' three wins.
FWIW, here's the ballot I submitted to the AP Top 25:
1 Gonzaga
2 Baylor
3 Villanova
4 Iowa
5 Tennessee
6 Houston
7 Texas
8 Kansas
9 Creighton
10 Michigan
11 Wisconsin
12 Texas Tech
13 Virginia
14 Ohio State
15 West Virginia
16 Missouri
17 Florida state
18 Oregon
19 Illinois
20 Clemson
21 UCLA
22 Louisville
23 UConn
24 USC
25 Minnesota
