Tag: Pac-12 Media Poll

USC not picked to win Pac-12 championship in preseason basketball media poll

A lot of preseason top 25s have #USC ranked above Arizona, but the #Pac12 media poll has the Wildcats as the favorite to win the conference.

The 2024 Pac-12 basketball preseason media poll came out on Wednesday morning. The USC Trojans were not picked to win the conference championship in the Pac-12’s last season of college basketball.

The Arizona Wildcats were picked to win the league. This might be upsetting for USC basketball fans, but this also gives the Trojans fresh motivation for the upcoming season. A little bit of doubt from the outside world will hopefully fire up the Trojans and get them extra focused for the Kansas State season opener on November 6.

This is one of the most anticipated and important seasons in USC basketball history, if only because these kinds of seasons don’t come around very often. USC very rarely enters a season with a top-20 ranking. The Trojans will be a top-20 team when the USA TODAY Poll and the Associated Press Poll come out. USC rarely has a legitimate chance to win its conference title in college basketball, but this is a year when the Men of Troy really could pull it off. Letting Arizona wear the target on its back could be a very good thing for USC, but frankly, all that matters is that the Trojans put it together on the court.

Here is the full preseason media poll for Pac-12 men’s basketball, heading into the 2023-2024 campaign:

Pac-12 preseason media poll offers bulletin board material for Dan Lanning’s Ducks

The preseason Pac-12 media poll was released on Thursday. Will it be bulletin board material for the Ducks? We wouldn’t be surprised.

Ultimately, the litany of rankings and polls that are produced by media members before the actual college football season starts in the fall doesn’t mean a whole lot. It affects how fans look at teams and occasionally has an effect on the way that betting lines shake out in the fall. But the only true thing that matters in the end is what happens on the field when the teams actually play.

That’s probably a sentiment you’ll be hearing a lot from the Oregon Duck fans this week after the Pac-12 preseason media poll was released on Thursday. While the Ducks are still predicted to finish in the top half of the league, the projection from media members shows it might be a frustrating year for Dan Lanning and his team.

Bulletin board material? I wouldn’t be shocked.

Of course, with as much talent as there is in the conference — USC, Washington, Utah, and Oregon State are all ranked in the top 25 going into the year — it would be understandable for any team to stumble a couple of times throughout the fall. However, Duck fans have high expectations for this team considering the depth of talent on the roster.

Here’s a look at how the full Pac-12 preseason media poll projects the final standings will look like this year out west:

Final Pac-12 football standings for 2022, compared to Pac-12 preseason media vote

The preseason #Pac12 media poll failed to predict #USC’s place in the conference. The Trojans were the only team to go 8-1 in the Pac this year.

We made it. We have arrived at the end of the 2022 Pac-12 football regular season. Our rankings of the 12 teams might change based on the outcome of the Utah-USC Pac-12 Championship Game on Friday night in Las Vegas, but the standings have no editorializing or analysis: They are cold, hard numbers fixed in the pages of time. Nothing can or will change them. They are set in stone.

If you had one team finishing sixth in the Pac-12 and that team finished second, you badly underrated it.

If you had a team finishing fourth and that team finished 10th, you badly overrated it.

Let’s see how the Pac-12 football preseason media vote compared to the actual order of finish.

We’ll give the media vote first and then present the final 2022 Pac-12 football standings: