Let's check out the Pac-12 Men's Basketball Power Rankings for the past week. This group of CGB writers derived our rankings based on a complex function taking into consideration factors that include overall strength, what have you done for me lately, where you can get the most delicious locally sourced peanut butter, and who would beat whom on a neutral site.
In the event of a tie, teams are listed alphabetically. The number of first-place votes earned by each team is listed parenthetically.
To the rankings!
The rankings
1. Arizona (5)
Last week: 1
boomtho: Great week for the Wildcats with two blowout road wins.
Nick Kranz: Will be atop the conference in my rankings until they lose again. UW and WSU are bad, but the way Arizona took them apart on the road was still impressive.
Ruey Yen: Took care of business against the Washington schools (which doesn't mean much).
ragnarok: Still #1 for me.
Reef: They have been playing at an absurdly high level since the OSU loss. If you need 51%/47%/79% 1.14 to beat them, good luck with that.
2. Utah (1)
Last week: 2
boomtho: Stay ever so slightly ahead of the Wildcats by beating a pair of better teams (Bay Area vs Washington... granted their wins were at home though).
Nick Kranz: It says something about how they are playing that two double-digit wins didn't really move the needle this week.
Ruey Yen: Double-digit victories over the Bay Area school almost make me want to jump them in front of the 'Cats.
ragnarok: 1a might be a more accurate ranking
Reef: I'm almost as interested in their road trip to Oregon as I am in their showdown with Zona.
3. UC L.A.
Last week: 7
boomtho: Just when you think the Bruins are dead... they come up with a convincing pair of wins against the Oregon schools. Don't look now but they're in 3rd place in the conference...
Nick Kranz: A Dwight Tarwater 3 away from a 6-game winning streak. FOUR MORE YEARS! FOUR MORE YEARS!
Ruey Yen: Back at home and back in the win column.
ragnarok: Someone had to rank 3rd here, so I guess beating Oregon at home qualifies. This conference is a whole pile of mediocre after the top 2, though.
Reef: Quietly on a big roll, especially offensively. Shot distribution has been strong.
4. Oregon
Last week: 3T
boomtho: Feels like they're a full step below UCLA, but they countered their loss to the Bruins with a win against the Trojans
Nick Kranz: Hardly impressive, but they got the road split they needed to keep their NCAA hopes alive. Running out of chances for meaningful victories, however.
Ruey Yen: Beating USC means nothing and then they lost to UCLA, but I can't really jump anyone over them.
ragnarok: No shame in losing in Pauley; only Gonzaga has managed to win there this year.
Reef: Struggled against LA schools; once again in my 4 slot by default.
5T. Arizona State
Last week: 6
boomtho: Close loss to WSU is baaaaaad, but came back.
Nick Kranz: Team split managed their 4th straight split. They will lose to UCLA and beat USC because it's what they do.
Ruey Yen: Edged by Wazzu on the road, but I still have to have them in front of the Bears thank to that one head-to-head game. Good computer number (45 on KenPom but not a tourney team).
ragnarok: Another week, another split for the Sun Devils, who haven't swept a conference week yet this year.
Reef: They don't do very much well, but they don't do much poorly either, except turn the ball over.
5T. Stanfurd
Last week: 5
boomtho: Bad week for the Cardinal.... hooray! Mountain trip is never easy, but they lost a solid chance to solidify their grip on 3rd in the conference.
Nick Kranz: I know that the Mountain roadie is brutal, especially for a team that doesn't use the bench much, but you expect more fight from a veteran team with tournament hopes.
Ruey Yen: Swept at the mountain schools, but can't really drop them because no one stepped up.
ragnarok: I'm sure they'll turn things around in time for this weekend's matchup with Cal :(
Reef: They just can't shoot right now. Some of that is variance—hopefully it continues for at least one more game.
7. California
Last week: 8
boomtho: I am probably overweighting one week's worth of performance (homer pick?), but the Bears at least picked up a split last week vs. sweeps for Stanford and Oregon State
Nick Kranz: Cal is now 6–1 in conference games decided by single digits, 10–2 overall. If clutch is a thing (it isn't), this team has it. It also stands in marked contrast to Cuonzo's last year in Tennessee, when his team went 3–11 in single-digit games.
Ruey Yen: Closing in on the 4 teams before them.
ragnarok: Ran their win streak to five games before falling at Utah. Solidly back in the middle of the Pac, about where we should have expected them.
Reef: I almost put them in my 4 slot. I think they're a favorite over most of the league right now.
8. Oregon State
Last week: 3T
boomtho: Swept by the LA schools... and they have a relatively tough slate to close out the year. Think they will continue to fall in the rankings.
Nick Kranz: Losing to USC doesn't undo the good Wayne Tinkle has managed, but is still a reminder that this team isn't anywhere near a finished product.
Ruey Yen: Losing to USC is really bad, but still a great year for them thus far.
ragnarok: Losing at USC hurts...thought about ranking them lower just for that.
Reef: Not enough scoring on this squad.
9. Colorado
Last week: 9
boomtho: Nice win vs. the Cardinal but lost to the mighty Golden Bears. Think Tad Boyle's squad has disappointed so far this year.
Nick Kranz: Tad Boyle has spent 5 years at Colorado. In his first season, Colorado's adjusted offensive efficiency was 9th in the nation. Since then it has never cracked the top 100.
Ruey Yen: Thank you for beating 'Furd.
ragnarok: Took out Stanford, but I think that says more about Stanford than it does Colorado.
Reef: Still playing well below their talent level.
10. Washington State
Last week: 10
boomtho: Cougs have to look at Virginia's success this year with a ton of envy.
Nick Kranz: It is amazing that this team is 5–8 in conference, and speaks both positively to Ernie Kent and negatively to the conference as a whole.
Ruey Yen: I didn't see how they beat ASU but they did.
ragnarok: Fiesty, if not—you know—good. They'll probably ruin someone's day at the Pac-12 tournament.
Reef: Dexter Kernich-Drew did what now?
11. USC
Last week: 12
boomtho: A win! Positive signs for Enfield though OSU isn't a world beater by any means.
Nick Kranz: A 'big' home win allows USC to escape the dungeon and they could double their win total when the Washington schools visit L.A. in a week.
Ruey Yen: Got a much needed win (over OSU). I think they got another conference win in them. Gaining on Washington.
ragnarok: Hey, conference win #2 for the Trojans. Gets them out the basement, at least for this week.
Reef: Not horribly impressed by the OSU win, but I'm less impressed by Washington.
12. Washington
Last week: 11
boomtho: Quickly becoming a lost season for Romar, especially given the dismissal of Upshaw.
Nick Kranz: On the balance, UW isn't having a worse total season than USC. But they are riding a seven game losing streak that has only included three competitive games. This is their new reality without Upshaw.
Ruey Yen: Another week and two more losses for the Huskies.
ragnarok: It's now a 7-game losing streak for the Huskies, which now have their next 3 on the road. No team more consistently underachieves their talent.
Reef: Haven't won in a month.
The data
Here are the individual rankings established by our writers:
Rk | atoms | boomtho | Nick | ragnarok | Reef | Ruey |
1 | Arizona | Utah | Arizona | Arizona | Arizona | Arizona |
2 | Utah | Arizona | Utah | Utah | Utah | Utah |
3 | Oregon | UC L.A. | UC L.A. | UC L.A. | UC L.A. | Oregon |
4 | UC L.A. | Oregon | Oregon | Oregon | Oregon | UC L.A. |
5 | ASU | ASU | Stanfurd | ASU | Cal | Stanfurd |
6 | Cal | Cal | OSU | Stanfurd | Stanfurd | OSU |
7 | Stanfurd | Stanfurd | ASU | Cal | ASU | ASU |
8 | OSU | Colorado | Cal | OSU | Colorado | Cal |
9 | Colorado | OSU | Colorado | WSU | OSU | Colorado |
10 | WSU | USC | WSU | Colorado | WSU | WSU |
11 | USC | Washington | USC | USC | USC | Washington |
12 | Washington | WSU | Washington | Washington | Washington | USC |
Table 1. The votes from each writer.
These figures get converted into a joint ranking system, which was listed up above. The mathematically precise rankings are shown in the figure below, with the standard deviation being illustrated as a measure of how varied each team's votes were.
Figure 1. The precise rankings for this week, where the error bars represent the standard deviation.
These precise rankings have been recorded each week, so the trends were graphed in the next figure.
Figure 2. Graphing the precise rankings each week of the season.
As some of our writers remarked, there's a clear #1 and 2 in the conference, which is corroborated by the huge gap between second-ranked Utah and third-place UC Los Angeles because UC L.A. earned votes for 3rd and 4th, but no higher votes. However, none of our voters anticipated or described another huge gap between the top four teams and the rest of the conference.
These precise rankings get restricted to strict integral values simply by determining which team is highest, second-highest, etc. The rounded rankings are charted over time in Figure 3.
Figure 3. The rounded rankings tracking the progress of the teams each week.
As you can see here, the biggest movers and shakers are UC L.A. and Oregon State. The bigness of this movement is quantified with the value of Madness. By dropping 5 spots, OSU has a Madness of -5; UC L.A. jumped 4 spots thanks to a big week and that is their Madness score. Hey kids, math is fan!
Change on week | ||||||||||||||
2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | Team's Madness | |
Arizona | 0 | -1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | ||||||
ASU | -1 | -2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 9 | ||||||
Cal | 0 | -4 | -2 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 11 | ||||||
Colorado | 4 | -1 | -2 | 1 | 0 | -2 | 0 | 10 | ||||||
Oregon | 1 | 0 | -4 | 3 | 0 | 2 | -1 | 11 | ||||||
OSU | 1 | 6 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 3 | -5 | 17 | ||||||
Stanfurd | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 0 | 2 | ||||||
UC L.A. | -4 | 5 | 1 | -2 | 3 | -3 | 4 | 22 | ||||||
USC | -2 | 3 | -2 | 0 | -1 | 0 | 1 | 9 | ||||||
Utah | 0 | 1 | -1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | ||||||
Washington | -3 | -5 | 6 | 0 | -5 | 0 | -1 | 20 | ||||||
WSU | 4 | 0 | 1 | -3 | 2 | -2 | 0 | 12 | ||||||
Total Madness | 20 | 28 | 21 | 10 | 15 | 19 | 14 |
Table 2. The Madness of the season!