This week in the Pac-12: Basketball season!

Denial is a way of life, people. Football season? What football season? As I understand, Stanford is having a decent season by their standards, but they didn't play on Saturday, so I can only assume that they had a bye week. With that in mind, here's your quick run around the action in Pac-12 college football:

Cal and Colorado are mind-bendingly awful, UCLA and Arizona State narrowly kept pace with each other atop the South, Utah still desperately needs a healthy quarterback, Arizona needs to learn how to tackle freshmen linebackers, and the portal to Hell the construction crew unwittingly opened when they built new Stanford Stadium still has yet to be closed despite the best efforts of our nation's top minds.

This is what you've got next week:

Friday

Washington at UCLA, 6:00 pm, ESPN2

Saturday

Washington State at Arizona, 11:00 am, Pac-12 Network
Utah at Oregon, 1:00 pm, Fox Sports 1
California at Colorado, 2:30 pm, Pac-12 Networks
Stanford at USC, 5:00 pm, ABC
Oregon State at Arizona State, 6:30, Pac-12 Network

Listen, just don't even bother watching USC/Stanford. You and I both know exactly what happens when you root for USC. You go home disappointed and forever unclean. It's not worth it. Go out with that family you've been ignoring all fall - they love you more than Tommy Trojan ever will.

This Week in Pac-12 Basketball

We've just begun the non-conference portion of the season, which means the annual tradition of grading wins based on how they help the reputation and (more importantly) the computer numbers of the conference! As always, our categories are:

Good wins: Victories over teams likely to finish in the RPI top 100.
Missed opportunities: Losses over good teams that don't hurt individually, but added up can hurt.
Bad losses: Any embarrassing loss to a small conference team. Think UCLA vs. UC Irvine last year.
Expected wins: Really, the majority fall into this category.

Good wins

Oregon 82, Georgetown 75

The Ducks win the transfer bowl! Various players that were on different D1 rosters to start last year scored a combined EIGHTY POINTS. College basketball is getting silly. Unfortunately for Georgetown, Oregon's mercenaries outclassed Josh Smith, who turned in a very Josh Smithian performance with 25 points on just 13 shots, but with five fouls.

The idea that Oregon won a game against a good team without their suspended players should be scary. And for those wary of new rules: The Ducks and Hoyas combined to attempt 74 free throws. Yikes.

Bad losses

Coppin State 78, Oregon State 73

With multiple key players suspended, Oregon State basically said 'Hey, Roberto Nelson, save us!' So he scored 36 points. Unfortunately, the rest of the Beavers shot just 33% from the field. Also, Oregon State got out rebounded by a team from the MEAC. The Beavers are gonna be bad this year.

And for those wary of new rules: The Beavers and Eagles combined to attempt 55 free throws. Yikes.

Missed Opportunities

Baylor 72, Colorado 60

And lo, Andre Roberson is gone and Colorado got outrebounded and still struggle to score against above average competition. It's waaaaaay to early for me to say that I'm correct in my opinion that the Buffs are going to struggle more than most expect this year, and losing on the road to a good Baylor team is hardly embarrassing. Spencer Dinwidde won't go 2-12 very often. Still, it's an auspicious start.

Utah State 78, USC 65

An odd choice for USC to start their season on the road against a team with a student section like this. That's a tough way to start for Andy Enfield. Considering what USC has on the roster and how Utah State usually plays at home, this result is hardly surprising. Luckily, Utah State is typically one of the better mid majors in the country, so no harm no foul USC.

Expected Wins

Arizona State 96, UMBC 61
Utah 128, NAIA Evergreen State, 44
Arizona 73, Cal Poly 62
Stanford 72, Bucknell 68
Washington State 62, CSU Bakersfield 56
UCLA 72, Drexel 67
California 83, Coppin St. 64
Colorado 91, UT Martin 65
Washington 88, Seattle 78

Not much to see here. A few early season jitters  perhaps caused some closer results than one might expect, although Drexel and Bucknell are usually decent mid-major teams so it's not a shock that they might keep things close. A gold star for everybody outside of Corvallis for taking care of business.

Next Week in Basketball

Monday

Long Beach State at Arizona, 7:00 pm, Pac-12 Network
BYU at Stanford, 8:00 pm, ESPN2

Tuesday

Oakland at UCLA, 6:00 pm, Pac-12 Network
Miami (OH) at Arizona St., 6:00 pm, Pac-12 Network
Denver at California, 8:00 pm, Pac-12 Network
CSU Northridge at USC, 8:00 pm, Pac-12 Network

Wednesday

Wyoming at Colorado, 6:00 pm, Pac-12 Network
Portland at Oregon State, 6:00 pm, Pac-12 Network
W Carolina at Oregon, 8:00 pm, Pac-12 Network

Thursday

Arizona at San Diego State, 7:00 pm, CBS Sports Network
UC Irvine at Washington, 8:00 pm, Pac-12 Network
Northwestern at Stanford, 8:00 pm, Pac-12 Network

Friday

Idaho State at Arizona State, 6:00 pm, Pac-12 Network
UC Davis at Utah, 7:00 pm, Pac-12 Network
N. Arizona at USC, 8:00 pm, Pac-12 Network
Oakland at California, 8:00 pm, Pac-12 Network
Lamar at Washington State, TBD

Saturday

Jackson State at Colorado, 9:00 pm, Pac-12 Network

Sunday

Stanford at Denver, 11:00 am, ROOT
Oregon State at Maryland, 3:00 pm, ESPNU
Eastern Washington at Washington, 6:00 pm, Pac-12 Network

Lots of flotsam and jetsam. There are 21 games between tonight and Sunday night, and of those 21, only a handful can be considered compelling. Atop the list is certainly Arizona's visit to San Diego State on Thursday night. SDSU's claim to be the best team in California is annoying, so it would be nice for a Pac-12 mate to stomp them.

Elsewhere, Stanford hosts a solid BYU team and Northwestern, who should have good computer numbers simply by virtue of being in the Big-10. And the week will close with OSU getting absolutely destroyed by Maryland on the road.