The Pac-10 doesn’t often get the credit that it deserves but aside from the Big East in recent years no conference is as dominant in the college basketball betting as the Pac-10. The conference that plays its games when most people on the East coast are generally asleep has produced some of the top teams and players in the NCAA odds year in and year out.
But not this year.
For the first time in memory there is no Pac-10 team in the top 25 of the college basketball betting rankings. Cal comes in at a lowly #2 in the RPI NCAA odds rankings but no living, breathing voter esteems a team from the Pac-10 good enough to be in the top 25.
That seems crazy when you think of all the great teams in recent years to come out the Pac -10 and have great success in the college basketball betting tournament. UCLA has played in three of the last five Final Fours. And no conference has a better record in the NCAA odds tourney than the Pac-10 over the past decade.
But the way teams are playing this year there may only be one Pac-10 representative in this year’s tourney. Cal is the only team that would be a lock if the season ended today. Washington, ranked #56 in the RPI would be a bubble team at best and likely bumped due to the automatic bids having priority.
By the time the PAC-10 tourney rolls around the landscape in college basketball could change a bit, but any way you slice it, this Pac-10 will have less teams in the Big Dance than it’s had in years.
