Pac-12 Power Rankings: Oregon jumps to the top before Arizona trip

The best two teams play each other in Tucson this week

We're just seven games into the Pac-12 season, and every team has at least two conference losses.

It's going to be a season where home teams dominate, and that's happening all over college basketball (looking at you Big 12 and ACC). In the real conference standings, eight teams are within one game of first place, so ranking these teams is kind of difficult.

After a home sweep over the L.A. schools, we have a new team on top of the standings. And that team happens to travel to the No. 2 team in the conference on Thursday.

Here's how this week's voting played out among seven of our writers. One point for 1st place votes, two points for 2nd and so on:

Ranking (change from last week's poll)	Team (Pac-12 record)	Points
1 (+2)	Oregon Ducks (5-2)	11
2 (0)	Arizona Wildcats (4-3)	14
3 (-2)	USC Trojans (4-3)	20
T-4 (+4)	California Golden Bears (4-3)	35
T-4 (+3)	Utah Utes (4-3)	35
6 (-2)	Colorado Buffaloes (4-3)	40
7 (-2)	Washington Huskies (5-2)	52
8 (-2)	UCLA Bruins (3-4)	56
9 (0)	Stanford Cardinal (4-3)	61
10 (0)	Oregon State Beavers (3-4)	64
11 (0)	Arizona State Sun Devils (1-6)	77
12 (0)	Washington State Cougars (1-6)	81

So let's examine the changes from last week. Oregon and USC trade spots after the Ducks swept a home weekend, and the Trojans got swept at the Oregon schools. So that makes sense. The top three teams have had a much better overall body of work than the rest of the conference this year too, so the separation in points is pretty much expected as well.

Cal and Utah jump up after weekend sweeps, the Utes being the first team to have a road sweep this year. Cal beat a really good Arizona team, and Utah beat conference-leading Washington, so there were some quality wins in there.

To make room for those two sweeps, Colorado, UW and UCLA all drop, but stay in the same order. All of these schools went 1-1. Again, works out perfectly.

And the bottom four teams are the bottom four teams. I think Stanford has a chance to move out of that grouping though.

This week, the Arizona schools host the Oregon schools, the L.A. schools host the Washington schools, and the Bay Area schools are in the mountains.

Let this week's debating begin!

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