Arizona basketball: Wildcats picked to finish 2nd in Pac-12

Oregon is the favorite heading into the season

We’ve reached another milepost on the highway towards the 2016-17 college basketball season, with Pac-12 Media Day going down on Friday.

The yearly tradition of the media poll has been released, and to no one’s surprise, the Arizona Wildcats have been picked to finish second in the conference behind the Oregon Ducks. This is the first time in the 28-year history of the poll that the Ducks have been pegged as the conference’s top team. Arizona received four first-place votes.

Here’s the full breakdown:

1. Oregon (320 points, 23 first-place votes)
2. Arizona (298 points, 4 first-place votes)
3. UCLA (259)
4. Cal (209)
5. Colorado (199)
6. Washington (167)
7. USC (163)
8. Utah (142)
9. Oregon State (122)
10. Stanford (119)
11. Arizona State (78)
12. Washington State (30)

Arizona went 12-6 in the Pac-12 regular season last year, and was bounced by Oregon in the Pac-12 Tournament semifinals in an overtime thriller. However, only five players that played significant minutes last year are on this year’s squad (Allonzo Trier, Parker Jackson-Cartwright, Kadeem Allen, Dusan Ristic and Chance Comanche). It should be noted that Trier was originally slated to appear at Pac-12 Media Day, but was replaced by Allen. Trier was seen handing out season tickets in Tucson Thursday night.

The hype surrounding the Wildcats this year has a lot to do with the incoming freshmen class, specifically Lauri Markkanen, Rawle Alkins, and Kobi Simmons. The team should also have a healthy Ray Smith this year, which is kind of like an extra player in that 2016 recruiting class.

So how do you see the conference playing out this year?

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