As the 2010-2011 NCAA basketball season gets underway, the first AP Poll of the new season shows that the Pac-10 is definitely not getting much respect early in the young campaign. At this point, Washington is tied at No. 17 while Arizona is getting six votes and UCLA is getting four votes. Stanford and California are nowhere to be seen at this point as they prepare to kick off their respective seasons today and tomorrow. It's still early and there is always a school that seems to come out of nowhere and become a force during the season.
↵At the same time, I suppose this shouldn't be a surprising development considering the 2009-2010 season ended with nobody in the Pac-10 getting even a single vote in the Top 25. California and Washington both made the 2010 NCAA tournament and Washington put together a Cinderella run that saw them reach the Sweet 16 as an 11 seed. The conference did not have any monster name recruits come in, although Stanford reportedly has a solid recruiting class in Johnny Dawkins third season as head coach. We'll be keeping a close eye on them this season.