The USA Today/Coaches poll was released for this week and as we saw in the earlier released AP Poll, the Bay Area schools are not exactly getting a ton of respect. Of course, when you go 1-2 in a given week it shouldn’t surprise folks to see your teams not get any votes and lose any votes they were actually getting before. Stanford and Cal started the season strong, but were quickly brought to earth when they stepped up their competition.
The Pac-10 as a whole is not getting a whole lot of respect at this point as Washington tumbled in the polls and Arizona is the only other school getting votes. Washington was up to No. 11 in the Coaches Poll entering a fairly brutal stretch of the schedule last week. After opening the Maui Invitational with little trouble from Virginia, the Huskies blew huge opportunities in back-to-back losses to No. 9 Kentucky and No. 2 Michigan State. Washington led UK by 1 at the half and led MSU by 10 at the half, but was unable to close the door in the second half.
The Arizona Wildcats actually gained two votes this week in spite of a loss late in the week. Arizona defeated Bethune Cookman and Santa Clara before dropping a tough one 87-79 at the No. 6 Kansas Jayhawks. The Wildcats hung close but they couldn’t close the deal.
UCLA had been receiving votes recently but they also dropped out of that category courtesy of a pair of losses to No. 7 Villanova and Virginia Commonwealth University.
The full rankings are as follows:
1. Duke
2. Ohio State
3. Pittsburgh
4. Kansas
5. Kansas State
6. Michigan State
7. Syracuse
8. Missouri
9. Connecticut
10. Baylor
11. Kentucky
12. Villanova
13. Minnesota
14. Georgetown
15. Memphis
16. Florida
17. Tennessee
18. Purdue
19. San Diego State
20. Texas
21. Illinois
22. Washington
23. UNLV
24. Gonzaga
25. Brigham Young