Yes, we're about eleven months away from March Madness 2012. That's not stopping Joe Lunardi from making his very early projections for the 2012 NCAA Tournament, and the Pac-12 is coming out looking even better than recent years, despite all the huge defections.
Arizona Wildcats: Three seed playing New Mexico State. This seems a little high considering the departure of Derrick Williams, but U of A definitely has a strong talent base that has a good shot at going back-to-back next year.
UCLA Bruins: Seventh seed playing Florida State. Not the worst spot for UCLA, although I'd imagine they'll probably perform a lot better considering the frontline talent they come back with next year.
California Golden Bears: Ninth seed playing Clemson. Yuck. Pretty sure the Bears would love to avoid another 8/9 matchup like last year to prolong their chances at survival. Cal also has the potential to exceed these numbers if all the returning players making decent enough leaps in their respective games. But they'd gladly trade places with ...
Washington Huskies: Tenth seed playing West Virginia. This is unusually low, although a lot of talent is leaving--UW might be a perimeter oriented team next season. But I'm sure the Huskies would love a tenth seed.
USC Trojans: Twelfth seed playing UNLV. Questionable, considering a lot of talent is leaving. But hey, we're not going to stop the experts from hopping on the Kevin O'Neill bandwagon.