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Message: [QUOTE="nwhoopfan, post: 2056318, member: 7894"] Well stated. There is no guarantee any Pac 12 team will make the Final 4 this year, let alone a repeat of two conference members doing it like last year. There are certainly teams capable of it however. Washington is MUCH better than they were last year during the regular season. They miss Walton as a reliable 3rd scoring option, but Plum and Osahor are both significantly improved and they are getting better contributions from their role players this year. It would be hard to say that Oregon St. is as good this year as they were last year after losing 2 key cogs in Weisner and Hamblin plus another starter, but they have the exact same record as last year and stylistically they look about the same. The essence of what they've built their program around is still there--solid defense, strong rebounding, a number of players that can hit the 3 and decent post play. I think they do miss a go to scorer like Weisner, but they are on the verge of winning/sharing the conference title for the 3rd year in a row, a feat no one other than Stanford has ever done in the Pac. I think Stanford is slightly better this year than last year. Hard to quantify, just my opinion. And UCLA is certainly a dangerous team when they are hitting on all cylinders. They've gone 3-2 against Stanford, OSU and UW, they've just stumbled several times against lesser teams. [/QUOTE]