College basketball rankings: UCLA falls behind Arizona as top Pac-12 team in Top 25 And 1 after loss to USC

Arizona won at Washington State late Thursday while UCLA lost at USC and Utah won at Oregon State. Consequently, the Pac-12 race has tightened up.

The top of the league standings now look like this:

1. UCLA (8-2)
2. Utah (8-3)
T-3. Arizona (7-3)
T-3. USC (7-3)

The class of the conference remains Arizona and UCLA with Utah emerging as a surprising third-best team after being picked 10th in the Pac-12 preseason media poll. I have Arizona at No. 8 and UCLA at No. 10 in Friday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings. I could easily see the Wildcats and/or Bruins advancing all the way to the 2023 Final Four. Both are really good — but their resumes are flawed for different reasons.

Let’s start with UCLA.

The Bruins are 4-4 in Quadrant 1 and 6-0 in Quadrant 2 — or 10-4 in the first two quadrants with zero losses outside of Q1. That’s solid in the sense that UCLA has no resume-damaging losses, but Mick Cronin’s team also has zero wins over schools also ranked in the Top 25 And 1. The Bruins’ best win is probably a neutral-court victory over a Kentucky team that’s been one of the sport’s biggest disappointments, which is why UCLA really needs to add a win over Arizona in the regular-season finale on March 4. If the Bruins’ don’t, they’ll enter the Pac-12 Tournament with zero wins over teams currently ranked in the top 30 of the NET.

Now to Arizona.

Unlike UCLA, Arizona has big wins over Tennessee, UCLA , San Diego State, Creighton and Indiana, all of which are in the top 25 of the NET. But the Wildcats also have two losses to teams ranked outside of the top 60 of the NET — specifically losses to Oregon (61) and Washington State (72). For some context, consider that four of the seven teams I have ranked ahead of Arizona have zero losses to teams ranked outside of the top 60 of the NET, and that literally nobody else in the top 20 of the Top 25 And 1 has more than one loss to a team ranked outside of the top 60 of the NET.

Again, Arizona has two.

So if you’re one of the Arizona fans tweeting me every day wondering why I have the Wildcats slightly lower than where AP voters have them, there’s your answer. Arizona’s loss column isn’t bad but is undeniably worse than the loss column attached to every team I have ranked ahead of them, and, from my perspective, the loss column should always matter when it comes to ranking or seeding teams.