PAC-10 Coaches Poll

[buster]

The Coaches say....

(first place votes)...total points

1. USC (8)...89
2. UCLA (2)...78
3. Washington...71
4. Stanford....69
5. Cal...58
6. Arizona...55
7. Arizona St....38
8. Oregon St. ...36
9. Oregon and Washington State...23

(Points 10, 9, 8, ...2)

Note: Coaches have picked correct Conference Champion 9 of last 15 years..

[buster]

2 quick observations:

--Idahoboy has some company in thinking UCLA might have a little game this year

--pretty big jump from "Top 6" to "Bottom 4"

--and I never thought I would see the day where Wazzu would be TIED for last with Oregon....and probably deserve it!

[vbfan]

I wonder if coaches are factoring in Mia Jerkov returning when they put them so high in the polls 10th in AVCA and 5th in the PAC-10. If they do not have Jerkov then Arizona finishes ahead of them in conference

[The Bofa on the Sofa]

Apparently, the AVCA voter who had Cal at #1 is not from the Pac 10 conference.

[IdahoBoy]

Hey, what can I say? Gooooooo UCLA!

I bet that Oregon coach voted his team 5th or so to not be last in the Pac.

I don't think that WSU will finish 9th or 10th. Too much home court advantage in Bohler to do so.

[brybry]

buster said:

2 quick observations:

--Idahoboy has some company in thinking UCLA might have a little game this year

--pretty big jump from "Top 6" to "Bottom 4"

--and I never thought I would see the day where Wazzu would be TIED for last with Oregon....and probably deserve it!

No, I think a majority of folks thing that UCLA will be right behind USC in the Pac 10. There's a minority that think UCLA will be tops. And there's another minority that think that UCLA will disappoint and that UW will be ahead of them (I'm in that).

[IdahoBoy]

brybry said:

No, I think a majority of folks thing that UCLA will be right behind USC in the Pac 10. There's a minority that think UCLA will be tops. And there's another minority that think that UCLA will disappoint and that UW will be ahead of them (I'm in that).

It's great you think that way.... but not gonna happen.

[Deleted]

UCLA could finish any where from 2nd to 6th. I'd bet on 3rd or 4th, failing to meet expectations. Again.

[GopherBob]

Agent said:

Apparently, the AVCA voter who had Cal at #1 is not from the Pac 10 conference.

Or maybe coaches couldn't vote for their school in the Pac-10 voting, but can in the AVCA poll?

[roofed!]

What is interesting is the coincidence of traveling/hosting pairs of schools being ranked next to each other, with the exception of the washington teams, i.e.

No 1 & 2 -- Southern. California teams
No 4 & 5 -- Northen California teams
No 6 & 7 -- Arizona teams
No 8 & 9 -- Oregon teams

[SaltNPepper]

Agent said:

Apparently, the AVCA voter who had Cal at #1 is not from the Pac 10 conference.

Actually, it could be the Cal coach himself. Rich Feller is listed as a voter for the AVCA poll and in the conference poll, he is not allowed to vote for his own team.

Another possibility would be the vote came from the coach of a non-conference team that Cal plays this year. Coaches sometimes try to "hipe" the difficulty of their schedule a bit.

Editing note: I thought there was something a little funny with my "hipe" but nothing connected until I read the next response when it finally hit me that "hype" was what I meant to say. Maybe it was my subconscious going back to my college days in the 60's and the word "hippie"

[cougarize]

SaltNPepper said:

Actually, it could be the Cal coach himself. Rich Feller is listed as a voter for the AVCA poll and in the conference poll, he is not allowed to vote for his own team.

Another possibility would be the vote came from the coach of a non-conference team that Cal plays this year. Coaches sometimes try to "hipe" the difficulty of their schedule a bit.

It would be extremely difficult to vote your own team No. 1 in the poll, without being able to halfway justify it. In Cal's case, there is no justification. There are clearly several teams head and shoulders above. Voting coaches can view who each other voted for on a weekly basis, and so if Rich voted his team No. 1, you can bet the other Pac-10 coaches would keep that in mind and other coaches would keep it in mind in the future. For the most part coaches will be realistic with their vote on their own team.

As far as hyping an opponent goes, some coaches do it, but that's why the AVCA has 65 coaches participating, so outlying votes cannot skew the poll in general.

[BearClause]

SaltNPepper said:

Actually, it could be the Cal coach himself. Rich Feller is listed as a voter for the AVCA poll and in the conference poll, he is not allowed to vote for his own team.

Another possibility would be the vote came from the coach of a non-conference team that Cal plays this year. Coaches sometimes try to "hipe" the difficulty of their schedule a bit.

And yet another possibility would be some coach has poor penmanship, and when putting in a vote for USC, the poll personnel could only make out "California".

[roy]

The only thing I can think of to justify Cal as the #1 is that they are the only ones to push USC last year. They were the only team to take USC to 5 and with them returning all starters (if Jerkov is coming back), they have the potential to be the best. Just speculation.

[BeiBei]

Is Arizona really that bad or are people overlooking them. They have everyone back and the Glass and Abernathy combo is deadly. If they fix their passing problem, they can be dangerous. I am not a fan of the Cats but I think they have a lot of potential and can easily reach the elite eight