UCLA is the overwhelming favorite

Craig Robinson of Oregon State? You're picked to finish last, just behind the circuit's two other newcomers, Johnny Dawkins at Stanford and Mike Montgomery at California.

Guess there was a reason those jobs were open.

As for the top of the conference, there was a consensus among the media members who voted in the preseason poll, if not among the coaches.

Three-time defending champion UCLA earned 37 of the 38 first-place votes and 379 points overall. Arizona State, with returning stars James Harden and Jeff Pendergraph, received the other first-place vote and finished second with 325 points. USC was third with 292 points.

And USC's predicted finish comes with most of the voters not including Alex Stepheson, the North Carolina transfer who is hoping to receive an NCAA waiver that would make him immediately eligible.

Washington, Washington State and Oregon were picked in the middle of the pack.

USC Coach Tim Floyd wondered why Arizona State didn't get more first-place votes, opining, "I thought they should have had 15 or 20."

Washington State Coach Tony Bennett paid UCLA's Ben Howland a compliment when he was asked why the Bruins were such an overwhelming pick.

"My father [Dick Bennett] has coached against so many great guys and I asked him who some of the best were. He gave me two names. Charlie Spoonhour and Ben Howland. He loves Bob Knight and all those guys, but that's the kind of coach Coach Howland is," Bennett said.

Tributes

Howland and Floyd both suggested that the Pac-10 in some way honor recently retired Arizona coach Lute Olson this season.

"I always looked up to Lute as a young coach in terms of the classy way he ran the program and how he handled himself," Howland said.

Said Floyd: "We really should name an award in our league after Lute. I know how much John Wooden meant to this league, but coming in as an outsider looking in, I know I thought of Lute as the Pac-10 for a 25-year period.

"Nobody except Wooden has had that kind of success in this league."

Host with the most

Floyd told a story about this season's most renowned freshman, Percy Miller, who is better known by his hip-hop name, Lil' Romeo: