Pac-12 men's basketball teams are playing in "the JV league" - Denver Post

Don't blame the Buffs, who are off to a strong start, but their new conference isn't exactly a heavyweight in hoops.

Colorado's Carlon Brown, a transfer from Utah, tries to stop the Utes' Jason Washburn in Boulder on Dec. 31. It was the first Pac-12 game for CU and Utah. (Cliff Grassmick, Daily Camera)

The ghost of John Wooden doesn't hang around Pauley Pavilion anymore. It has been replaced by construction dust and cranes. The McKale Center is no longer a deadly trip into the desert, and if men's college basketball falls any further off the sports landscape in the Bay Area, California and Stanford will be playing on Alcatraz.

  Colorado and Utah joined an expanded Pac-12 Conference this school year and couldn't have picked better timing if every opposing player suffered from altitude sickness. In a word, the Pac-12 this season is ... well, pick one.

Awful. Embarrassing. Pitiful. Irrelevant.

One NBA scout who demanded anonymity said of the Pac-12, "They ought to play all games at 5:45 because it is, in fact, the JV league."

How about 5:45 in the morning? To wit:

• No Pac-12 team has been ranked in six weeks.

• No Pac-12 team is in the top 35 in the RPI.

• The Pac-12 is 0-12 against ranked teams at the time they played.

• Pac-12 teams have lost to the likes of Loyola Marymount, Fairfield, Northern Arizona, Montana State, Idaho, California-Riverside and Cal Poly. All were topped by UCLA's infamous flop job, an 86-66 drubbing at the hands of Middle Tennessee. At home.

"I've been around since the Pac-8," the scout said, "and I've never remembered it this bad."

Colorado can't be blamed. The Buffaloes (11-4, 3-0) are in an unabashed rebuilding season after losing 70 percent of their scoring, yet they go into tonight's first Pac-12 road game at California as the league's only unbeaten team in conference play.

The Pac-12 has welts all over its body. Utah, with a roster depleted by transfers, is 4-11 and its rebuilding job makes Colorado look like the Miami Heat.

Asked what's gone wrong, most Pac-12 coaches rest on the cushy "cyclical" excuse. Sure, it was only three years ago when six Pac-10 teams made the NCAA Tournament field for the third year in a row and 21 players were selected in the 2008 and 2009 NBA drafts. In 2008, five of the top 11 players drafted came from the Pac-10.

"It starts out with the early defections from a couple years ago with (Michael) Westbook and the Lopez twins and Ryan Anderson," said Marques Johnson, a legendary forward from UCLA's glory years in the 1970s who has broadcasted conference games since 1999. "The conference was primed at that time to be one of the top conferences in the country.

"All of a sudden those guys leave and the next year it's a struggling year."

But some of the blame can fall on UCLA. Since going to the Final Four in 2007 and 2008, the Bruins have suffered through horrid recruiting mistakes and massive defections. With Pauley Pavilion under renovation this season, they're playing in the charmless, 53-year-old Los Angeles Sports Arena â€" seemingly a two-day's drive in traffic from campus â€" before only 5,700 fans a game.

At least not many UCLA fans are suffering. Malcolm Lee and Tyler Honeycutt mistakenly went into the NBA early last year, got drafted in the second round and are barely hanging on to roster spots. Coach Ben Howland booted all-league forward Reeves Nelson, the Pac-12's top returning rebounder, because of a terminal attitude problem. And the Bruins, with a fat, former prep All-America center (Joshua Smith) and no scoring punch, stand just 9-7.

"Losing two is a big blow," Johnson said. " Josh Smith, we all were expecting him to be an unveiling of a statue, to see what a sculpted body would look like, and he came back in just as bad of shape or worse than last year."

Also, the Pac-12 has seen more players change destinations than LAX. College transfers have become an epidemic nationally. According to a Fox Sports and Rivals.com study, 367 players transferred after the 2009-10 season, up from 305 three years earlier.

That's more than one per team. In the Pac-12, it's worse. After the 2010 season, 24 players transferred. After last season, 21 bolted.

Some transfers still haunt the league. UCLA lost Drew Gordon midway through the 2010 season. He's now starring at New Mexico. The Bruins also lost Mike Moser and Chace Stanback, both leading 12th-ranked Nevada-Las Vegas (16-2).

"There's always been a desire to play, but it seems like guys are more likely to consider other options," said Arizona State coach Herb Sendek, who has lost five players the past two years. "Like most other things in sports, it reflects our society at large. ... We're more of a lease rather than buy society than at any other time in history and transfers are part of that fabric."

With the Pac-12's growing irrelevance â€" the league sent only two teams to the NCAAs two years ago â€" the recruiting borders are wide open. On last year's all-Mountain West team, five players came from California: San Diego State's D.J. Gay (Sun Valley), Kawhi Leonard (Riverside) and Malcolm Thomas (San Diego), UNLV's Tre'Von Willis (Fresno) and Gordon (San Jose).

"It's not that there's less players on the West Coast than before," another NBA scout said. "It's just that UCLA and the Pac-10 aren't hoarding them like they used to."

Maybe the coaches are right. Maybe this is just a cycle. But for the 2011-12 season, this is one cycle with a flat tire.

John Henderson: 303-954-1299, twitter.com/johnhendersonDP or jhenderson@denverpost.com

Leaving the Pac

A look at men's basketball players who have transferred from Pac-12 schools since the start of the 2010 season.

ARIZONA

Momo Jones (Iona) 2010
Daniel Bejarano (Colorado State) 2010
Sidiki Johnson (Undecided) 2011

ARIZONA STATE

Victor Rudd (South Florida) 2010
Brandon Thompson (Long Island) 2010
Demetrius Walker (New Mexico) 2010
Corey Hawkins (Cal-Davis) 2011
Brandon Dunson (NAIA) 2011

CALIFORNIA

Gary Franklin (Baylor) 2011
Amondi Amoke (Cal State-Fullerton 2011

COLORADO

Keegan Hornbuckle (Cal-Santa Barbara) 2010

OREGON

Josh Crittle (Central Florida) 2010
Michael Dunigan (Hapoel Migdal Jerusalem-Israel Premier League) 2010
Matt Humphrey (Boston College) 2010
Drew Wiley (Boise State) 2010
Jamil Wilson (Marquette) 2010
Malcolm Armstead (Wichita State) 2011
Martin Seiferth (Eastern Washington) 2011
Teondre Williams (Clayton State) 2011
Bruce Barton (undecided) November
Jabari Brown (Missouri) November

OREGON STATE

Chris Brown (Cleveland State) December

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Leonard Washington (Wyoming) 2010
David Rozitis (Hawaii) 2010
Bryce Jones (UNLV) 2011

STANFORD

Da'Veed Dildy (Robert Morris-NAIA) 2010

UCLA

Mike Moser (UNLV), after 2010

UTAH

Marshall Henderson (Texas Tech) 2010
Jordan Cyphers (Tennessee State) 2010
Carlon Brown (Colorado) 2010
Matt Read (Unknown) 2010
Chris Kupets (Vanguard NAIA) 2011
Preston Guiot (Southwest Baptist-Div. 2) 2011
Antonio Dimaria (Emporia State) 2011
Domique Lee (Casper JC) 2011
J.J. O'Brien (San Diego State) 2011
Will Clyburn (Iowa State) 2011
Shawn Glover (Oral Roberts) 2011

WASHINGTON

Clarence Trent (Seattle) 2010
Elston Turner (Texas A&M) 2011

WASHINGTON STATE

Anthony Brown (Eastern Oregon-NAIA) 2010
Michael Harthun (Portland State0 2010
Xavier Thames (San Diego State) 2010
James Watson (Cowley CC) 2010
Dre' Winston (Portland State) 2011

Source: Pac-12 sports information offices