The Pac-10 has been on one heck of a roller coaster since conference play began two weeks ago. Each Pac-10 team owns at least one conference win – the earliest time this has happened since expansion in 1978-79 – and preseason favorite Washington has limped to a 1-3 start in conference play.

For measure: Not one Pac-10 team received a single vote in the latest AP poll.

“You look at our conference right now, and it’s really clear that anybody can beat anybody on a given day,” Howland said. “It’s just as hard to predict the bottom two teams as who’s going to be the top two teams. It’s going to be a long, hard-fought conference schedule.”