Jesse Perry (left) and Kyle Fogg will be hoping for more celebration this season. Photo by Harry How/Getty Images.
If somebody told you right now that the Arizona Wildcats would be a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament, would you take it?
That’s where college basketball analyst Jerry Palm, by way of CBSSports.com, predicts Arizona to be in March. He picks the Wildcats to be Pac-12 champion.
A league title and a No. 3 seed? Sign me up for that.
Elsewhere in the Pac-12, Palm has UCLA as a fifth seed, Washington as a sixth seed and Cal as a seventh seed. Those are the big four in the league this season, and they have been mostly interchangeable in various rankings from preseason magazines.
Also on CBSSports.com, Gary Parrish and Jeff Goodman — two of the finest national college basketball writers — combine to pick their Top 25 (and one). They, too, like Arizona best in the Pac-12, ranking the Cats at No. 15, higher than any other team in the conference.
Arizona is coming off a Pac-10 championship and a run to the regional final but no longer has star forward Derrick Williams, and starting point guard MoMo Jones transferred.
“As a team, I think we’re hungry to get back out there and practice,” coach Sean Miller said Wednesday. “Any time you have the success we had last year, especially in March, that’s a feeling you want to return to.”