Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
The UCLA Bruins are losing some talent for the 2013-14 college basketball season. However, they are still be regarded as one of the best teams in the Pac-12 for the upcoming season.
ESPN’s Miles Simon ranked UCLA No. 3 in a recent power ranking of the conference. Ahead of the Bruins are the Arizona Wildcats and the Colorado Buffaloes.
The Wildcats are losing some very key players, but a good recruiting class should allow them to not skip a beat. In fact, Arizona could be ranked in the top 10 to start the season and a national championship is not out of the question for it.
As for Colorado, it loses Andre Roberson, but will challenge UCLA and the Wildcats for a conference title.
If the Bruins do not meet expectations, they could easily finish around fifth place in the standings. There are many talented teams in the Pac-12 that could challenge for a conference title outside of UCLA, Arizona and Colorado. However, who knows if that will actually be the case.
Losing Shabazz Muhammad to the NBA draft does not help the team out whatsoever, but at least Kyle Anderson and Jordan Adams will be back. This team will not have as much hype as it did last year, but that does not mean that UCLA will not make the Big Dance.
It is important to note that the Bruins won the Pac-12 regular season title last season and also made the NCAA tournament as a No. 6 seed. They had an overall record of 25-10 and a conference record of 13-5.
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