Could be that the travel limitations have exposed the non-west coast ”experts” and pollsters. The PAC 12 schools are on a roll and the B1G has been underwhelming to say the least.
The Pac 12 performed very poorly in the non-con portion of the schedule, and thus why their Ken Pom and other metrics were mediocre. True, the non-con season was short, but here is a summary of how their top 5 teams performed:
UCLA - lost to San Diego State, lost to Ohio State
Oregon - lost to Missouri
USC - Beat BYU, lost to UConn
Colorado - Lost to Tennessee
Oregon State - No games against tournament teams, lost to Wyoming and Portland
So that's 1-5 vs power conference tournament teams. There was never any indication that the Pac 12 was a strong conference, until this past week.