Wsahington’s basketball team was picked to finish third in the conference by members of the Pac-12 media, marking the highest predicted finish for the program since the Huskies were picked to win the league title in 2010-11 season. UW returns all five starters, which is something no other team in the conference can say.
Although Washington did reach the NIT this past season, the Huskies are dreaming of another tournament, the NCAA. A third-place (or better, why not?) would probably get UW into the NCAAs, which would fulfill the predictions several preseason websites and magazines made about UW breaking their eight year-long NCAA Tournament drought.