No one expected much from the Pac-10 this year. It's a down year. UCLA isn't dominant. USC is bombed out and depleted. California and Washington are the conference's two leading lights, and while they should be plenty good on their own, when the national reputation of your conference is riding on that duo, you're probably not in great shape.

That said, the Pac-10's start has been even worse than imagined. After Oregon's loss to Montana last night, SB Nation's Sean Keeley took stock of the damage. It is not pretty:

It would be curious enough if Montana's upset of Oregon tonight happened in and of itself.  But when you compound it with UCLA's stunning loss to Cal-State Fullerton, Cal's getting taken behind the woodshed by Syracuse and Ohio State, Stanford losing to San Diego and Oral Roberts as well as USC dropping a game to crosstown smallfry Loyola Marymount, it makes for an extremely depressing start to the season for the conference.

Again, looking the conference up and down reveals only one team that seems primed for a national run, and that's Washington. (It would follow that Washington has yet to lose a disappointing early-season game thus far.) Cal is probably a half-step below. UCLA will be fine, but they won't be UCLA. After that, what do you have? Arizona is talented but rebuilding in their first year under Sean Miller. Arizona State is missing Jeff Pendergraph and lottery pick James Harden, who is busy doing things like this in the NBA. Washington State could be all right, but it too is in the midst of a coaching transition. Yahoo!'s Rivals previews actually slotted Oregon State, a team that went 0-18 in the conference just three years ago, at No. 5 in the conference. All due respect to the Beavers, but that has as much to do with their improvement as the Pac-10's collective decline.

Still, though, this start is worse than predicted. These teams should not be losing to Loyola Marymount and San Diego and Oral Roberts and Cal-State Fullerton. It's just November; there's plenty of time for the West Coast to turn things around. But right now? The Pac-10? Not so much.

Related: Pac-10 Basketball