It was a roller coaster of a week for Arizona, but the Wildcats were able to move past the news that they will not be playing in the postseason to earn three important victories to open up Pac-12 play.

Just a day after an impressive victory over Colorado last Monday the school announced that UA's men's basketball team would be self-imposing a postseason ban for this year's NCAA Tournament.

Rather than become deflated by the news, the Wildcats have used it as motivation to make the regular season count even more. It led to a road sweep of the Washington schools over the weekend that included a double-overtime win against previously undefeated Washington State on Saturday night.

The three victories and UA's 9-1 record overall has the team sitting just outside the latest Associated Press Top 25 poll that was released Monday morning. UA received the sixth-most votes for teams outside the top 25 putting the Wildcats behind only Oregon when it comes to Pac-12 programs represented on the list.

Colorado finished just behind Arizona with 19 votes while UCLA received six votes in this week's poll.

Sean Miller's team has bounced back nicely from its loss to Stanford back on December 19 with four consecutive wins setting up an important week for the Wildcats this week with the Los Angeles schools making their way to Tucson for nationally televised matchups on Thursday and Saturday.

UCLA and USC are a combined 13-4 this season with both teams coming off victories over the weekend. The matchup against the Bruins will be the marquee game of the week as it is slated for a 7 p.m. tip off on ESPN with UA and UCLA being two of the three teams with three victories this season in conference play.

Another sweep this week would put the Wildcats in prime position to move into the AP Top 25.

The Trojans will be up first for UA with tip off for that game set for 7 p.m. MST. ESPN2 will broadcast Thursday night's matchup with the Trojans.

1. #17 Oregon (8-1, 3-0 Pac-12)

2. UCLA (7-2, 3-0)

3. Arizona State (4-3, 1-0)

4. Arizona (9-1, 3-1)

5. Washington State (8-1, 1-1)

6. USC (6-2, 1-1)

7. Oregon State (5-3, 1-1)

8. Stanford (5-3, 1-1)

9. Colorado (7-3, 1-2)

10. Utah (4-3, 1-2)

11. Washington (1-7, 0-3)

12. Cal (5-6, 0-4)

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