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Is it time to be concerned about the Pac-12’s dreadful Thanksgiving Week performances?

National Collegiate Basketball Hall Of Fame Classic

KANSAS CITY, MO - NOVEMBER 20: Head coach Steve Alford of the UCLA Bruins reacts from the bench during the National Collegiate Basketball Hall Of Fame Classic game against the Creighton Bluejays at the Sprint Center on November 20, 2017 in Kansas City, Missouri. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

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Thanksgiving was not a day for fans of the Pac-12 the thankful.

For the second time in two days, No. 2 Arizona lost to a team that is in no way a lock to get to the NCAA tournament, falling to SMU just 24 hours after they lost to N.C. State; the Wolfpack, mind you, lost to Northern Iowa in the semifinals of the Battle 4 Atlantis the next night.

The only saving grace for what has been a disastrous homecoming for Deandre Ayton is that Arizona gets to play No. 19 Purdue in the 7th-place game. At least the Wildcats will get another shot at a potentially good win.

Arizona’s loss came just a couple of hours after Oregon fell against a UConn team that looks like it will be competitive this season but is a long way away from being the UConn teams your older brother knew. Stanford followed up Oregon’s loss by getting absolutely run out of the gym by No. 8 Florida, who put up 58 first half points and were in garbage time mode when the second half kicked off. Utah lost by 27 to UNLV. Oregon State lost to St. John’s. Just a day earlier, California took a 24-point beating by Division II Chaminade, a program that is getting run out of the Maui Invitational because they aren’t good enough.

And this all came during the same week that UCLA couldn’t get past Creighton in the first round of the Hall Of Fame Classic.

Arizona State takes No. 15 Xavier on Saturday afternoon while No. 10 USC hosts No. 16 Texas A&M this weekend, a last gasp for the conference to salvage what has been a disastrous start to the year.

Rest assured, those losses are going to matter come March. Quality non-conference wins are not only good for the individual teams getting those wins, they buoy the computer numbers for the teams within the conference itself. If, say, Arizona State turns out to be a top 25 team in KenPom and the RPI, then that makes every loss they take in conference that much better for their opponent and every win they get that much easier for the other team to write off. If all ships rise with the tide, then all NCAA tournament résumés rise with a strong non-conference performance.

The Pac-12 is doing the opposite of that, and it doesn’t help that there were really only thought to be four or five good teams in the league before the start of the season.

The big question now becomes whether or not this is something that the league can turn around. Maybe it’s just a fluky coincidence that Arizona, UCLA and Oregon played some of their worst basketball at the same time. UCLA still gets Michigan, Cincinnati and Kentucky before league play. Arizona has UNLV, Texas A&M, Alabama, New Mexico and UConn on their schedule. It’s not like they can’t turn this thing around.

But ... at some point we’re going to have to talk about the distraction narrative.

Generally speaking, I think the idea of off-the-court distractions affecting sports teams is a little overblown, but this is more than just a regular distraction. UCLA is missing three players because of a shoplifting incident in China that has turned into a twitter battle between LaVar Ball and Donald Trump. Arizona had one assistant coach fired as a result of the FBI investigation into college basketball, another suspended and is currently without Rawle Alkins, who has a broken foot. USC also had an assistant coach fired and is playing without De’Anthony Melton, who had a relative caught accepting money in the FBI investigation.

That’s a lot to deal with.

So maybe it is playing a role in the league’s slow-start.

And I’d recommend the league’s big three find a way to right the ship, and quickly.

Because they are not going to have the luxury of being able to build their tournament résumé during league play.