THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: The way the (NCAA) ball is bouncing this year

Washington State picked a great year to be pretty good in men’s basketball.

Actually, really good by Cougs standards.

WSU began play Saturday in second place in the Pac-12 at 19-6, 10-4, one-half game behind No. 5 Arizona (19-5, 10-3) — the only conference team ranked in the AP top 25.

And the Cougs own a win over that future Big 12 squad, 73-70 in Pullman on Jan. 13.

WSU travels to Tucson on Thursday, with a chance to take over first place.

AS FOR the rest of the Pac-12 …

UCLA is almost unrecognizable, after all its departures over the past couple of years. But the Bruins somehow entered Saturday’s play third in the league at 14-11, 9-5 Pac-12.

After that?

Oregon?

Meh.

Colorado?

Ditto.

Arizona State? Stanford? Utah? Washington? Cal?

You never know what you’re going to see from them on a given night.

BUT OTHER than Arizona, a projected No. 1 seed in this week’s Bracketology by Joe Lunardi on ESPN, WSU is the only other Pac-12 team currently secured in the field, at a No. 9 seed.

(Utah is now listed among Lunardi’s “Last Four In,” along with the Lovable Zags, who were out of the projected field for a few weeks. Both are projected to be in play-in games for the No. 11 seed.)

USC? The Trojans came into the season highly touted, and not just because of Bronny James. The Zags’ win over USC in December was trumpeted mightily in these parts.

But the Trojans were just 10-15, 4-10 in the Pac-12 entering Saturday.

(We will, however, pay more attention to USC starting next year, when Liam Campbell of Owyhee, who played at Harvard-Westlake in nearby Studio City, Calif., returns to L.A. and joins the Trojans).

Oregon State? I love the Beavs, but they might have to step it up a bit next year, lest they encounter a rude awakening in their temporary home in the West Coast Conference.

Meanwhile, the Mountain West — the Mountain West! — which has six teams projected to be in the field — San Diego State (a 5 seed), Colorado State (7), Utah State (7) Boise State (10), New Mexico (10) and Nevada (11; play-in game), 

(Good for the Mountain West, though. Kinda reminds me of the old Western Athletic Conference, with Utah and BYU and UTEP, along with current Mountain West schools Colorado State, Wyoming and New Mexico, where fans created crazy environments, and home-court advantage was REAL.)

BTW, Eastern Washington, the Big Sky Conference leader, is projected as a No. 14 seed — but the Eags will again have to win the conference tourney to get in.

And a little off-topic, but how about BYU? Those Cougs could never win the West Coast Conference (the Zags had a lot to do with that), but now they’re doing well in the “supposedly tougher” Big 12, currently with a projected No. 5 seed.

BACK TO OSU … and WSU.

With the Pac-12 disintegrating into the Pac-12 after this school year, OSU and WSU will park most of their teams in the WCC for the next two seasons, waiting for … who knows what the heck is going to happen next.

If nothing else, they will make WCC basketball more competitive, especially on the women’s side, where OSU is ranked and WSU was before losing its best player to injury.

And, the conference hopes, those schools will bring lots of fans to its conference basketball tournament, to offset the loss of fans who came to Vegas to root for BYU.

Fans of the Lovables have traveled well to Vegas for years, but as for the other schools …

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @CdAPressSports.