There may be no more intriguing team in the Pac-10 this season than the Wildcats.

Just what the team will look like and how good they become after last season's debacle is one of the league's most enticing mysteries.

Coach Lute Olson is back after taking a leave of absence last season to deal with what he called a non-life-threatening medical situation. Olson never has revealed the specifics.

During the time away he was divorced from Christine, his wife of 4 1/2 years, and ultimately from his apparent coaching heir, Kevin O'Neill. A former UA assistant, O'Neill had served three head-coaching stints elsewhere in college basketball and a long stint in the NBA.

Hired as assistant head coach in the spring of 2007 to help toughen up the defense, O'Neill was named interim head coach after Olson stepped away, then was pronounced by the UA administration to be the permanent head coach-in-waiting, to replace Olson whenever he finally retired.

But the Wildcats, without great depth and sapped by injuries, struggled. O'Neill switched to a slower offensive tempo, and the Cats nearly missed out on the NCAA tournament for the first time in 24 years.

When Olson announced his return, O'Neill was sent packing, part of an overhaul of the coaching staff. Olson says he is revitalized and anxious to return the Cats to their up-tempo style, but it doesn't help that top recruit Brandon Jennings signed a pro contract to play in Europe.

Still, the Wildcats figure to fit in somewhere in the Pac-10's upper division, if for no other reason than the return of Chase Budinger and Jordan Hill.

"The good thing right now is that all the coaches are on the same page," Budinger said. "We're definitely going to bring back that Coach O style, running with motion and trying to push the ball. Those types of things are going to come back this year."

Junior point guard Nic Wise refuses to put any cap on the Wildcats' potential.

"We expect the Pac-10 championship and nothing less," Wise said. "Coach O is back. We missed him last year, and we needed him. We've got a new staff. Everybody's getting acclimated to the new system."

The new, old system.

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