1. Arizona came into the season with big expectations. The Wildcats ranked in the preseason Top 25 with Kyle Fogg and Solomon Hill returning and Josiah Turner and Nick Johnson coming to Tucson. Then Seattle Pacific happened. The Falcons came into the McKale Center last Thursday and shocked the Wildcats, 69-68. On Tuesday, Humboldt State made its way into Tucson and battled the Wildcats for the first 30 minutes before falling, 60-51. The two exhibition games shocked Wildcat fans and sent them into states of confusion and panic, but in reality, the games may have provided a wake-up call for the team. With its regular-season opener coming on Monday against Valparaiso, the coaches are reevaluating the starting lineups and rotation, which most likely would not have happened if not for the exhibition surprises.
2. A new era is set to begin in Salt Lake City and with it comes a new attitude. “Defense,” says senior Josh Watkins, Utah‘s point guard. “We’re playing way more defense, we pressure the ball.” The team is looking for an identity, and the defensive side is a great place to start considering the Utes were second-to-last in the Mountain West in scoring defense last year. Utah will also be looking to senior center David Foster to plug the middle after averaging 3.2 BPG last season.
3. Washington guard Terrence Ross didn’t put up outrageous numbers in his freshman year, but all of that changed in the Pac-10 Tournament. Ross averaged 15.3 PPG that week and was named to the all-tournament team. That performance combined with the praise he received over the summer on the progress he made with his jumper has fans expecting big things from him, so much so that he was the number one player in the “Counting Down the Huskies” features that Percy Allen has been rolling out the past couple of weeks. Ross will man the backcourt for the Huskies along with junior Abdul Gaddy and freshman Tony Wroten, Jr.
4. Earlier this week the Oregon got a commitment from four-star point guard Dominic Artis. Artis comes by way of Findlay College Prep (NV) and is rated as the number eight point guard in the nation in this year’s class. For a team that is looking mighty bare at the point for next season, this was a huge pickup for coach Dana Altman. Bruce Barron and Johnathan Loyd are the only true point guards on the team this season, but while both are solid players, Artis has the talent to come in and take their jobs quickly.
5. Last week Drew and I began our Pac-12 football predictions and I promptly went 6-0. Drew went 4-2 on the week, so I have a two-game lead already. (It should be noted that Drew changed two of his picks so we wouldn’t both have the same, but whatever… scoreboard, baby). This week there are plenty of interesting games, ranging from Utah-Arizona to Oregon-Washington. Our “predict the score” game will be Stanford-Oregon State, for the pure fun of seeing how many points the Cardinal offense can pin on the depleted Beaver D. Here are our picks for this week:

Connor Pelton (300 Posts)

I'm from Portland. College basketball and football is life.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 4th, 2011 at 10:00 am by Connor Pelton and is filed under microsites, pac 12. Tagged: abdul gaddy, arizona, bruce barron, dana altman, david foster, dominic artis, johnathan loyd, Josh Watkins, josiah turner, kyle fogg, nick johnson, oregon, Solomon Hill, terrence ross, tony wroten jr, utah, washington. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.