The regular season is behind us, so today we award our final weekly honors for the Pac-12. Doing a little housecleaning before we get to this week’s honorees, for the year, Arizona won our Team of the Week more often than anybody else, earning four nods, including three straight way back in the non-conference slate. Unfortunately for Sean Miller and company, they haven’t been the best team in the conference since Week 12, back at the end of January and the start of February. As far as Player of the Week honors, we’ve had 14 different players win the award at least once, with three guys earning two nods – Justin Cobbs, Allen Crabbe and C.J. Wilcox. The Newcomer of the Week has been slightly less muddy, with only 12 different players earning that nod. But that award has definitely been dominated by one guy – no, not Shabazz Muhammad, who only won the award once – but Arizona State’s Jahii Carson, who won the award five times this year, perhaps a hint at the winner when we announce our Freshman of the Year later today.
Allen Crabbe and Justin Cobbs Are Two Of Just Three Guys Who Have Won Our Player Of The Week Multiple Times
Team of the Week – Washington State
It took all year long, but somehow the Cougars have finally started to hit their stride just as the season ends. For the first time all season, they swept a conference home stand, dispatching both of the Los Angeles schools with relative ease. Even more impressively, they won both of those games sans guard DaVonte Lacy and with senior guard Mike Ladd only returning for the final game. The Cougs remain a long shot to do much damage in the conference tourney, but they sure are hitting their stride at just the right time.
Player of the Week – Brock Motum
It’s been a disappointing senior season for the Aussie, an all-conference player last season who saw his efficiency numbers dip this season as he was called on for more production. But Motum was a consistent force for the Cougs, scoring in double figures in every game this year and never failing to give less than his all. In WSU’s finest stretch of the year this week, Motum played all but two minutes, averaged 25.5 points and 10.5 rebounds per game while celebrating his senior weekend in style, putting on a show for his parents and all the Cougar fans there to honor a truly great Washington State player.
It Hasn’t Been The Year Brock Motum Hoped For, But He Finished It Out In Style (Dean Hare/Moscow-Pullman Daily News)
Newcomer of the Week – Jordan Adams
It’s been awhile since Adams won this award (he is the only player other than Carson to win it more than once – he won way back in the opening week of the season, then earned a POTW honor in the middle of the year, but we hedged our bets and awarded his teammate Muhammad the NOTW pick), but he’s been a big-time offensive performer all year for the Bruins. While he did go just 2-of-12 from three for the week, he averaged 17.5 points per game and also chipped in with his customary excellent defensive effort, racking up eight steals and two blocks this week.