Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Pac-12 Conference. He filed this report from Thursday afternoon’s Pac-12 Tournament session in Las Vegas.
First and foremost, let’s congratulate the Pac-12 conference on finally having a relevant conference tournament. Even in the glory days of the Pac-12 when NBA lottery picks littered rosters up and down the west coast, the tournament at the Staples Center was never a great event. First, while Los Angeles is a fine city to live in (at least according to this Angeleno), it isn’t a great destination for out-of-towners. It’s spread out and the area right around the Staples Center is not exactly the type of place that is incredibly inviting for vacationers. Then there’s the Staples Center itself – a cavernous arena much better suited to the soulless grind of the NBA than the excitement of March college hoops, made even worse when a mere fraction of the seats were occupied. Then there was a theory – which never meant much in practice – that it was a home court advantage for the Los Angeles schools.
Well, all of those worries are out the door with the move to the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. It is certainly a destination spot, it offers plenty of affordable and centrally-located hotel options, the arena itself is big enough to welcome in fans from around the conference yet small enough to be intimate and loud, and this is clearly a neutral environment. I can’t imagine that this tournament is going to be held anywhere other than Las Vegas for a long, long time.
One other ancillary topic before we dive into actual hoops: UCLA’s uniforms. Everybody’s got a strong opinion on these, it seems. According to Ben Howland, and confirmed by general consensus among the UCLA players, the players love the new unis. But when I tweeted out a picture from about an hour before the game, I got responses like “hideous”, “gross”, “ugly”, and “induces vomiting.” All of which are excellent words with which to transition to UCLA’s play early in the opening quarterfinal.
For the bulk of the first, say, 25 minutes, the Bruins looked uninspired and overmatched. Jahii Carson was getting into the lane with impunity, Jordan Bachynski was changing attempts left and right and getting point-blank shots of his own, and Arizona State was up by 15 just three minutes into the second half. The tide really turned, however, when Shabazz Muhammad threw down a massive dunk on Bachynski in transition to bring the Bruins back within single digits. From there UCLA played with energy befitting a March tournament game. They scored 26 points on their next 14 possessions (that’s good, by the way), showed an intensity on the glass that had been missing most of the year and, whenever there was any doubt, their senior leader Larry Drew II was there to make a big play. Of concern, of course, was why they were so slow in waking up, but once they got rolling, their closing power was fearsome. One last thing on the first quarterfinal game: Jahii Carson. I have watched probably, I don’t know, 28 Arizona State games on television this season and one game from high in the media section at Pauley Pavilion, and while I knew that dude was fast, I never knew just how fast until I sat at court level and watched him turn on the afterburners and zoom through UCLA’s sluggish transition defense. I’m wondering if Kenny “The Jet” Smith would be willing to turn in his nickname.
The day’s second quarterfinal game was a much-anticipated rubber match between Arizona and Colorado and it, thanks in part to tremendous support from Arizona’s fans, laid to rest any doubts about just how great this event in Vegas is. The Buffs also brought along a healthy contingent of fans, but Arizona brought more than their share, packing the place to the rafters and making their presence quite well known.
Another Wildcat making his presence well known was sophomore guard Nick Johnson. For the first three months of the season, he was playing at an all-conference clip, averaging 13.4 points per game, handing out about three assists per night, and playing his usual spectacularly good defense. But then in February, much like last season where he lost all confidence for a stretch, Johnson’s game disappeared. In the second month of the year, he averaged just 6.5 points per game and shot 40.5% eFG. But today against Colorado he was the best player on the floor – a floor that held a lot of other very good players. Johnson harassed Colorado’s Spencer Dinwiddie at every turn on the defensive end, holding the all-conference guard to just 4-of-11 shooting and making the Buffaloes have to work very hard just to initiate their offense. When the Wildcats had the ball, he was their best offensive option, leading all scorers with 18 points, making six of his seven field goal attempts (including a couple threes), handing out three assists and doing a little bit of everything. When Colorado had cut the lead to two with a minute left, it was Johnson to whom Sean Miller turned, and he patiently worked his defender down into the paint and scored a decisive hoop for the ‘Cats. While there are plenty of difference-makers on this Arizona team, if Johnson can play like this regularly for the Wildcats, they can still make a big March run.
As for Colorado, the expectation is that this team is still going to receive an NCAA Tournament invitation , and they have enough athletes to make things interesting. Andre Roberson showed that he has recovered from the illness that kept him out of a couple of recent games so they will be judged based on their body of work and, from my perspective, they have done enough, despite a 10-8 conference record, to earn an at-large invitation.