Trick or Treat: Pac-12 Edition
Posted by Adam Butler on October 31st, 2014Trick or Treat? DaVonte Lacy, Pac-12 Player of the Year contender. As much as I’d like for us to be treated to this, I’m afraid the firepower just isn’t there. POYs often fill the stat sheet and Lacy can do that as well as anyone. Heck, Dan Hanner and Luke Winn think he’ll score at the fourth highest clip in the nation. Furthermore, these guys project that Lacy will have a 27 percent usage rate. He’s going to have the ball. But he’s not going to have the wins.
DaVonte Lacy Will Be Awesome, But Can He Overcome His Team’s Struggles To Win POY (credit: Dean Hare)
Trick or Treat? Colorado got a jump-start on this season following the Spencer Dinwiddie injury. Big fat trick. But that’s what Tad Boyle is calling it and while he’s smarter than me, he also has to lead a team to believe (trick them if you will) that they’re not a 9-10 group with a 96 Offensive Rating. I appreciate the leadership. But I don’t think it was a jump-start because at the same time the Buffs lost Tre’Shaun Fletcher. He’d been one of their more productive freshmen before busting his own knee. He’ll likely see significant court time, improving what already projects to be a substantial frontcourt. The Colorado narrative centers around Josh Scott and Askia Booker, but Fletcher could be a big part of jump-starting this season.
Trick or Treat: UCLA is going to keep playing fast. I asked Steve Alford about this and he said they were going to. He rattled off like half of his roster and mentioned how fast they each want to play. Such leads me to believe we’ll be treated to more pace in Pauley. Last season was the highest tempo team Alford has ever coached. That’s why I’m intrigued to see if the trend (can we yet call it a trend?) continues. He has the athletes to do it, the question is just, will they?
Norman Powell Wants to Run, But Will Alford Let Him? (Associated Press)
Trick or Treat: Oregon State is the worst major conference team in the country. Man oh man, this is neither a trick nor a treat. They’re bad. Once again I’ll cite Hanner and Winn, who ran 10,000 simulations to figure this out. I absolutely and utterly respect the effort, as they’ve been awesome all preseason with their projections, but I don’t think we necessarily need a computer to tell us that Wayne Tinkle’s first campaign is going to be a struggle. They return almost no talent to a team that’s bringing in almost no talent.
Trick or Treat: Arizona has depth. On paper, this is an absolute treat. There are top-50 recruits up and down Sean Miller’s roster. The Wildcats’ second five could compete, it would seem, in this conference. But I really think this is a trick. Despite all those talented bodies, Sean Miller teams have only twice ranked lower than 200th in percentage of bench minutes. Many note that Miller has the most talented starting five in the country. So while John Calipari flirts with platooning, I expect Miller to milk that NBA-sized starting five he’s got.
Trick or Treat: Every single Pac-12 game is going to be broadcast. It wasn’t that long ago that this was a trick. And I know this isn’t necessarily news but it’s a pleasant reminder that we will have access to every single game this season. Further, the Networks is promising a The Drive type program that gives us a weekly look behind the scenes of each of the Pac-12 hoops programs. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I haven’t watched The Drive, but I hear nothing but great things. The P12N has done a great job producing quality content and I expect nothing less as they take us into basketball season.
Trick or Treat: The season starts in two weeks. What a treat that is!
Andrew Murawa Likes Basketball.
