Each week the Pac-12 microsite will run down our weekly superlatives, which typically will include a Team, Player and Newcomer of the Week, along with our weekly Power Rankings.
Team of the Week: Oregon State
Yay! Wins over Rice, Corban and Oral Roberts since the start of the season may not amount to much for your average Division I team. But the Beavers are not your average DI team. We spent much of the preseason wondering if Oregon State might be the worst major conference team in America and trying to figure out if any of us still had collegiate eligibility left and any desire to move to Corvallis for a few months. But, here we are approaching Thanksgiving and the Beavers have yet to have a strike against them in the right-hand column in the standings. And better yet, this team is fun to watch and likable; well, at least now while they’re still playing teams at their level of competition. With many of the still-undefeated teams in the conference having yet to play any real stiff competition; and with the team with the best win under it’s belt (Cal, with its “neutral”-site win over Syracuse) having dropped a game as well; we figured, what the hell, let’s give the Beavers something fun.
(Also receiving votes: California: UCLA)
Player of the Week: Bryce Alford, UCLA
The Bruins still haven’t played anybody of note, but Alford has been putting on a show offensively and erasing any questions that anybody had about his ability to be a big time point guard. He’s averaging 20 points and just shy of 10 assists per game. His assist rate (percentage of teammates basket he assists on when he’s on the floor) is good for 13th in the nation, while he’s only turning it over on 11% of possessions, a sparkling number for a guy with the ball in his hands as often. He’s stroking it at a 58.8 eFG% and his true shooting percentage (which takes into account his 90.9 FT%) is 65.1%. All of those numbers are going to go down as the level of competition goes up, but he’s a terrifically exciting player who not only makes his teammates better, but is able to keep opposing defenses honest with his shotmaking ability.
(Also receiving votes: Joseph Young, Oregon; Stefan Nastic, Stanford; Norman Powell, UCLA)
Newcomer of the Week: Kevon Looney, UCLA
It became pretty apparent just a few minutes into the season that all of us had drastically underrated Looney in our preseason player rankings. Again, when talking about UCLA, let’s consider the level of competition. But the numbers (14.8 PPG, 12 RPG, 2.8 APG, 1.5 BPG, 1.3 SPG, 19.4 OR%, 81.6 FT Rate) speak for themselves. Looney is a long and versatile athlete with a knack for getting himself to the right place at the right time to either corral a rebound, disrupt a play on defense, make the right pass or earn his way to the free throw line. On a team with established offensive stars, he’s not required to play a huge role on the offensive end immediately, but as he gets more comfortable, expect his participation in the Bruin offense to increase.
(Also receiving votes: Gary Payton II, Jakob Poeltl)
Power Rankings
The high riser in our week one poll, compared to our preseason poll is UCLA, which jumped from #5 before they played a game to #2. Of course, we’ll find out a lot more about the Bruins this week as they head to the Bahamas to take part in the Battle 4 Atlantis. The other big mover is Colorado, which dropped from #4 in our preseason poll all the way down to #8 here, mostly on the weakness of their ugly loss at Wyoming on Saturday.