Pac-12 Burning Questions: What’s the Burning-est Question?
Posted by Andrew Murawa on November 12th, 2015We’re about ready to have some actual game action to talk about, but before we do that, there are still a few more questions to sort through. As we head into opening weekend, we asked our Pac-12 experts to answer this simple burning question: What’s the burning-est question in the Pac-12? Below are their answers.
Adam Butler: The most burning question, the most incendiary inquiry, isn’t whether Bryce Alford is going to shave his chin stubble (the answer to that is that he needs to); rather, the season’s Pac-12 BQ is the California Golden Bears. I called it the Great Golden Hype. Specifically, the question is: Can Cuonzo Martin and two five-star recruits turn an 18-15 team into anything? The latter half of that equation has been proven — elite players can win you a couple basketball games. The former has also happened at least once or twice before. The reality is that Cal has remarkably high expectations with very little track record to merit (such are lofty expectations) and is, therefore, the burningest question.
Cuonzo Martin and the California Golden Bears Have a Lot to Prove. (AP)
Bennet Hayes: Questions abound in this year’s Pac-12. Can Arizona and Oregon seamlessly reload? Will Washington, Stanford and Colorado play well enough to bring their coaches some degree of job security? Is Bobby Hurley destined to transform Arizona State into a perennial power? Uncertainty is everywhere, which only makes Cuonzo Martin’s California team that much more intriguing. If the amount of talent that this Cal roster supports existed on a team coached by John Calipari or Mike Krzyzewski, there’s a great chance that team would bear a preseason top-five ranking. Back here in reality, with Martin at the helm and the name of a program unaccustomed to major basketball success printed on the front of the jerseys, the corresponding preseason hype is relatively restrained. Given Martin’s uneven record as an X’s and O’s coach, it does makes sense — but only to a point. The freshman pairing of Jaylen Brown (a popular pick for preseason Pac-12 POY) and Ivan Rabb would be enough to turn heads, but factor in the heavy mass of talent returning to Berkeley and this team’s ceiling quickly elevates. Tyrone Wallace is the leading returning scorer in the league. Former McDonald’s All-American Jabari Bird, now a junior, is fully healthy and poised to build off a solid finish. Toss in Jordan Mathews, the team’s second leading scorer a season ago, and you have a pretty dangerous array of offensive weapons. If there was ever a team with the talent to ascend Cal into the highest echelon of West Coast basketball powers, it’s this one. Will Martin let them get there?
Andrew Murawa: The Cal question is huge. And Bennet’s right in that there are a dozen more big ones to ponder. But the big one I’ve come around to just in the past week involves Arizona and whether they deserve to be the favorite in the Pac-12. Three of our four pollsters picked Arizona to win this conference (oops, spoiler alert). Me? I picked them fourth because of all the questions I have about the Wildcats. Can Sean Miller get this team to perform at the same level that the last two teams did without the NBA lottery pick talent that we’ve come to expect in Tucson? And without those elite, freak-of-nature athletes, can Miller somehow coax a shutdown-defensive effort out of this squad? Can he also find a way to get acceptable point guard play out of a combination of a 5’9″ sophomore (Parker Jackson-Cartwright) who played fewer than 10 minutes per game last season and a JuCo transfer (Kadeem Allen) who’s more comfortable playing at the two? Don’t get me wrong: There’s no shortage of talent on this Wildcats team, but the high-end, elite talent is missing. That leads to some big questions at important positions, and for me, the burningest question in the Pac-12 this preseason.
Andrew Murawa Likes Basketball.
