1. Justin Cobbs of California was named the Pac-12 Player of the Week, the conference announced on Monday. Cobbs scored a career-high 28 points against Oregon last Thursday night, then backed that up with a career-high 13 assists against Oregon State on Saturday, ending his week with averages of 19 points, 10.5 assists, four rebounds and two steals per game. We here at RTC picked Washington’s Terrence Ross as our POTW for his excellence against the Arizona schools this week, but Cobbs is certainly a fine choice, and a guy who has been playing some of the best basketball of his career of late.
2. It has been a rough year all around for Arizona State, but when they take to the road, it gets even worse. They’re now 0-14 in games played outside of Tempe this year, with the latest strikes against them coming this past week when they trailed by 18 at halftime before losing to Washington by eight, then scored just eight first half points against Washington State before losing by 22. If there’s good news for the Sun Devils, it is that at least they’re done with the road slate, playing their final three conference games at home.
3. Arizona sophomore point guard Jordin Mayes is just about ready to return to action after missing the last five games with a stress reaction in his right foot. With USC and UCLA in town this week, he’ll likely see time at some point this week, with it all but a certainty that he’ll be ready by the time the Wildcats wrap up their season against Arizona State next week. With the ‘Cats running just a seven-man rotation since the injuries to Mayes and forward Kevin Parrom, senior guard Brendon Lavender has seen his minutes skyrocket. He’s played more than 20 minutes in UA’s last five games, the only times he has done that this season. He’s averaging just over eight points per game and shooting a 67.2% eFG over that span.
4. California is back on the upswing in the RPI, now ranked at #29 in that index after having dropped several spots the last two weeks. That number should be good enough to earn the Golden Bears an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament should they falter in the Pac-12 Tournament, but no other conference team has an RPI number higher than #50, leaving teams like Washington (RPI #54), Oregon (RPI #55) and Arizona (RPI #67) possibly on the outside looking in come Selection Sunday.
5. Lastly, the Orange County Register asked the question on Monday morning: Is UCLA NIT-worthy? With the bad loss to St. John’s fresh in the mind and the Bruins sitting behind mediocre Pac-12 teams who may rank higher on the pecking order for an NIT bid, is it possible that the former preseason Pac-12-favorites won’t even garner an NIT invitation? The mere fact that such a question is being asked obviously doesn’t bode well for the future of head coach Ben Howland, who is officially on the hot seat, a spot made even warmer by the rumors that 2012 recruit Shabazz Muhammad, once thought to be a future Bruin, may now be more likely to wind up in Lexington next year.

AMurawa (999 Posts)

Andrew Murawa Likes Basketball.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 21st, 2012 at 9:02 am by AMurawa and is filed under microsites, pac 12. Tagged: arizona, arizona state, ben howland, brendon lavender, california, Jordin Mayes, justin cobbs, Kevin Parrom, morning five, oregon, pac-12, shabazz muhammad, st johns, terrence ross, ucla, washington. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.