With Feast Week tipping off over the weekend, we’re outlining the roads ahead for prominent Pac-12 teams involved in neutral site events this week.

What They’ve Done So Far: There hasn’t been a whole lot of flash on the California schedule so far, with Denver and Oakland (no, not the Broncos and the Raiders) headlining the early slate. As a result, the Bears are out to a 4-0 record, with only Oakland having thrown a challenge their way. But for a team breaking in five freshmen and replacing Pac-12 Player of the Year Allen Crabbe, that recipe has been just fine. The mostly highly regarded freshman of the bunch, Jabari Bird, is the primary guy replacing Crabbe and he’s been great out of the gate, averaging 13.5 points per game while stroking 50 percent of his shots from three. Meanwhile, versatile sophomore wing Tyrone Wallace looks like he’s working on a breakout season, having made great strides with a previously broken jump shot. Finally, the veteran frontcourt tandem of Richard Solomon and David Kravish has also combined to account for about 20 points, 20 rebounds and four blocks per night, and it is all held together by senior point guard Justin Cobbs, who hasn’t yet had to take on a big scoring burden but is capable if needed.

Jabari Bird Has Adapted To The College Game Quickly (GoldenBearSports.com)

First Round Preview: Arkansas is first up for the Golden Bears to tip off the Maui Invitational this morning and this game will be a clash of tempos. While Cal is more than willing to slow things down and grind it out in the half-court with set plays and lock-down defense, the Razorbacks want to get up and down the court with alacrity. Junior wing Alandise Harris leads the way for the Hawgs, averaging 18 points per game, earned mostly on the attack, whether making tough shots from penetration or getting to the line to take advantage of his excellent free throw shooting. Bird and/or Wallace will be primarily responsible for checking Harris and they’ll need to make sure to keep out of foul trouble, as he is one of the best players in the nation at drawing fouls. Luckily, Cal teams under Mike Montgomery are not known to foul recklessly. The one spot where the Bears can take advantage of Arkansas is on the offensive glass, where Solomon and Kravish have done a good job this season; Arkansas, meanwhile, is not great at cleaning their defensive glass. Still, while the Bears are the slightly more talented team here, if they’re not on top of things early on the island, this is a game they could lose.

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Things have not started well for Washington. After being on the outside looking in the last two seasons come NCAA Tournament time, there was quite a bit of optimism around the program, what with a McDonald’s All-American coming in at point guard, a big-time scorer on the wing returning for his senior season, and a whole host of big men up front to interchange. Now here we are, a couple weeks into the year and the Huskies already have a couple of losses, including an 18-point blowout last night against Indiana, as well as some injury issues along the frontcourt. Right now this team doesn’t look like a squad anywhere near the top of the Pac-12.

Short A Couple of Frontcourt Players And With Shaky Perimeter Defense, Lorenzo Romar And Washington Are Off To A Slow Start (Pac-12)

Certainly the injuries are part of the issue. Veteran forward Desmond Simmons is out until Christmas shopping is well underway following a knee surgery, while versatile sophomore big man Jernard Jarreau is out for the year after tearing his ACL two minutes into the season. After those setbacks, Lorenzo Romar was left with just three options up front: senior center Perris Blackwell, junior forward Shawn Kemp, Jr., and sophomore center Gilles Dierickx. Blackwell, a transfer from San Francisco, is a good, skilled post man, but at the end of the day he’s an earthbound 6’8” center. Kemp is nice in theory, but his production has never begun to approach the hype generated by his name. And Dierickx? This isn’t a guy meant to be on the court at this point in his career in big-time college basketball, as his offense lags significantly behind his defense. Thursday night against Indiana, the weaknesses of those three were made abundantly clear. Kemp fouled out in nine minutes, Blackwell had a double-double but was regularly abused by the more athletic Indiana freshman Noah Vonleh, and the team as a whole grabbed a woeful 41.2 percent of their opponent’s missed shots. And despite seven blocked shots, there isn’t a great rim protector on this team.

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Adam Butler (@pachoopsab) of Pachoops again will be joining us all year, providing us with his weekly take on our favorite conference, as we begin the March to Las Vegas. 

It’s not often that someone can or will make the case for a career 37 percent shooter who takes 26 percent of his team’s shots — a guy who boasts a true shot percentage of just 48 percent and an ORtg of 98.2. No, this isn’t usually the type of player we make the case for, but for the Colorado Buffaloes, Askia Booker is critical. He will wow you with quickness and the voluminous nature by which he gets his points, but when the lane is packed, when the offense goes stagnant and Colorado is forced into a half-court set, the Buffs are in need of the type of player willing to throw Basketball 101 out the window and get baskets. He’s the hero Colorado deserves and the hero it needs right now.

Askia Booker’s Shot Selection – Or Lack Thereof – Make Him One Of The Pac-12’s Most Controversial Players (Patrick Ghidossi, BuffaloSportsNews)

Because Colorado’s strength is not in the half-court; it’s a very sound defensive basketball team that is going to thrive in transition. Any team with athletes like Wesley Gordon, Xavier Johnson and Jaron Hopkins would. The issue, however, is teams aren’t soon to let them do it. Their schedule to date has included Wyoming and UCSB who rank #323 and #343, respectively, in offensive rebound rate. What does that mean? It means the Cowboys and Gauchos are getting a shot up and heading back on defense faster than you can say “if you want to play slow, go to UCLA.” Because of these opponents, the stat sheet won’t soon show us the Buffaloes’ transition success.

Last season the Buffs were the 37th most transition team in the nation. And how do the Buffs get into transition? With a hellacious on-ball defender like Booker. If you’ve watched him play, he’s quicker than a water bug and I’ve watched him cause fits for Nick Johnson (career 33 percent shooter against Colorado). There’s a reason he led the team in transition field goal attempts last season. The issue, however – and this is where I think people find the biggest issue with Booker – is that a season ago he took 41 percent of those transition shots in the form of a two-point jumper. WHAT? You’re telling me that this kid is going to get out ahead of everyone else and pull up? No thank you. Just 29 times (23%) did he get to the rim in transition. And to break it down real lay for you, shots at the rim are easier than shots farther from the rim. For further context if not comparison, Sabatino Chen (of exquisite hair lore) took 22 of his 36 (61%) transition shots at the rim. That’s a pair of two-guards with contrasting shot selection and I’ll give you one guess as to who had the 45 percent eFG as opposed to 67 percent? But this season Booker has dropped the number of transition jumpers he’s chucking up and either getting to the rim (up to 37 percent) or smarting up and letting the offense – whatever half-court option they have – develop. Against the aforementioned Wyoming and UCSB anti-transitioners, Booker averaged 14 points on 43 percent shooting in the Buffalo sweep. The hero they deserve and need.

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1. USC and first-year head coach Andy Enfield got some terrible news Thursday when it learned that senior guard J.T. Terrell had been declared academically ineligible. After averaging 10.0 PPG in the first three Trojan contests, Terrell sat out the Cal State Fullerton on Tuesday. Add in the West Alabama game last night, which tipped just a few hours after this story broke, and he will miss at least seven games for USC. The Trojans will not have to forfeit the games he appeared in so far this season.
2. I don’t know how much basketball you caught yesterday (I saw the majority via a number of shaky streams while working), but Eamonn Brennan was spot on with this piece, calling it “November Madness”. The whole day, the first of ten straight with holiday tournament action, had an early-round NCAA Tournament feel, what with a classic first round Georgetown upset, Charlotte topping Kansas State, a double overtime thriller between UAB and New Mexico, Florida State’s upset of VCU, and 1-3 Boston College taking 18th ranked Connecticut down to the final seconds. The Pac-12 was on the map as well, most notably the Washington schools, although both tumbled with 16 and 18 point losses to Gonzaga and Indiana, respectively. In Boulder, Colorado was able to hold off a pesky UC Santa Barbara team for a 76-68 win, and elsewhere around the west, Utah and Stanford both picked up their third straight wins. November Madness continues today with Washington-Boston College in the 2k Consolation game and UCLA-Morehead State in the Las Vegas Invitational preliminaries, in addition to games like Kansas State-Georgetown, Massachusetts-New Mexico, and Michigan-Florida State being played out across the world.
3. Oregon State picked up one of its biggest non-conference wins in recent history last Sunday at Maryland, but the Beavers know it’s only one game and there is plenty left to prove. They are still capable of looking like the team that lost to a lower level MEAC club to open the season, but both the players and coaches are on the same page; the intensity in practice needs to continue. We should see on Tuesday whether the new Beavers or old Beavers come out against Southern Illinois-Edwardsville.
4. Utah athletic director Chris Hill is attempting to put together a project that I have thought about for a long time; a small tournament between each school in the state. If it goes according to plan, Utah, BYU, Utah State, and Weber State would meet in either a bracketed or round robin event at EnergySolutions Arena in Salt Lake City. The earliest the tournament could start would be 2015, and could come down to whether or not the Aggies would be willing to give up the home-and-home series with the Utes.
5. Lastly, we close things out with our weekly football pick’em. While basketball is at the front of everyone’s mind, the final three weeks of football are terrific. Teams are battling in cold weather for bowl bids and BCS positioning, and of course, this is when the rivalry games begin. Last week both Drew and I went 3-3, with me hitting UCLA’s win against Washington and Drew getting Arizona State over Oregon State down in the desert. On the season, I still have a one-game lead, checking in at 61-18 to his 60-19. Our game of the week is a no-brainer, as 17th ranked Arizona State travels to the Rose Bowl to face #14 UCLA in the Pac-12 South Championship. We’re both riding the home-field advantage and taking the Bruins.
   

   Oregon at Arizona	Connor: Oregon	Drew: Oregon
   Utah at Washington State	Washington State	Washington State
   California at Stanford	Stanford	Stanford
   Arizona State at UCLA	UCLA 38-35	UCLA 31-28
   USC at Colorado	USC	Colorado
   Washington at Oregon State	Oregon State	Washington

Coming into the year, we knew Jahii Carson was going to be among the best guards in the conference, if not one of the best guards in the entire country. But, there was a reason he came back to school instead of trying his hand at an NBA career immediately after his delayed freshman campaign at Arizona State. Meanwhile, up in Oregon, once Joseph Young was declared immediately eligible after transferring in from Houston, we knew he was going to be an excellent shooter, something he has repeatedly proven over his basketball career. But we weren’t sure how complete of a guard he could be. There are still four months of basketball left this year for both of these guys to show who they really are, but today, we’ll look at the early returns.

Jahii Carson’s Improved Jumper Makes Him Next To Unstoppable (Harry How, Getty Images)

There wasn’t a whole lot to complain about in Carson’s freshman year in Tempe. He led the Sun Devils in scoring and assists, played relatively under control and got his teammates involved, but still left plenty of room in the game to find his own shot. He was also solid defensively and therefore it was no coincidence that ASU went from a 10-win squad in the year he was watching from the bench to a 22-win outfit last year. Still, despite all his tremendous quickness and athleticism, this was a 5’10” point guard whose jump shot was best described as “streaky.” Sure, he could knock it down – he dropped in five of nine attempts over the course of three impressive games in the Pac-12 Tournament, for example – but it was erratic, to the tune of just 32 percent over the course of the year. He spent the offseason dedicated to, among others things, tightening up that jumper.

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1. Less than a day after Oregon State got one of its biggest non-conference victories in recent memory, current Salt Lake Community College guard Gary Payton II signed with the Beavers. Payton is, of course, the son of former Beavers legend, Gary Payton, and like his dad, “The Glove,” he is nicknamed “The Mitten.” He is a capable rebounder who is averaging 7.4 RPG this season with the Bruins, in addition to scoring at an 11.0 PPG clip. On the other end of the floor, Payton is a harassing defender who will fill all the “hustle” categories on the stat sheet. The Beavers return to the floor after their upset win at Maryland in six days, when they’ll face Southern Illinois-Edwardsville in Corvallis. With the aforementioned win and this notable signing, head coach Craig Robinson is enjoying a spurt of momentum that his program hasn’t seen in a while.
2. Down the road in Eugene, Oregon remained undefeated on the young season last night with a 69-54 win against Utah Valley. The Ducks were once again led by Houston transfer Joseph Young, who scored 20 points in 31 minutes of action. Oregon improved to 3-0 on the year, but the Wolverines provided a stiff challenge for 30 minutes before the Ducks pulled away.
3. Arizona head coach Sean Miller recorded his 100th win at Arizona on Monday night with its beatdown of Fairleigh Dickinson in the first round of the NIT Season Tip-Off. The creative hashtag commemorating the achievement, #100Pointsfor100Wins, popped up on Twitter after the 100-50 victory, and athletic director Greg Byrne honored the moment by presenting Miller with the game ball afterwards. “Only 489 more wins and a national title to go to catch Lute,” says the Tucson Citizen. Miller notched his 101st win last night when the Wildcats rolled over Rhode Island, 87-59. The Wildcats move on the NIT semifinals in New York City next Wednesday.
4. In other on-court action, USC dominated and overmatched regional rival Cal State Fullerton on Tuesday, taking an early 24-8 lead and never looking back. The Trojans’ attack was balanced as guard Byron Wesley had 22 points and center Omar Oraby added 15, but once again, coach Andy Enfield saw little production from his bench. That will have to change when the competition improves, starting eight days from now against Villanova.
5. After an opening three games against the likes of UMBC, Miami (OH) and Idaho State, it was tough to see just how much Arizona State had improved over the offseason. One thing was for sure which was that the shot selection and passing game had definitely gotten better, and that this was definitely a team with more threats than all-everything point guard Jahii Carson. The Sun Devils showed all of that in Tuesday’s six-point road win against UNLV. Their offensive efficiency continued in Vegas, scoring 52 points in the second half and putting away the game at the free throw line. They won’t sneak up on anybody after this win, but Herb Sendek has a fun team to watch, no doubt about it.

Out of the country? Living under a rock? Here’s what you missed in the first full week of Pac-12 basketball.

Roberto Nelson Poured In 31 Points In Oregon State’s Upset Win At Maryland (credit: Andy Cripe)

Best Game – Oregon State @ Maryland: Arizona-San Diego State would be a fine pick here as well, but the Wildcats held a comfortable lead for nearly 35 minutes in that one. In College Park, things were exiting and intense from the outset. The whole atmosphere, bolstered by an appearance from the President of the United States, made this feel like something much more than a mid-November game. And on a day when Indiana State won at Notre Dame and Belmont upset North Carolina, it was the Beavers’ turn to pull the shocker. The knocks on Craig Robinson‘s team remain; it is largely a two-man offense without a great rebounder, but it has a solid distributor in Challe Barton and two capable three-point shooters in Angus Brandt and Olaf Schaftenaar. Who knows where the unpredictable Beavers go from here, but the Maryland win provides a boost of momentum that the program desperately needed.

Upsets – There were three upsets in the conference this week, starting late last Monday night when BYU walked into Maples Pavilion and hung 112 points on Stanford. Junior Chasson Randle scored 33 points for the Cardinal, but it was nowhere near enough after a horrific showing on the defensive end of the court. Three days later, UC Irvine destroyed Washington on its home court, taking a 38-36 halftime lead and turning it into a 14-point win. And of course, the Beavers topped Maryland to close out the week. Oregon State went on an 8-0 run to start the second half and never trailed in the final 20 minutes, winning by a final of 90-83.

Power Rankings (As voted upon by Connor Pelton, Andrew Murawa, and Adam Butler):

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1. Utah is off to a 2-0 start with an average margin of victory of 59 points. As you would suspect, the quality of competition hasn’t been stellar so far. And as Mike Sorensen of Deseret News notes, it’s perfectly fine for a program that is working its way back from the depths of a 2011-12 season when the Utes lost 25 out of 31 games, to schedule down a bit. But with six Division I schools in the state of Utah, the only one the Utes will face this year is BYU. Going forward, why not sub out some of these random schools on the roster (e.g., Idaho State, Texas State, Ball State, Savannah State) and replace them with local schools like Weber State, Utah State, Southern Utah and Utah Valley?
2. Colorado ran out to a workmanlike 93-70 win over Arkansas State last night, in part behind a super-efficient 13 points on just five shots from the field from junior point guard Spencer Dinwiddie. It is the third time in recent games where Dinwiddie has attempted fewer than five shots from the floor and it is nothing to worry about; it’s all part of the plan. You see, with a bunch of new players stepping into big roles on the wing, Dinwiddie’s just playing the part of the traditional point guard by setting up his teammates. But, he’s also shown that in games when his team needs him to create his own offense, he’s entirely capable of doing that too.
3. Last night, Arizona opened its NIT Season Tip-Off participation with a 100-50 win over a ridiculously outclassed Fairleigh Dickinson team, but as Bruce Pascoe of the Arizona Daily Star points out, the Wildcats can’t afford to lose focus tonight when they play Rhode Island in the second round of the tournament. Those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it, and a quick look at the ‘Cats history in this tournament would provide a good warning sign. Five years ago when Arizona last played in this tournament, a team led by Jordan Hill and Chase Budinger was upset in the second round by a UAB team when Jamelle Horne intentionally fouled an opponent in the waning seconds of a tied game, thinking his team was behind and needed to send the Blazers to the free throw line.
4. UCLA cruised past Sacramento State on Monday night in a 36-point victory featuring plenty of highlights, but the best news  Bruins fans got is the news that Travis Wear is expected back in the lineup on Friday night when it hosts Morehead State. UCLA was limited to just a seven-man rotation on Monday night, with Wear still recovering from appendix surgery, freshman Noah Allen out with a facial fracture suffered last week against Oakland, and Wanaah Bail yet to play following knee surgery. Bail could return as early as next week.
5. Joseph Young has been off to a hot start for Oregon, averaging 30 points a game out of the chute and seemingly doing everything well. But with his dad, Michael Young, keeping an eye on everything, there are still plenty of ways for the younger Young to improve. Which is why following his lone missed free throw on the season so far, his dad made him shoot 100 free throws for additional practice. And I’m guessing his dad’s probably got something to do with his mandate to make 1,000 shots a day regularly. But, clearly this attention to detail is working; it may be early still, but Young is sixth in the nation in true shooting percentage – a stat that combines field goal, three-point and free throw shooting – checking in at an astonishing 82.6 percent.

1. Oregon State scored a big win on Sunday evening, both for themselves and for the conference. Playing at Maryland in front of, among others, President Obama, the Beavers looked impressive, getting big nights from a pair of seniors and scoring a road win against a solid ACC squad. Roberto Nelson led the way with 31 points (he’s now averaging 30.3 PPG this year), but the big difference for the Beavers was the presence of forward Devon Collier, who scored 29, grabbed 11 boards and blocked a couple of shots. After a game missed due to suspension, he at least gives Oregon State some athleticism and size up front. When Eric Moreland becomes available come January, this will be almost a whole different team than the one that melted against Coppin State last week. And just for the record, Craig Robinson and the Beavers are now 4-0 in games attended by the President.
2. Now, about that loss to Coppin State, it is just one of three particularly concerning defeats around the conference, as Vince Grippi of The Spokesman-Review writes. While the Stanford loss to BYU itself isn’t all that damning, the fact that it came at home and in a game where they gave up 112 points looks bad. But worse yet are OSU’s loss to Coppin State and Washington’s loss to UC Irvine. Certainly some portion of these losses could be excused away by suspensions and/or injuries, but regardless, these losses will hurt conference RPI numbers in the long run.
3. Despite that loss last week, Stanford has somewhat gotten back on track, most recently on the road against a good Denver team on Sunday. Chasson Randle continued his hot start to the season with a 29-point explosion (on 14 field goal attempts) as the Cardinal distanced themselves in the second half after a tight first 20 minutes. The Cardinal now kick off a faux-tournament with a home game against Texas Southern this week and one at the start of December against South Dakota State, with the real part of the Legends Classic bracket set for Monday and Tuesday of Thanksgiving week in Brooklyn. Stanford will open that event with a match-up against Houston and, provided they win, a likely resume game with Pittsburgh in the final.
4. Washington State has also had a hot guard to start the season, namely DaVonte Lacy, who has averaged 24.5 points in the Cougars’ first two outings. But maybe the best news for Ken Bone’s squad is that freshman Ike Iroegbu has averaged 20 minutes, 10.5 points and just 1.5 turnovers per game in his first couple of outings. If Iroegbu can continue to provide some minutes at the point, it allows guys like Lacy and Royce Woolridge to play more off of the ball.
5. Lastly, Jim Hague of the Hudson Reporter has a piece on Kyle Anderson of UCLA and the differences between his rough start to his college career last year and his more comfortable role this season at UCLA. With Larry Drew II locked in at the point last year, Anderson spent most of the year off the ball, playing up front as almost an afterthought. This year, he’s the main man, running the show on offense and more comfortably stuffing the stat sheet. While the story — aided and abetted by Kyle Anderson Sr. — is that this will be the younger’s last year at UCLA before heading off to a professional career, the sophomore isn’t willing to go down that road quite yet.

A Pac-12 adaption of Every Day Should Be Saturday’s Hatin’ Steve Spurrier character. 

Larry Krystowiak (Credit: The Grizzoulian)

• It’s just not hoops season until Washington loses to a Big West team by 14 at home. Thanks, UC Irvine.
• Who doesn’t love the new foul rules? Two and a half hour games. Fifty fouls. This game is about flow, kids.
• Oregon’s at it again, guys.
• I’ve got more important things to do at 7:00 AM than watch a Quinnipiac–La Salle game. Slackers.
• Is there a coach with more job security than Craig Robinson after losing to a lower-level MEAC team? Is there a coach other than Craig Robinson taking his team to the White House this week? The answer is in there somewhere, folks.
• Robert Morris will look to continue its dominance of Kentucky on Sunday in Lexington. LOL.
• How many more times does Stanford have to give up 100 points before Johnny Dawkins is fired?
• Grand Canyon has opened its season at 0-2. Stockholders ain’t gonna be pleased.
• Gary Payton II has committed to Oregon State. They call him “The Mitten.” That’s not a joke. Really.
• Yeah, we lead the nation in points scored. Play someone other than Evergreen State, you say? Haters gonna hate.
• The Marshall Henderson show is back. Once a Ute, always a Ute, is what I say.
• Colorado has found the key to student attendance – bacon. No word on how USC’s free Ferrari promotion is working out.