From the moment it was first rumored, the relocation of the conference tournament to Las Vegas has created quite a buzz among Pac-12 basketball fans. Adam Butler (@pachoopsAB) of PacHoops will be here every week as he offers his unique perspective along our March to Vegas.

Earlier this week, Joe Lunardi posted his updated Bracketology. Amidst the returning cries of mediocrity in the Conference of Champions, ESPN’s foremost bracketologist allotted six spots to the Pac, the second largest number amongst all conferences. This is a number that the conference hasn’t sent dancing since 2009. In his projected field he’s got Arizona as the highest Pac seed (#3) and Stanford the lowest (a play-in #12). UCLA is a declining #12, Colorado a solid #7 (second highest seed), Cal an improving #9, and Oregon a solid #10. That, indeed, is six teams dancing. This, indeed, is December; but what else are we going to talk about during exams week? There’s a lot of season remaining to resume boost but it’s good to see six Pac teams projected to dance (I fully understand the arbitrary nature of December brackets). It’s certainly a different look from last season’s actual bracket in which just two teams danced; a page I like to think the conference has turned. Or have they?

Arizona Presently Leads The Way Among Pac-12 Teams, But Even They Don’t Have Any Great Quality Wins. Yet. (Casey Sapio, USA Today)

Percy Allen proposed a similar question earlier this month when he brought up the issue that, once again, the Pac-12 is struggling against ranked opponents. He makes the argument against SOS, RPI, and other acronyms for tried and true Wins. A concept I rather love. So Allen harps on the conference’s win-loss record against ranked opponents; a record the Pac has run to 2-16 this year. An unimpressive stat to be sure and one that cannot bode well in the eyes of a selection committee tasked with selecting the 37 most eligible bachelors. The conference’s collective work would not seem to be deserving of significant (say… six?) invitations. He is quick to point out that there are remaining games against ranked opponents (four, highlighted by Saturday’s Arizona-Florida game); a fleeting effort to bolster that conference win-loss record against ranked opponents. But for what? Will Colorado not dance because USC over-scheduled and went oh-for-the-season against ranked opponents? Could Oregon wind up a #10 seed but not a #8 because Stanford struggled at the Battle 4 Atlantis? Not necessarily. A team’s success helps the conference, giving everyone a chance to play a better opponent. But they’re flounderings? Well those can only hurt if you lose to them in which case what’s it even matter if the conference is undefeated or defeated against ranked opponents? The name of the game, as Allen agrees, is winning.

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1. Despite being ranked #8 in the country and currently 7-0, the Arizona Wildcats haven’t had a home sellout yet this year. All signs point to that changing this Saturday when the 5th ranked Florida Gators come to town. On Tuesday, the assistant director of ticket operations said that Arizona has under 50 tickets remaining for the game, so there’s little doubt it will be a sellout. Despite this fact, Sean Miller has praised the atmosphere in Tucson countless times and pointed out that many other high major programs don’t get the support that Arizona gets early in the year and it’s true. The average attendance this year so far has been 13,557 fans in a McKale Center that has a maximum capacity of 14,538 seats. When Saturday comes around, the McKale Center will definitely be loud and that home court advantage should help the Wildcats throughout the game.
2. After Washington’s 4-4 start, Lorenzo Romar has realized that he needs to change up his demeanor on the sideline. The Huskies this year have been too laid back for Romar’s taste and he wants them to play with higher energy, more intensity and more consistency. Romar believes his team has played to the level of their inferior opponents’ talent so far this year and it is evident in their close losses to Albany and Nevada and a close win over Cal State Fullerton. It doesn’t help that the Huskies continue to deal with an ankle injury to Andrew Andrews, a knee injury to Shawn Kemp Jr., and planter fasciitis to Scott Suggs, but Romar has been displeased with his team’s start to say the least.
3. Before the season started, the USC Trojans didn’t have to do much to improve on last year’s performance, but their slow start hasn’t exactly been what they hoped for. The Trojans have struggled moving the ball effectively and their half-court offense has been lacking in efficiency which has resulted in too much isolation. On a brighter note, the team is getting it together in the second half of games as they have outscored their opponents 303-280 in the final 20 minutes despite their 3-6 record. For the Trojans to be successful this season, they are still going to have to find a consistent efficient scorer as their leading scorer J.T Terrell is shooting 30 percent from the field despite leading the team with 11 points per game.
4. Cal’s Allen Crabbe is the nation’s sixth leading scorer, averaging 21.9 points per game and is set to duel with the fifth leading scorer in the nation as Greg McDermott and Creighton head into Haas Pavilion on Saturday. McDermott is no stranger to scoring as he was the nation’s third leading scorer last year. This also won’t be the first time Crabbe has seen McDermott as the two faced off at the U-19 USA Basketball Camp in 2011. Both McDermott and Crabbe can shoot the lights out from all over the court, and Cal will certainly need all it can get from the talented junior if they want to pull of the upset against #16 ranked Creighton.
5. All the buzz might be around top recruit Jabari Parker on Thursday when the 2012-13 Geico ESPN High School Basketball Showcase takes place tomorrow night across the ESPN networks, but the Pac-12 will be focusing on a different top 10 recruit. Kentucky, Washington, and Arizona are all still in the hunt to land Aaron Gordon. Gordon will get to prove himself at 8 PM ET against great competition as he will take on Andrew and Aaron Harrison, both top five recruits and current 2013 Kentucky commitsments.

1. Top recruit Aaron Gordon has cut his list down to Washington, Arizona, and Kentucky, but Washington continues to make an appealing case. Gordon’s mother, Shelley-Davis Gordon, is from Seattle and has gotten to know Lorenzo Romar very well, and Gordon’s father, Ed Gordon, grew up in the same area as Romar. Although Gordon would be the focal point of the Washington program if he were to commit there, that’s not something he is unwilling to do. Gordon isn’t going to pick a school anytime soon, and no one puts players in the NBA better than Kentucky coach John Calipari, which is Aaron Gordon’s ultimate goal; still, don’t count out the Huskies just yet.
2. Although Shabazz Muhammad is now finally playing, don’t expect him to have the impact he was supposed to have right away. Muhammad has admitted that it’s been difficult dealing with the eligibility investigation as well as overcoming injuries and some added weight. Muhammad was the leading scorer in UCLA’s victory over Georgia with 21 points, but he said he’s added 10 to 15 pounds and an injured shoulder and an ankle are certainly not easy to deal with for an explosive athlete. However, Muhammad isn’t making excuses and understands the pressure that comes with being a top recruit and going to arguably the most prestigious college basketball school in the country. Whatever happens as the season continues, you can count on Muhammad working to improve and doing the most he can.
3. In this short season, Cal’s Allen Crabbe has certainly stood out. Averaging a fifth best in the nation 26.7 PPG, Crabbe has helped Cal overcome some sluggish starts to games and has put it upon himself this year to be more consistent. He knows he has to be more aggressive and score at will. Crabbe admitted he disappeared in games last year, but with the loss of Pac-12 player of the year Jorge Gutierrez, and the possibility of the NBA looming either this year or the next, Crabbe can no longer afford to be inconsistent. Credit to the Bear junior for understanding that he needs to pick up the slack and he has certainly done so this year by posting a career high 33 points against Pepperdine and also games of 27 and 20 points. Obviously, Crabbe won’t be able to keep up this scoring barrage all season, but if he continues to stay aggressive, he should be able to keep Cal in the Pac-12 hunt all year long.
4. The Arizona Wildcats are in the middle of an eight-day break until its next game, but Sean Miller’s team won’t be doing any resting. Arizona was lucky to have this past Tuesday and yesterday off after their latest victory over Long Beach State, but it’ll be right back to work on Thanksgiving as the Cats will practice in the morning and again on Friday and Saturday, Monday and Tuesday (they’ll take a day off on Sunday). Sean Miller believes this time of the year is crucial and he has the resume to back it up. It was only two years ago that Arizona came one win short of the Final Four and he believes the team’s increased practice early in the year was a big reason for that.
5. USC hasn’t got off to the greatest start as the Trojans finished in sixth in the Maui Invitational, but they’re doing well off the court. USC recently landed the best player in Nevada according to ESPNU in point guard Julian Jacobs. Jacobs is a 6’2″ player who is explosive and can drive to the hoop or hurt you with his great passing. He is now the third guard in the 2013 USC class, adding to Kendal Harris and Kahlil Price. Originally, Jacobs was a Utah commitment, but he changed his mind in August and now has a chance to form a very strong and athletic backcourt at USC in the future.

Well, it’s finally here. After the interminable offseason, we’ve finally got hoops back. Over the last month or so, and really, dating back throughout the summer, we’ve run down all the Pac-12 teams in as much detail as we could muster. Now, with real live basketball just hours away, it is time to unveil our preseason power rankings. Between Connor Pelton, Kevin Danna, Parker Baruh and myself, we’ve cobbled together the following rankings. Below those, I’ll take you through each team and tell you why my picks are better than the choices my colleagues made.

1. Arizona – Three out of the four of us take the Wildcats to win the conference, and there’s nothing wrong with that pick. With veteran leaders like Solomon Hill and Kevin Parrom paired with returning youngsters like Nick Johnson and Angelo Chol, bolstered by an elite recruiting class featuring three different talented big guys, the Wildcats are the safe pick to win the Pac-12.
2. UCLA – I, however, am going with upside in picking a conference champion. While Arizona may be safe, if everything falls into place for UCLA, they’ve got national championship talent. Now, of course, there are numerous obstacles to everything falling into place, starting with project number one: getting Shabazz Muhammad eligible. The range of possible records for the Bruins is vast, but I’m going to gamble on the league’s most talented roster.
3. Colorado – Maybe we’ve all been blinded by CU’s fantastic run through an admittedly weak Pac-12 tourney at the end of the year last year, but the four of us seem more bullish on the Buffaloes than the voters in the media poll. Guys like Andre Roberson, Askia Booker and Spencer Dinwiddie are sort of known entities, but if the strong freshman class, led by Josh Scott and Xavier Johnson live up to expectations, it could be another great year in Boulder. Read the rest of this entry »

1. Yesterday was Pac-12 Men’s Basketball Media Day in San Francisco, and the big news out of the event was the release of the preseason media poll, which has Arizona slotted in the top spot, edging out UCLA by one point even though the Bruins received one more first place vote. California and Washington were the other two schools receiving first place votes, with the Golden Bears garnering three and the Huskies two. It’s hard to argue with the choices for the two top spots and bottom three (Washington State, Arizona State and Utah) in the conference, but places three through nine can certainly be debated. It appears as though Colorado and USC are being underestimated by the media; especially Tad Boyle’s team. The Buffaloes were grossly underestimated last year, picked to finish tied for 10th with Washington State in the preseason. Of course, that prediction was wrong. Sure, the Buffs lost Carlon Brown and a couple of other seniors, but Tad Boyle has dealt with bigger losses before and been just fine. As far as USC is concerned, perhaps some media members got too transfixed on the Trojans’ 6-26 record without taking into account all the injuries last year’s team had combined with all the impact transfers that will be suiting up for Kevin O’Neill this year. On paper, USC at least looks better than both of the Oregon schools.
2. Nothing too revealing usually comes out of these conference media days, but there were a couple of interesting nuggets. As predicted, Craig Robinson’s relationship with Barack Obama and the upcoming election was a hot-button topic, and the Oregon State head coach had some fun with the media by saying it’s classified information where he will be on Election Night before revealing that he will be in Chicago… but not before a his team practices earlier in the day. He also gave praise to 6’7’’ freshman Jarmal Reid, who he says is a great defender and could play early and often this year. Another interesting playing tidbit came from USC head coach Kevin O’Neill, who said that walk-on Chass Bryan will get minutes as the backup point guard to Jio Fontan. Bryan stands at 5’9’’ and is on a Presidential Scholarship to USC, unrelated to his status on the basketball team. It looks as though the line of diminutive playmakers at USC will continue in some fashion beyond Fontan’s senior year. Bryan’s role has taken on a greater importance over the last couple of months after it was announced that Maurice Jones would transfer from the school. O’Neill still had nothing but kind words for Jones at Pac-12 Media Day, going a little out of his way to compliment him on what he did for the Trojans the past two years and saying he loved him as a person. This writer is still very curious as to what led to his suspension and subsequent departure, though.
3. George Dohrmann recently caught up with former Arizona State Sun Devil Demetrius Walker for a Q&A for his blog. Now a part of the New Mexico Lobos, it looks as though Walker has found a niche in Albuquerque and is starting to live up to some of the highly unrealistic expectations placed upon him in middle school and high school. As Eamonn Brennan points out, it’s interesting to hear Walker talk more in terms of “we” than “me” as he attempts to turn the page on an AAU culture that built him up to larger-than-life proportions and nearly destroyed him. The knock on Walker at Arizona State was that he was just an athlete and had very limited basketball skills — namely a poor jump shot. Here’s to wishing the star of Dohrmann’s Play Their Hearts Out greater success in 2012-13, as his Lobos try to take down San Diego State and UNLV for a Mountain West Conference championship.
4. More exhibition news to pass along as two Pac-12 teams kick off their exhibition slates this weekend. Tonight, Utah takes the floor against Simon Fraser University, the first non-US institution to be a full-fledged member of the NCAA. Not surprisingly, coach Larry Krystkowiak’s team was picked to finish last in the conference, but there are plenty of new faces on this team to give the Runnin’ Utes an intrigue factor heading into the start of the season. However, it doesn’t help that one of those transfers — Aaron Dotson –– is scheduled to be out until late November or early December with a stress fracture in his foot. At the very least, the Utes should do considerably better than the 3-9 record they posted in the 2011-12 non-conference slate. The Utes play two non-Division-I teams and do not face a team from another power conference at all this season. Their RPI will certainly take a hit, but I don’t think Krystkowiak is really concerned about that this year. The other Pac-12 exhibition game takes place on Sunday, when Stanford hosts UNC Pembroke. Certainly the Cardinal will have faced much stiffer competition on Thursday night when they played Saint Mary’s in a secret scrimmage, but this game will give Cardinal fans a first look at their team taking on outside competition. Both games are being streamed live on the Pac-12 website, so feel free (and the streams are free) to have a look for yourself online.
5. Connor here, hijacking this final bit as Drew and I continue our season-long football prognostication contest. It was another gloomy Saturday for me last weekend, as Drew extended his lead to three games. The Jeykll and Hyde Golden Bears neglected to come through for the second straight week, and Oregon State’s upset at the hands of Washington made it a perfect day for Drew. I’ve still got five weeks to come back, however, so I’m taking it conservatively and only differing on one pick here in week 10. Things get going tonight in Berkeley, where California needs a win to keep its flickering bowl hopes alive. Even if they get past the Huskies, the Bears finish the year with a pair of top 15 opponents, making it unlikely their season will continue past November 17. Saturday gets off to a bit of a slow start with Stanford visiting Boulder and Washington State heading into the hornets nest that is Rice Eccles Stadium, but things really get going in the late afternoon. That’s when our game of the week kicks off in Los Angeles, as Oregon tries to keep its perfect season alive with its toughest task yet. We get treated to a tasty pair of nightcaps following that one, as the Wildcats visit UCLA and Sun Devils take on Oregon State. Enjoy your weekend; it’ll be the last before your tasked with balancing hoops and pigskin until December.
   

   Game	Connor’s Pick	Drew’s Pick
   Washington at California	California	California
   Stanford at Colorado	Stanford	Stanford
   Washington State at Utah	Washington State	Washington State
   Oregon at USC	Oregon 42-38	Oregon 52-25
   Arizona at UCLA	Arizona	UCLA
   Arizona State at Oregon State	Oregon State	Oregon

Another week closer to tip-off, and with an eye towards next week when we’ll be dropping our picks for what’s going to happen this year, we ask our correspondents to continue doing some prognosticating.

 “Arizona and UCLA are widely considered, in one order or the other, to be the two favorites in the Pac-12 this year. If you were to pick one other team to surprise and steal the conference title, who would it be?”

Adam Butler: I’m into the Stanford Cardinal first and foremost because of the best point guard in the league, Chasson Randle. Maybe he’s not a true one, whatever, but he’s arguably the guard in the league whom I want to have the ball in his hands more than anyone else. He’s so quick he’s already by you. And Aaron Bright? He just stepped out of the quintessential Stanford guard mold; Arthur Lee, Chris Hernandez, Brevin Knight, Mitch Johnson, these guys solid-game-played you to death and Aaron Bright is capable of the same (and the opposite). So with guard play covered, let’s go to the bigs. Hey, got ’em. OK, they’re not proven, but I really like what Stefan Nastic, Josh Huestis and Anthony Brown offer – some size, athleticism, and effort – as a complement to that front court. These guys, along with the emerging likes of John Gage and the intriguingly talented freshman, Rosco Allen, makes this a sound Stanford team. Dwight Powell is the difference-maker. The big, long, athletic, dynamic, still-learning-the-game Canuck is poised to have a monster year for Johnny Dawkins. Last year he was projected to have a far greater impact than he did but it seems he never quite caught a groove while struggling with foot injuries. But now he’s healthy. Now he’s got the NIT under his belt and it’s his frontcourt. He’s not sharing it with Josh Owens. What makes Powell such a game-changer is not only his size capable of controlling the paint on the defensive end – his primary responsibility – but he has a fluid game that can help to spread the floor for the Cardinal slashers and crashers. This team has the pieces to be very good, they’re the returning NIT champs and, honestly, that says something. I don’t care what the championship is, if you’re the last team standing, that says something about you. So, if I’m right in thinking Chasson Randle is a very serious POY candidate, and our own Kevin Danna is right in thinking Dwight Powell will be the conference’s breakout player of the year, then I could be right (yes, twice, no big deal) in picking Stanford as the Bruin and Wildcat jumper.

Chasson Randle Could Be The Man To Help Stanford Mount A Charge For The Pac-12 Title (Stanford Athletics)

Andrew Murawa: I’m going to go out on a limb and pick the defending conference champions, Washington, a team that might even actually make the NCAA Tournament this year. There’s little doubt that this vintage of the Huskies doesn’t have as much talent as last year’s squad, but they have the potential to be a great example of the old sports adage of addition by subtraction. It was a poorly kept secret that last year’s group just didn’t mesh. Abdul Gaddy was the veteran point guard, but Tony Wroten more or less kept him from owning that role, much like the roles of Wroten and Terrence Ross also overlapped. This year, the roles will be more firmly defined. Gaddy’s the floor general. Scott Suggs and C.J. Wilcox are going to be the scorers. Andrew Andrews will offer some punch off the bench. Aziz N’Diaye will pound the boards and dissuade the opposition from exploring the paint. And there is no shortage of frontcourt players – Desmond Simmons, Shawn Kemp Jr., Jernard Jarreau and Martin Breunig – willing to help out with the dirty work. Yeah, head coach Lorenzo Romar would love to see one of those guys take a big leap forward a la Matthew Bryan-Amaning circa 2009-10, but regardless, there is enough offensive firepower on the perimeter here to carry most of the scoring. And, let’s not forget that Romar has a history of going out and winning the conference when least expected. His 2008-09 squad featured tough senior Jon Brockman, but also a bunch of guys like fellow senior Justin Dentmon and junior Quincy Pondexter who had underachieved to that point. They blew up, Romar found his next batch of stars in freshman Isaiah Thomas and sophomore Venoy Overton, and the Huskies won the conference title. Not to say that team is a perfect parallel to this one, but that team was by no means Romar’s best collection of talent. And somehow that was the team that won Romar’s lone Pac-10/12 regular season title in Seattle. Well, at least the lone regular season title that I care to remember.

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1. The beginning of the regular season is 11 days away, so that means exhibition season is starting to heat up. Oregon takes the court tonight against Concordia, a game that was originally scheduled for November 1 before the Pac-12 Media Day was announced for that day (all coaches have to attend Media Day, so the game was pushed up three days). While E.J. Singler will reportedly miss the game with tendinitis in his knees, the exhibition will be a good opportunity for Dana Altman and staff to see how the eight newcomers (or seven, with Arsalan Kazemi’s status for this season still up in the air as he hopes to be granted a hardship waiver) look in game action. The one most likely to make the biggest impact is Dominic Artis, a four-star recruit out of famed Findlay Prep. Although Jonathan Loyd is still on campus, Artis has the tools to be the next in line of dynamic smaller guards for the Ducks, following in the footsteps of Aaron Brooks and Tajuan Porter. In somewhat related exhibition news, Western Washington lost an exhibition at Duke by a score of 105-87. Remember, the defending Division II national champion Vikings made Washington sweat out an 88-78 decision in favor of the Huskies after the game was tied three times in the final 10 minutes. Not that the transitive property is ever accurate in sports, but if Washington won beat Western Washington by 10 and Duke won by 18… Also, the Blue Devils’ victory was much more of a rout, as the game was never closer than 11 points in the second half.
2. After supposedly being suspended for academic reasons for the 2012-13 season, former USC Trojan Maurice Jones declared his intentions to transfer. Well, the diminutive guard has made his decision, announcing that he will be taking his talents to Ames to play for Fred Hoiberg’s Iowa State Cyclones. According to the Ames Tribune, Jones will enroll at Iowa State for the spring semester and can suit up to play in a game for the Cyclones at the conclusion of the fall 2013 semester, which will be somewhere around mid-December, as a junior. Jones figures to be the second straight transfer to run point for the Cyclones, as former Michigan State Spartan Korie Lucious will quarterback the offense for his last year of eligibility in 2012-13. What is perhaps most interesting from the article, however, is that Jones claims he was not academically ineligible for the upcoming season, rather saying he was suspended from USC for a year for a matter unrelated to his grades. Since neither Jones nor the USC sports information department will comment on the real reason for his suspension at USC, it makes one wonder what actually happened there.
3. Late last week, the NCAA released its annual report of graduation rates for all sports (you’ll have to fill in the appropriate drop-down menus to see the report on Pac-12 men’s basketball), and Stanford led the Pac-12 with a graduation success rate (GSR) of 91 percent, followed by Oregon (85 percent) and the Washington schools (both at 78 percent). Bringing up the rear was USC, which checked in with a GSR of 43 percent. Nothing too shocking from this report, as Stanford usually finds itself at or near the top of the conference list in GSR, but it was a pleasant surprise to see Oregon tie the Cardinal for the best federal graduation rate (90 percent) in the Pac-12. On the glass-half-empty side of things, it’s disconcerting to see California, a school with a great academic reputation, not duplicating that educational success with its athletes. The Golden Bears are tied for 10th with Oregon State with a GSR of 50 percent. With the figures based on entering classes from 2002 through 2005, this academic mediocrity largely didn’t happen under Mike Montgomery’s watch, so there is certainly potential for that percentage to shoot up over the next couple of years.
4. Also a little bit of old news, but the preseason AP Top 25 Poll came out just after the Friday M5, and, like the USA Today Coaches Poll, it features two Pac-12 teams: Arizona at No. 12 (the Wildcats are ranked 11^th in the USA Today Coaches Poll) and UCLA at No. 13. The “others receiving votes” list was a little less kind to the Pac-12, as Stanford only received two points, down from seven in the USA Today poll. With the conference coming off such a down year, having two teams ranked in the middle of both top 25 polls is as good as it was going to get for the Pac-12, but Stanford, Cal, Colorado, USC, and maybe even Washington might have a legitimate shot to get into the rankings at some point this year. And, if everything goes according to planned and all NCAA hurdles are cleared, the Pac-12’s two ranked teams just might be making a push for Atlanta in the spring.
5. Lastly, UCLA unveiled its new statue of John Wooden in front of the new and improved Pauley Pavilion last Friday. The bronze statue of Wooden stands eight feet tall and weighs 400 pounds. As our Andrew Murawa wrote leading up to the statue unveiling, this should be a time to celebrate UCLA basketball with the renovation of Pauley Pavilion and a star-studded recruiting class coming to campus, even if two of the biggest pieces of that class still are not cleared by the NCAA. From a conference perspective, a strong and healthy UCLA only helps the Pac-12 and its perception around the country, making that Legends Classic in Brooklyn (where UCLA will face Georgetown and possibly preseason top-ranked Indiana) all the more important.

Earlier in the week, CBS Sports released a list of its top 50 point guards in the nation. Three Pac-12 players made the list with UCLA’s Kyle Anderson checking in at No. 6, Arizona’s Mark Lyons at No. 11, and Stanford’s Chasson Randle at No. 29. While this writer can’t claim to have watched all of the other 47 guys enough to discredit their merits, a case can be made for a few other Pac-12 guys, in particular Cal’s Justin Cobbs and Washington’s Abdul Gaddy, as addenda to this list.

Abdul Gaddy (# 10) has come a long way from his freshman year.

Statistics aren’t the only indicator of how good a player is, nor are they the most reliable factor to make such determinations, but arguably the most important one to look at with respect to point guards is assist-to-turnover ratio. Neither Cobbs nor Gaddy were the sole ball-handlers for the Golden Bears or Huskies last year, but they were the top two in the conference (Cobbs first, Gaddy second) in that statistic and 25^th and 26^th nationally, well within that top-50 range. And, not that this is the best way of going about things, but for one comparison, Jake Odum (No. 49 on the list) finished last year at 179^th in assist-to-turnover ratio with a lower assist average than either Cobbs or Gaddy and a scoring average that split the two (though Odum had more steals than the two combined).

Cobbs might not be the most explosive player you’ll ever see, but he is a guy who provides a collected presence, good court vision and the ability to spread out defenses with his three-point and mid-range shooting ability. As his assist-to-turnover ratio would tell you, he rarely made bad decisions with the basketball and thrived in his transfer from Minnesota to Mike Montgomery’s system. He’s not as flashy as former Pac-12 colleague Momo Jones (who checks in at No. 47); he just gets the job done. Read the rest of this entry »

Returning for another season, we’ve got our weekly Burning Question. Once a week, we’ll try to ask the big question around the conference and get answers from all of our correspondents. We’ve got a big crew this year, so hopefully we’ll get plenty of opinions. To kick things off, we’ll get right to the elephant in the room and address just how awful the Pac-12 was last season. Here’s our question:

Last year was arguably the worst basketball season in the history of the Pac-whatever. However, all signs point to an improved conference this year. How much better will the conference be and what needs to happen for the Pac-12 to prove it to the rest of the country?

Cal & Colorado Were Left Carrying the Pac-12 Flag Last Season

Adam Butler: I really cannot contextualize exactly how rock bottom last season was. To have your conference champion – by definition the best team – not be selected to dance is outright embarrassing. It was so bad that I will not propagate the statistical or anecdotal proof.

And neither will the teams. Or at least some of them. This cast of Pac-twelvers has some players and I’m legitimately excited to see it go down. That said, the question posed here is a matter of demonstrating that they’re good and I don’t know if there are too many opportunities for this conference to do that. A list of the group’s 141 non-conference games shows a less than competitive set and I’m ok with that. Fly under the radar this year because last year these guys flew right the heck off it. No need to roll the ball out and get smacked around night in and night out through November and December. Then, once out of the non-conference slate, it’s not going to matter much. It’s a dog fight and it is twelve teams who don’t give a lick about who’s thought of as a good or bad team. These squads want to demolish their opponent no matter whether Gottlieb or Bilas or Vitale or Goodman, or even you, think they’re nationally relevant. Winning the games you’re supposed to win becomes the ultimate proof. Can Arizona not drop a dance clincher again to Arizona State? Washington to Oregon State? Can UCLA focus on Ben-ball and not raves, missing flights and intra-team fighting? Will Stanford escape Salt Lake with a win?

So, I guess my short answer is, just don’t suck again.

Kevin Danna: There’s no way the Pac-12 won’t be better than last year. How much better largely depends on how well the incoming freshmen at the perceived “top dogs” of the conference integrate themselves into their new digs. UCLA has had a lot of star recruits come through Pauley the last few years, and many of them haven’t lived up to expectations. Arizona was ranked in the preseason last year largely because of their freshmen, but things didn’t play out as expected. While both sets of freshman classes should be considerably better this year, they still need to prove it on the court.

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