Pac-12 M5: 11.21.13 Edition

Posted by Connor Pelton (@ConnorPelton28) on November 22nd, 2013

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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

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Pac-12 Morning Five: 12.13.11 Edition

Posted by AMurawa on December 13th, 2011

  1. There was a time when the Pac-10 conference was right there with the Big Ten in a race for the most conservative conference in college sports. But since Larry Scott took over as the conference commissioner in the summer of 2009, much of that has changed. Aside from expanding to 12 teams and twice almost jumping to 16 members, Scott has helped the conference ink a huge new television deal and has been working tirelessly to expand the conference’s brand. To that end, on Sunday Scott boarded a jet to work on expanding the Pac-12’s reach, this time to China. While Scott’s exact plans remain to be seen, there is talk of eventually playing regular season games on the other side of the Pacific, although that prospect seems quite far away. Literally.
  2. This past weekend had the sports world buzzing about college basketball with the Indiana/Kentucky finish leading the way, but the unfortunate events in Cincinnati created a stir as well. As the former coach of one of the teams involved in that brawl in the Queen City, Arizona head coach Sean Miller was asked to comment on his former team and he said (among other things), “if Cincinnati tries to do what they did, they’re going to get a fight, so I’m proud of those guys. They have a chance to win it all. It’s just such a great story. I’m really proud of those guys and I watch them any time that I can. No one’s going to bully those guys.” After taking plenty of flak for those comments, Miller tried to clarify their tone, noting that he was responding “to a question as to whether I have been following” Xavier and that he was in no way condoning a fight, merely mentioning his “belief in several players that I once coached and a head coach, Chris Mack, that I have great respect for.”
  3. Up in Seattle, Washington fans are trying to wrap their minds around a 4-4 start, and with freshman guard Tony Wroten’s recent success, one commenter makes the argument that Wroten needs to be the starting point guard in lieu of Abdul Gaddy. Despite Wroten’s struggles shooting and his carelessness with the ball, Husky fans see all that talent and want to plug him in right away. Nevertheless, despite his obvious physical skills, he is still creating more opportunities for himself than for his teammates, turns the ball over more than he dishes out assists, and even his ability to get to the line on cue is diminished by an inability to hit free throws when he gets there. Until Wroten can patch up some of the obvious holes in his game, expect the quieter but more effective Gaddy to continue to lead this team.
  4. Aziz N’Diaye’s sprained right knee, suffered early in the second half of Washington’s loss to Duke on Saturday, is the other big story around the Husky program, and the news on Monday was as good as could have been hoped for. While N’Diaye is expected to miss the team’s next three games, he is hoping to be able to return in time for the conference opener against Oregon State on December 29. N’Diaye missed the entire 2009-10 season with a torn ACL, so it was a great relief when the results of the MRI on Monday showed no tears or serious structural damage to the joint.
  5. Lastly, we here have tried to be pretty fair when it comes to this year’s Utah team. Yes, that’s a bad basketball team, but head coach Larry Krystkowiak came into a bad situation with little returning talent and no time to bring in players who could make a serious impact. Throw in a few untimely injuries and the Utes are well on their way to being a historically bad team. At a school like Utah with a proud basketball tradition, that’s just not going to fly, as Gordon Monson of The Salt Lake Tribune goes out of his way to show. Monson lays the blame for the current Ute struggles squarely at the feet of athletic director Chris Hill for botching consecutive hires – Ray Giacoletti and Jim Boylen – but gives Hill credit for taking accountability for the mess that Utah basketball is in.

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