Here’s a look at the power rankings that Drew and I have compiled after the 15th week of Pac-12 games:

1. California, 22-6 (12-3): The Golden Bears appear to have but locked up an NCAA at-large bid with their sweep of the Oregon schools last week. Despite trailing 71-64 to Oregon on Thursday with just 6:20 remaining, the Bears battled back to take a 76-75 lead with 1:41 left. From there it was anyone’s game, with the final outcome not being decided until E.J. Singler’s three at the buzzer missed, giving Cal the 83-80 victory. Two days later it was Oregon State looking to pull the upset, and for 20 minutes it looked like a possibility. But after trailing by two at halftime, Cal came out with a 27-13 run to start the second half, en route to a 77-63 win. Up Next: 2/23 @ Utah

2. Washington, 19-8 (12-3): The Huskies got the quality win they needed to lock up an NCAA bid on Saturday against Arizona. After defeating the Cats by two down in the desert earlier this year, Arizona came into Seattle hungry for the upset. Arizona held around all night and was within three with 11:51 remaining, but a 17-9 run over the next six minutes and change put away thoughts of an upset. The final was 79-70, making the Huskies 2-0 on the week. Up Next: 2/25 @ Washington State

3. Oregon, 19-8 (10-5): We have already talked about Oregon’s heartbreaking loss against Cal, but the Ducks bounced back in fine fashion three days later against Stanford. After trailing for most of the game, Singler hit a three with 2:47 remaining to put the Ducks up, 66-64. Both teams had plenty of chances down the stretch to either expand the lead or tie the game, but the score remained the same until Devoe Joseph knocked down a pair of free throws with four seconds left. Before the free throws, Chasson Randle had two chances to tie the game, but his jumper and layup missed badly. Up Next: 2/26 @ Oregon State

Are you not entertained!? (Credit: Paul Sakuma)

4. Arizona, 19-9 (10-5): The Wildcats decided to make things much more interesting regarding the NCAA Tournament with a lackluster trip to the state of Washington. Arizona had a chance to really make a good impression on the selection committee with a big win against Washington State and an upset of Washington, but a four-point win against the Cougars and a nine-point loss to the Huskies could have the opposite effect. A 3-0 finish to the regular season is now necessary for the Cats to stay on the right side of the bubble. Up Next: 2/23 vs. USC Read the rest of this entry »

1. And then there were three. Washington’s nine-point win over Arizona on Saturday afternoon not only kept the Huskies tied atop the conference standings, it all but ended the Wildcats’ chances for the regular season title. Both the Huskies and the ‘Cats have just three regular season games remaining and both Washington and California currently hold a two-game lead over Arizona. Sophomore guard Terrence Ross did the most damage for Lorenzo Romar’s team, having one of the better games of his career, going for 25 points on 11-of-19 shooting and grabbing five steals while layering wave after wave of spectacularly athletic plays on the Wildcats. U-Dub is now done with their home schedule for the year and will need to take care of business against Washington State this week and the Los Angeles schools next week in order to keep at the top of the standings.
2. California wrapped up its home schedule as well on Saturday, sending off seniors Jorge Gutierrez and Harper Kamp in style with a 14-point win over Oregon State. While Washington gets to finish off the year mostly against the bottom portion of the conference, the Golden Bears will have an absolutely huge game next Sunday afternoon when they travel to Boulder to face a Colorado team that has never lost at home in conference play. Cal currently is only up one game in the loss column on the Buffaloes, meaning a CU win next Sunday could go a long way towards getting them back in the conference title picture.
3. As for Colorado, they kept pace with the leaders by grinding out an ugly road win at Utah on Saturday. Former Ute Carlon Brown made his return to Salt Lake City, but failed to have a significant positive impact for his team, hitting just 2-of-12 field goal attempts on his way to only five points for the game. However, Andre Roberson had his teammate’s back, leading his squad in both points (12) and rebounds (16) as the Buffs were able to squeak out a game over a team they beat by 40 points on New Year’s Eve. Colorado will host the Bay Area schools this week before having to make a tough road trip to the Oregon schools in the final week of the regular season. Even if CU is unable to make up the current one-and-a-half game deficit in the conference standings, they hope to finish among the top four teams in the conference in order to earn a first-round bye in the Pac-12 Tournament.
4. Oregon knows all about the race for the ever-important fourth seed in the Pac-12 Tournament. Its grind-it-out win at Stanford on Sunday evening kept the Ducks tied for fourth place with Arizona, with Oregon holding the tiebreaker over Arizona on the strength of their two-point win in Tucson in the middle of January. Sunday it was reigning Pac-12 Player of the Week E.J. Singler providing the heroics for Dana Altman, as he scored 10 consecutive points for the Ducks down the stretch, including the go-ahead three-pointer that kept the Ducks from being swept on their Bay Area swing.
5. Elsewhere this weekend, Washington State handed Arizona State a 22-point loss on Saturday after holding the Sun Devils to just eight first-half points. ASU made a bit of a second-half charge to get back within 12 points before a Patrick Simon three-pointer killed that run and sent the Cougars on their way. UCLA, meanwhile, traveled across country to play a 10 AM game on Saturday morning against St. John’s and, predictably, laid an egg. Tyler Lamb turned it over eight times, and D’Angelo Harrison went off for 22 points, eight boards and four assists as UCLA fell to 0-4 against power conference schools outside of the Pac-12.

Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Mountain West and Pac-12 conferences.

Reader’s Take

Top Storylines

We have heard it all before. The Pac-12 is down. The Pac-12 is terrible. The Pac-12 is a one-bid league. The Pac-12 sucks. There’s some relative truth in some of those and in others, not so much, but one thing is for sure as we sit here with three weeks remaining the regular season and five teams within a game of the regular season title. The Pac-12 is tight. Going into this week, California and Washington are tied for first (with the Golden Bears holding the tiebreaker between the two teams on the strength of their win in Seattle a couple of weeks back), while Oregon, Colorado, and Arizona are all lurking just one game back. We have got a race.

Cal, Currently In First Place, May Have The Best Chance At An At-Large Bid To The NCAA Tournament (George Nikitin/AP)

Aside from a couple of games between top five teams last Thursday night, when Oregon throttled Washington and Arizona took care of Colorado, every other team in the top grouping took care of business against lesser opponents. In fact, looking at the standings right now, the top six teams in the conference are all riding winning streaks while the bottom six are all headed in the wrong direction. At least it now appears that the top of the conference is gaining some separation from the bottom. California, Washington, and Oregon all saw their RPIs improve this week, while Colorado and Arizona saw their number drop a bit, but at least now all five of those teams are at least in the at-large conversation. Our own Zach Hayes has California and Arizona in the tournament in his latest bracket, while Colorado, Washington and Oregon are all among the first eight out. Joe Lunardi’s latest bracket has the Bears and the ‘Cats in as well, with the Huskies and Ducks among the first eight out. Andy Glockner, however, is a bit more pessimistic about the conference’s chances, putting just California in the field with Arizona among the first four out and teams like Seton Hall, North Carolina State, Northwestern, and Xavier all currently higher in the pecking order than the Pac-12 schools.

What to Watch For

With all of the above in mind, every game is going to be critical from here on out for those five teams at the top of the standings. They all need to not only beat up on teams 6-12, but it is time for a couple or three of them to differentiate themselves from the others. We thought last week that Washington might be on the verge of doing that, and then they went out and got blown out by Oregon. Meanwhile, California, and Arizona are the hot teams this week with the Golden Bears on a three-game streak and the Wildcats on a four-game run. Both will find significant tests awaiting them this week, but Cal has the benefit of facing their tests in the comfort of Haas Pavilion, against Oregon Thursday night and then Oregon State on Saturday night. Arizona has to go on the road, and they head to Washington State tomorrow night before a Saturday afternoon marquee matchup with Washington.

Washington, meanwhile, will also have to take care of business against tenth-place Arizona State on Thursday while Oregon travels to Stanford on Sunday afternoon. The Palo Alto trip could be a problem for the Ducks, especially coming off of the big game Thursday night. The other game involving one of the top five schools comes Saturday afternoon, when Colorado travels to Utah. The Buffaloes have won just two conference games on the road thus far, and those came against the teams currently holding down two of the bottom three spots in the standings; if they can handle the Utes, it will become three wins against the three bottom teams in the standings.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. Jeremy Lin’s emergence as the point guard of the NBA’s New York Knicks has been, arguably, the biggest sports story since the Super Bowl. He went undrafted out of Harvard, then bounced around the league a few years before landing in New York, and even then, only getting a chance when other guards before him struggled. But, did Pac-12 schools also miss an opportunity with Lin? After all, Lin played high school ball in the shadow of Stanford at Palo Alto High School, but was never offered more than an opportunity to walk on there or UCLA. Still, with all the recruiting misses that Pac-12 schools could bemoan right now, it seems something of a reach to say the Cardinal or the Bruins should have seen something in Lin that nobody else did.
2. Speaking of Lin, former Oregon State superstar Gary Payton wants to take just a little bit of credit for the all the Linsanity, noting that he spent time working with Lin during the past summer, honing his ballhandling and pick-and-roll skills. Good news for Beaver fans, as Payton plans to spend time with current OSU guard Jared Cunningham over the summer, going through some similar drills. Even if Payton isn’t exactly solely responsible for the strides that Lin has made in his game this season, the presence of such an accomplished tutor should be a significant positive for Cunningham’s development.
3. With Washington in a dog fight with California and three other teams for the Pac-12 regular season title, Steve Kelley of The Seattle Times thinks it is time that sophomore wing Terrence Ross takes the next big step for the Huskies and becomes the team’s leader, filling the role that previous Washington greats like Brandon Roy, Isaiah Thomas and Quincy Pondexter have played. He certainly has the game to be the Huskies’ best player, and he’s shown his ability to take over games down the stretch, both in the win over UCLA and the win over Washington State, but does he have the force of personality to take over this team from precocious freshman Tony Wroten?
4. It’s been a while since we talked about the status of Ben Howland at UCLA, but there is a small segment of the fanbase that thinks it is time for a change of direction in the program. With UCLA’s second subpar season in three years and an invitation to a second-tier post-season tournament a best-case scenario, could UCLA possibly be looking elsewhere? From my perspective, odds are that he gets another year especially with a solid recruiting class on its way to Westwood, with the potential to land Shabazz Muhammad, once the top recruit in the 2012 class (he may have dropped to the #2 recruit since Nerlens Noel reclassified up a year).
5. Lastly, we named E.J. Singler our Pac-12 Player of the Week on Monday, and conference voters agreed, giving Singler his first ever such honor. Singler averaged 18.0 points, 7.0 rebounds and 2.5 assists this week, while shooting 61.1% from the field and 62.5% from deep. He earned the award over other nominees such as Nick Johnson of Arizona, Harper Kamp of California, Jared Cunningham of Oregon State, Chasson Randle of Stanford, Terrence Ross of Washington and Reggie Moore from Washington State. Surprising that WSU’s Brock Motum (20.5 PPG, 7 RPG, 2.5 APG) and Cal’s Justin Cobbs (14 PPG, 5 APG, 2.5 RPG) were not even nominated.

Team of the Week

California – Want an easy recipe for taking down our weekly Team of the Week award? Go on the road and come back with two wins, regardless of your opponents. That’s what the Golden Bears did this weekend, and while sweeping the Los Angeles schools isn’t going to necessarily turn anyone into a believer overnight, getting road conference wins over anybody is an accomplishment worth celebrating. Throw in the fact that the road sweep this weekend makes for a season sweep of both USC and UCLA for the first time in Berkeley since 1958-59 and Mike Montgomery’s team certainly has something to take pride in. Justin Cobbs and Harper Kamp both averaged 14 points per game this week with Cobbs adding five assists per game while David Kravish broke out in a big way in Thursday night grabbing 18 rebounds against the depleted Trojans. But the real key to the weekend was suffocating defense, limiting their opponents to just 0.84 points per possession. That kind of defense combined with efficient offense makes Cal a tough team to beat.

E.J. Singler Was A Huge Factor In The Ducks' Sweep Of The Washington Schools (Rick Bowmer/AP)

Player of the Week

E.J. Singler, Junior, Oregon – The Ducks also swept their opponents this weekend, taking care of the Washington schools in Eugene in impressive fashion. While head coach Dana Altman got production out of all ten players who played this weekend, Singler deserves the most praise. He averaged 18 points and seven rebounds and hit five of his eight three-point attempts, but deserves the most credit for his defensive work. Against Washington State on Sunday, he was given the most responsibility for slowing red-hot Brock Motum, who had been averaging 27.3 points and nine rebounds in his previous four games. While Motum still put up 17 points, five boards, and five assists, Singler held him to just one point over the last 15 minutes of the game and effectively made other Cougars do the damage instead of Motum.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. This weekend, for once in the Pac-12, all of the upper echelon teams still competing for a conference title took care of the lower-tier teams. The only losses among the top five teams in the conference came against other top five teams – Colorado’s loss to Arizona and Washington’s loss at Oregon, both on Thursday night. But now, with five games left on everyone’s conference schedule, we’ve got five teams all within a game of first place. California earned its spot at the top of the standings by building up a 17-point second half lead against UCLA and then withstanding a late charge, earning its 20^th win of the year. With the win, head coach Mike Montgomery became the first Cal coach to win 20 or more games in three of his first four years at the school, while the Golden Bears also completed a regular season sweep of the Los Angeles schools for the first time since 1959. UCLA sophomore center Joshua Smith got off to a strong start in that loss against Cal, scoring five points on his first three possessions and racking up two fouls on Cal freshman forward David Kravish and another on senior Harper Kamp. But, over the next 35 minutes he managed just five more points and was frustrated by Golden Bear double teams and his own conditioning issues. While it isn’t exactly breaking news that Smith is overweight and in poor physical condition, leave it to Bill Plaschke to get Smith on record as saying he “didn’t do anything” to prepare for this year over the offseason. Smith claims that he’ll be putting in the work this offseason in preparation for his junior year, but we’ll have to wait and see just how well that goes.
2. Washington got back on track and maintained its own hold on a piece of first place with a 75-72 win at Oregon State last night. The game was sloppy on both ends, but was intensely competed and the Huskies had to hit 10 of 15 free throws down the stretch to hold on to the lead. Terrence Ross, C.J. Wilcox and Tony Wroten led the scoring for the Huskies with 50 points between them, but they all struggled from the field, hitting just 15 of their 44 field goal attempts (37.5% eFG) on the night. Jared Cunningham led all scorers with 23 points, be he too was inefficient, needing 20 shots to get his points. While the Huskies are technically tied with Cal for first place, the Golden Bears beat U-Dub earlier in the year, and that game will not be returned due to the unbalanced schedule in the Pac-12, meaning Cal holds the tiebreaker.
3. Arizona pulled out a win on Saturday over Utah, but it was in no way a win that left Sean Miller feeling pleased with his team. The Wildcats trailed the 5-20 Utes for the first 27 minutes of the game, and didn’t claim the lead for good until a Nick Johnson three with 1:24 remaining put Zona up 64-61. Six free throws down the stretch provided a final margin of nine points, but UA was definitely fortunate to come away with the win. The Wildcats’ problems began well before tipoff, as senior guard Kyle Fogg was late for a pregame walk-through and was removed from the starting lineup as a result. As for the game itself, Miller described his team’s play as “alarming,” “disappointing,” and “pathetic” and mentioned that at least half of his seven-man rotation was not playing with maximum possible energy. The Wildcats travel to the Washington schools next week, so they’ll need to put out a much better effort to extend their four-game winning streak.
4. The other two teams sitting a game back of the leaders also took care of business on Saturday, as Colorado earned its second road win of the conference season by taking care of Arizona State, and Oregon completed a sweep of the Washington schools by outlasting Washington State. E.J. Singler led the way for the Ducks with 23 points and four threes and also had a major hand in limiting the Cougs’ leading scorer, Brock Motum, to just 15 points, and just one point in the final 15 minutes. In Tempe, it was freshman guard Spencer Dinwiddie leading the way for the Buffaloes with 15 points, five rebounds and three threes. The Buffs will pick back up next week on the road again, with a trip to Salt Lake City to face Utah scheduled for Saturday. After that, however, the final four games of the season will go a long way towards determining CU’s fate: they host Cal and Stanford before traveling to the Oregon schools the last week of the regular season.
5. Lastly, Stanford won for just the second time in seven games on Sunday when they took apart a struggling USC team, 59-47. The Cardinal dominated on the glass, grabbing 97% of their defensive rebound opportunities and 41.3% of the rebounds on the offensive end, and they held the Trojans to just 35.4% eFG. But, with Stanford now out of the race for the conference title, the highlight of the game had to be junior forward Andy Brown – he of the three knee surgeries – scoring the first field goal of his Stanford career. Brown played eight minutes on Sunday, and has now played 21 minutes on the season, but his battle back despite injuries could be something to build on for the Cardinal going forward. Quickly, on the USC front, after a solid 8-for-13 performance Thursday night, sophomore guard Maurice Jones returned to form, hoisting 14 shots and hitting only two against the Cardinal. He’s now shooting just a 41.3% eFG on the season.

Here’s a look at the power rankings that Drew and I have compiled after the 13th week of Pac-12 games:

1. California, 18-6 (8-3): Despite Washington taking the lead in the real Pac-12 standings, I still have the Golden Bears on top here for a couple of reasons. For one, the Golden Bears defeated the Huskies in Seattle earlier in the season, which is Washington’s only home conference loss to date. Secondly, despite having a better conference record, the Huskiesl have two fewer wins and an extra loss compared to Cal. Part of the reason for that are Washington’s bad nonconference losses to Nevada and South Dakota State. Up Next: 2/9 @ USC

2. Washington, 16-7 (9-2): The Huskies move up two spots after sweeping the LA schools at home. On Thursday night they came back from a ten-point deficit with just 6:02 remaining to defeat UCLA, 71-69. Things were a little easier (to say the least) on Saturday night when the Huskies were all over USC for a 69-41 win. Up Next: 2/9 @ Oregon

Tony Wroten, Jr. leads the Huskies with 16.7 PPG. (credit: Stephen Brashear)

3. Colorado, 16-7 (8-3): The Buffaloes couldn’t have asked for a better week. On Thursday they shot a lightning-hot 51% from the field to run Oregon State out of the Coors Event Center for a 82-60 victory. Saturday night things were much more dicey, with the Buffs escaping for a controversial one-point win over Oregon. The Buffs needed the sweep to stay in contention for an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament, and a split this weekend in Arizona is also crucial. Up Next: 2/9 @ Arizona

4. Oregon, 16-7 (7-4): The Ducks knew coming into the week that a sweep in the Rocky Mountains was unlikely, but they didn’t know just how close they would come. Trailing 71-69 with seven seconds left, Oregon forward Olu Ashaolu put in the game-tying layup and was fouled in the process. Ashaolu missed the free throw and Buffalo guard Nate Tomlinson took the ball all the way up the court. His layup to beat the buzzer appeared to not only be blocked cleanly by E.J. Singler, but came after the buzzer sounded as well. However, after reviewing the play, officials determined that the foul came before the clock reached triple-zeroes, giving Tomlinson a pair of free throws. He put home the first, missed the second intentionally, and Oregon was sent back to Eugene with a split on the trip. Up Next: 2/9 vs. Washington Read the rest of this entry »

1. Washington sits all alone at the top of the Pac-12 standings after completing a home sweep of the Los Angeles schools this weekend. After struggling in nonconference play, the Huskies now control their own fate in the league and have one of the easier remaining schedules in conference play. While they only have two of their remaining seven games at home, the combined conference record of their remaining opponents is just 33-44. It is interesting to note that the two teams directly behind them in the standings, California and Colorado, are in a similar boat, having to play five of their final seven games on the road as well. Washington has historically struggled on the road in recent years, but this year they are 3-1 away from home in conference play.
2. Colorado is one of the teams lurking a game back of the Huskies, and they are there on the strength of a last-second victory over Oregon on Saturday night. The Buffaloes remained perfect at home in Pac-12 play when senior guard Nate Tomlinson, with the game tied and just four seconds remaining, took the ball the length of the floor and drew a block from Oregon junior E.J. Singler with just one second left on the clock. He hit the first of his two free throws, then purposefully missed the second one, and the Buffaloes escaped with a hard-fought win. The call on the Tomlinson/Singler play at the end of the game was controversial, to say the least. The video is below. Jump to the 45 second mark for the full final scenario and decide for yourself. My call? Swallow the whistle, ref, and let’s play five more.

3.  California is tied with the Buffs in second place after putting a hurting on an undermanned Arizona State squad on Saturday. Cal forced 20 ASU turnovers, converted those miscues into 34 points and were never seriously challenged in a 68-47 victory. The only downsides of the game for the Golden Bears were a couple of injuries, a sprained ankle suffered by leading scorer Allen Crabbe in the second half, and a dislocated finger for Harper Kamp. Mike Montgomery dismissed the injuries after the game, but they may be something worth keeping an eye on next week as the Bears travel south for games with the Los Angeles schools next weekend.

4.  The biggest accomplishments of the weekend belong to Sean Miller and his Arizona team, who went into the Bay Area and came out with a two-game road sweep. The Wildcats capped off the weekend by completely discombobulating the Stanford offense, holding the Cardinal to just a 27.8% eFG and just six assists on their 16 field goals. Kyle Fogg was excellent all weekend for the ‘Cats, displaying heady defense in both games and coming away with 37 points, eight assists, seven rebounds, three steals, a couple blocks and eight three-pointers for the trip. The young Wildcat backcourt tandem of Nick Johnson and Josiah Turner also displayed excellent defensive intensity throughout the road trip, and while their offense is still a work in progress, they may be playing their best ball as a duo of their young careers.

5.  Lastly, we have a Joshua Smith sighting. UCLA’s sophomore big man had his first set of back-to-back double-figure scoring games in Pac-12 play this weekend, backing up his career-high of 24 points on Thursday night with another 19 in a three-point Bruin win at Washington State. Despite dealing with constant good-natured verbal abuse from the home crowd in his return to his home state this weekend, Smith seems to be coming along just in time for a stretch run for UCLA. He hit 17 of his 22 field goal attempts this weekend, averaged seven rebounds a night, and was actually seen sprinting down the court on a semi-regular basis. Given the depths to which Smith’s conditioning plummeted at the start of this season, whether you’re a UCLA supporter or not, it is good to see a kid who is working towards being able to fulfill his ample potential.

Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences. He is also a Pac-12 microsite staffer.

Reader’s Take

Top Storylines

Parity abounds in the Pac-12. After four weeks of conference play, no less than five teams sit within a game of first place. Last weekend California had a chance to snatch the outright lead in the conference for themselves on Saturday night after pulling off a big road win against Washington on Thursday, but they were shot down in Pullman by Pac-12 Player of the Week Faisal Aden and his Washington State team. Oregon, meanwhile, put together a home sweep of the Los Angeles schools, has now won four straight and is tied atop the conference with the Golden Bears at 6-2. Sitting just back of the leaders are Colorado (off a 2-0 weekend against the Arizona schools) and Washington (split against the Bay Area schools), while Stanford drops back to fifth in the conference after getting swept in Washington.

Faisal Aden's Big Week Helped Washington State Sweep The Bay Area Schools (AP)

Outside of the top five, you could make arguments for any of the next four teams getting hot and making a run. Arizona sits at 4-3, but is one of just three conference teams with at least two road wins in the first four weeks. Washington State is 3-4, but they’re on a two-game streak and Aden’s outburst has Cougar fans hoping for a turnaround. UCLA also sits at 3-4, but their road trips to Oregon and the Bay Area are in the past. And Oregon State got off to a terrible start in conference play, but they’ve now won two straight, and if they can make a splash in their next three games (all road games against Oregon, Colorado and Utah), they’ve got five of their last seven at home.

The rest of the conference is looking ahead to spring break and next season. USC, in particular, sits at 0-7 in the conference, 5-15 on the year and all but left for dead, while Arizona State and Utah, despite similar overall records and a similar lack of talent, are at least overachieving.

What to Watch For

The biggest games of the weekend come on Sunday this week, with a couple of late afternoon rivalry games. Oregon State heads to Oregon hoping to break the Ducks’ two-game winning streak in the series and get their mojo back. After that, we’ve got the game we’ve all been waiting for, the basketball version of The Big Game, as California hosts Stanford in an attempt to hang on to their hold on first place in the conference. Read the rest of this entry »

1. We’re through four weeks of conference play in the Pac-12, and the situation atop the heap is now as clear as mud. We have four teams with a couple of losses and another two with three losses. Oregon is one of our leaders at 6-2 after posting a home sweep over the Los Angeles schools, and the Ducks have stolen three road games while winning all but one at home. On Saturday, they bounced back from a sluggish first half to outscore UCLA by 20 points in the second half behind a career-high 26 points from junior E.J. Singler. But it was Garrett Sim and Tony Woods that turned the momentum around for Dana Altman’s squad, as Sim notched a personal 7-0 run on just two possessions (a four-point play mixed in there) early in the second half, while Woods blocked two shots and slammed back an offensive rebound on the way to the Ducks erasing a 13-point halftime lead right out of the locker room. Oregon gets to stay at home next weekend for a matchup with rival Oregon State.
2. California is the other leader atop the conference, but Golden Bear fans probably have to feel like they missed an opportunity this weekend. After pulling out an impressive road win at Washington on Thursday, they spit the bit Saturday, losing by two at Washington State. For the Cougars, Faisal Aden was incredible this weekend. We and others have been critical of Aden’s offensive efficiency this year, but this weekend was spectacular, hitting 19 of his 29 field goal attempts and 19 of his 20 free throw attempts on his way to a total of 57 points over the course of two games. Not surprisingly, his Cougs won both of those, and their fans are excited. Not only was Aden very efficient, but he seems to have taken on a new personality. Instead of bombing away this weekend, he attacked the hoop, got to the line and limited his three-point attempts (three three-pointers attempted on the weekend – all on Thursday night). If he can keep up his new offensive personality, the Cougars just got a whole lot tougher.
3. Washington now sits at 5-2 after it bounced back from its loss on Thursday with a 13-point win over Stanford fueled by a 20-3 second half run. The win was Lorenzo Romar’s 300^th in his career and 100^th conference win at Washington. While the usual suspects led the way for the Huskies (Tony Wroten had 21 and Terrence Ross had 18), Darnell Gant bounced back from a terrible night on Thursday with 17 points and seven rebounds against the Cardinal. And, the newest Husky, Austin Seferian-Jenkins, the starting tight end on the Husky football team who joined the basketball team a couple weeks back, earned his first playing time, getting 16 minutes and grabbing seven rebounds.
4. Colorado swept through the weekend series with the Arizona schools and is tied with Washington at 5-2. The Buffaloes earned a one-point win over the Wildcats despite sophomore forward Andre Roberson pulling a disappearing act (zero points, 0/8 from the field), as senior Carlon Brown sank a three to give Colarado the lead after Arizona had taken their first lead since the 15 minute mark in the second half on a Kevin Parrom jumper. However, the Buffs still had to withstand a last-second three-point attempt by Parrom to hang on for the win. The last possession was a curious one for the Wildcats, as they gained possession of the ball following a missed Brown three-point attempt with 30 seconds left and Arizona down one. Sean Miller didn’t have a timeout to call in order to set up a final play, and the Wildcats were nonchalant on offense, only able to put up one shot after 30 seconds and leaving no time for the team to score on the offensive rebound that Josiah Turner came up with as time expired. In other words, Arizona needs to spend some time on their late-game situations in practice this week.
5. Lastly, time to go slumming at the bottom of the conference, as any time Utah comes up with a win, it has to deserve a mention. This weekend it was the Utes winning the battle of the undermanned, handing Arizona State a 21-point loss on Saturday. Freshman Kareem Storey, playing his second game as Larry Krystkowiak’s point guard following the dismissal of Josh Watkins, had a very solid game, scoring 12 points, handing out six assists and turning it over just once in 36 minutes, while senior Cedric Martin drilled five threes to lead all scorers with 17 points. Arizona State, playing without injured guard Trent Lockett, couldn’t get anything going offensively, shooting just 42.1 eFG% and just three-of-15 from deep.