Another wild week in the Pac-12, with six games decided by five points or less, including a pair of overtime games. Plenty of candidates for all the honors this week, but here’s who we settled on.

Team of the Week – Oregon

Despite breaking a three-game slide at the end of last week, the Ducks faced a perilous trip to their neighbors to the north this week, again without freshman point guard Dominic Artis. Artis’ primary replacement at the point, Jonathan Loyd, was the hero on Wednesday night in a win over Washington, scoring all 11 of his points in the second half to help his team pull away. On Saturday night, there was a bit more drama for the team as, playing without senior center Tony Woods, who was ejected in the first half for an elbow to Brock Motum’s head, Oregon needed overtime, and a significant mental error from their opponent, to get out of Pullman with a two-point win. As is becoming standard for Oregon, they got contributions from all over their roster this week. E.J. Singler was the big scorer on Saturday night (25 points including plenty of clutch free throws), but Arsalan Kazemi continued his strong play (9.5 points, 9.5 rebounds per game this week), Damyean Dotson continued his bounceback from a recent slump (14.5 PPG this week) and Carlos Emory had his best pair of games since his stretch in Las Vegas back in November, averaging 15 points, six boards and a couple of steals this week. While the expectation is that Artis’ return is just around the corner, Dana Altman’s club has found a way to string together wins even without him.

Spencer Dinwiddie Emerged As Colorado’s Unquestioned Leader This Week (Daily Camera)

Player of the Week – Spencer Dinwiddie, Colorado

In the last three games, Dinwiddie has gotten to the line 31 times. That alone is a pretty impressive statistic. The fact that he’s made all 31 of those attempts is mindboggling. Thursday night against Arizona, was incredible in the second half, making completely sure that the Buffaloes were not going to give up a the lead they had worked so hard to build up. From the moment he got fouled shooting a three and then knocked down three straight free throws to the late shot-clock jumper he drilled with 1:20 to go, Dinwiddie was everywhere against the Wildcats. His second half totals? Nineteen points (on seven free throws, two threes, a layup, a dunk and that game closing jumper), four assists and countless calmed Colorado nerves. On Saturday Dinwiddie responded with another terrific performance, knocking down 14 free throws on the way to 24 points for the game and handing out a nice assist to freshman Xavier Johnson to complete a late-game comeback to force overtime against Arizona State. Then, with eight seconds left in overtime, Dinwiddie powered his way to the hoop and knocked down a tough shot to give Colorado a one-point lead, a lead that, unfortunately for he and his team, did not hold up.

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1. Last night began the last month of the regular season in the Pac-12. With just four weeks of conference play remaining, everybody is jockeying for placement in advance of March, which makes Arizona State’s loss at Utah last night all the more troubling. For a team already right on that borderline between the NIT and the NCAAs, the Sun Devils rebounded from a lackluster first half that saw them trailing by seven at the break to build up an eight-point lead with under eight minutes to go and a six-point lead with under three to go. And then ASU proceeded to score exactly one basket over its final seven possessions, while allowing the Utes to score 13 points over that same stretch. And in the process, the Sun Devils may have given away the game that could prevent them from dancing on Selection Sunday.
2. Meanwhile, Oregon has somewhat righted their ship, going into Seattle last night and knocking off Washington for its second-consecutive victory following a three-game slide. Jonathan Loyd was the big star, filling in for Dominic Artis with a big 11-point second half (making for a season-high in points) to help the Ducks cruise past the Huskies. However, at the end of the game with the outcome no longer in doubt, Loyd took a hard foul and appeared to sustain a knee injury as he remained on the ground in pain for some time. After the game, Loyd said that he thinks he’ll be okay and could be in uniform this weekend for Oregon’s trip to Pullman. Artis, meanwhile, will miss one more game but is expected to return next week when the Ducks host the Bay Area schools.
3. Despite three Final Fours in his past, the drumbeat for the end of Ben Howland’s era as head coach at UCLA grows louder by the week, and last week’s scathing commentary by Bruin legend Bill Walton on an ESPN telecast has ratcheted up the pressure. But, as Ryan Menezes of the Daily Bruin writes, there are more things wrong in the UCLA program that just the head coach. This season in a newly renovated Pauley Pavilion, the Bruins have struggled to fill the house that Wooden built and have often played in front of sparse crowds. Is that a response to Howland’s style of play and recent lack of success? Or is that just the nature of the beast for an aging fan base of a program whose glory days are 40 years in the past? I know this much: Even in the depths of the Billy Gillispie days, Kentucky was still leading the nation in attendance. Even when North Carolina was preparing to divorce Matt Doherty, they were still putting fannies in 18,000-plus seats per night. Even when Mike Davis was turning in a sub-.500 year in Bloomington or Tom Crean was limping home to a 10-win season, they were doing so in front of 16,000 Indiana fans. UCLA fans in no way belong in the same discussion as those blue-blood fan bases (for comparison, as UCLA went to the NCAA Tournament in 2011, they couldn’t reach an average of 8,000 fans in attendance), let along up-and-coming programs like San Diego State in their own backyard. That? That’s on the fans, not the coach.
4. In advance of tonight’s rematch with Colorado, Arizona is looking forward to playing with Nick Johnson back at full strength. You see, a couple weeks back when the Wildcats traveled to the Washington schools, Johnson was significantly weakened by a stomach virus. And, over the past couple weeks, his numbers have dropped, in part due to that illness; since the virus reared its ugly head prior to the Washington State game, Johnson hasn’t scored in double figures and is just 5-of-18 from the field, quite a dip for a guy who has otherwise shot a better than 53% eFG this season. But, Johnson assures the Daily Wildcat that he is ready to go this week for the trip to the Rockies.
5. As for Colorado, they’ve waited 42 days for their crack at revenge against Arizona for their controversial loss in Tucson. Not that they’ve been counting or anything. The same evening after refs waved off Sabatino Chen’s apparent game-winning buzzer-beater, the C-Unit has been planning for the Valentine’s Day Massacre in the Coors Event Center. And in the interim, as the Buffaloes have turned in lackluster performances against Arizona State, UCLA, Washington and UCLA, there has been talk that the team was still suffering from the hangover from that game. Well, tonight’s the night they get to take their frustration out, and they better do it well. Because if there’s one thing worse than thinking you’ve had a game stolen from you, it is spending 42 days waiting for your chance to gain revenge and then failing when the chance is finally presented to you.

Mike Lemaire is an RTC correspondent. He filed this report after Wednesday night’s game between Stanford and Oregon in Palo Alto. 

Those who had watched Oregon eke their way to a 7-0 start in Pac-12 play knew that eventually the team’s offensive struggles and turnover issues would bite them, but no one could have predicted the Ducks’ comeuppance would be so vicious. Even Oregon had to know as it rose to No. 10 in the national polls that their gaudy record was built on a shaky foundation that would struggle to create offense without injured dynamic freshman point guard Dominic Artis. But even without Artis, getting thrashed by Stanford to the tune of 76-52 proves that the young Ducks still have a long way to go if they want to capture a Pac-12 title.

Since conference play began, Dana Altman’s team has made a habit of starting slow before picking up the intensity as the game went on and ultimately finding a way to win. And as if on cue last night, the Ducks turned the ball over four times in the first five minutes and missed a handful of early open jumpers. Oregon tried to turn up the intensity after trailing by double-figures at halftime, but without Artis to create offense in the half-court and facing a veteran team hungry for a big win, things quickly got worse instead of better.

The importance of Dominic Artis to the Ducks as never more apparent than it was last night.

The Cardinal deserve credit too. Led by guards Chasson Randle and Aaron Bright,  Stanford canned nearly 60 percent of its three-pointers (8-of-14) and harassed Oregon’s perimeter players into a 4-of-16 effort from behind the three-point arc. But Oregon didn’t exactly make Stanford beat them. Offensively they were again plagued by turnovers and poor shooting, and the team’s lackluster defensive effort in the first half — especially on close-outs — allowed Stanford to open up a big lead they would not relinquish. “It’s the first time we’ve fallen flat on our face this year,” Altman said. “I am not going to lie. I am very disappointed. But a lot of that has to do with Stanford. They just kicked us.”

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1. After little more that just the news that Dominic Artis was out indefinitely, Oregon head coach Dana Altman shed a bit more light on the freshman point guard’s injury, putting the number of games that Artis will miss at “anywhere from three to five games.” But Altman isn’t overly concerned. Even without the talented freshman, he still wants his team to get up and down the court and he has complete trust in junior Jonathan Loyd and freshman Willie Moore to handle Artis’ duties in his absence. However, you can bet that the lack of Artis will make it that much more difficult for the Ducks to break their 37-year streak of not earning a sweep at the Bay Area schools, starting tonight at Stanford.
2. Carrick Felix has won so many Pac-12 Player of the Week awards this season that he’s starting to lose count. “Half the time, I don’t even know when I get the player-of-the-week award,” Bud Withers of The Seattle Times quotes Felix as saying. Given that he’s won it three times this year already (the most since Derrick Williams was a three-time winner in 2011), you can hardly blame the senior if it has become passé, because without a doubt, Felix has been a huge part of ASU’s vast improvement this season. After a couple years of relative mediocrity in Tempe, Felix is on pace to earn an easy berth on the all-Pac-12 teams, especially since, like, 35 people make the Pac-12 first team.
3. ESPN.com’s Dana O’Neil spent some time with UCLA’s Ben Howland last week and is apparently flabbergasted by the fact that the Bruins are enjoying some success despite playing a different brand of basketball than Howland became known for in his years at Pitt and his early years in Westwood. Howland told O’Neil that he’s enjoying coaching this team even if he is still trying to find some way to coax more defense out of his team. And, apparently, all the changes are making him a bit insane. Following the Arizona win, he brushed off questions about the team’s youth, claiming “our young guys aren’t freshmen anymore… They’re playing like veterans.” But then after laying an egg at Arizona State, he fell back on the team’s inexperience as something of an excuse, saying “they’re all learning for the first time.”
4. A couple other random bits of news from the UCLA program. First, the Bruins will be unveiling their all-new all-blue basketball uniforms against USC tonight in front of a “blue-out” crowd. But perhaps more importantly, they might be doing so with only six players in the rotation. Travis Wear still hasn’t been cleared for participation following a concussion suffered last Thursday, and now Shabazz Muhammad is potentially out while struggling with the flu. Some of his teammates think Muhammad will play, although Howland isn’t too sure, while the smart money seems to be on Wear missing another game.
5. And while UCLA unveils their blue-out plans, Arizona head coach Sean Miller seems ready to retire the “white-out” game that the Wildcats have now lost in the past two seasons. Whether he said that in jest or in reality, it matters not (he backed off his initial comments later in the day, essentially saying, “we’ll see”) because Miller is more focused on the cause of the loss during the most recent white-out, not whatever color shirts his team’s fans were wearing. Still, Miller said he felt good about the UA home stand, taking pleasure in the fact that his team bounced back from the bad Thursday loss and played one of their best games in conference play Saturday in a blowout win over USC.

1. The biggest breaking news over the weekend came out of Eugene late Friday night when Bob Clark of the Register-Guard reported that Dominic Artis would be out indefinitely with a foot injury of undetermined severity. Oregon still managed to knock off Washington on Saturday evening (in the first sellout at Matthew Knight Arena in almost two years) with Artis watching from the bench in a walking boot. Junior Jonathan Loyd got the start and was solid, getting to the line 10 times in 31 minutes of action and scoring nine points, but he did turn the ball over five times to go along with his five assists. The other guy who earned some of the Artis’ minutes was freshman Willie Moore, who earned nine minutes, his most since before Christmas, but he too struggled with turnovers. With no timetable announced for Artis’ return, the Ducks will have to rely on those two to step up as they go to the Bay Area schools next week.
2. The other injury of note over the past week was to UCLA’s Travis Wear, whose concussion suffered in the first half against Arizona on Thursday night kept him out of Saturday’s visit to Arizona State. But, Travis Wear or no Travis Wear, the Bruins were going down hard on Saturday. They struggled with the Sun Devils’ athleticism, size and energy, but mostly, they just weren’t engaged in the game after Thursday night’s big win. ASU outhustled UCLA from the opening tip to the closing buzzer, with Jordan Bachynski, Carrick Felix and Evan Gordon having big games and Jahii Carson, despite struggling from the field, conducting a masterful performance at the point.
3. Last night in front of a sparse crowd limited by blizzard conditions in Salt Lake City, Stanford’s offense got back on track in a big way against Utah, scoring 46 first-half points, 87 points for the game, and looking for the first time in a long time like the explosive team that ran to last year’s NIT title. On the Utah side of the court, sophomore transfer Dallin Bachynski did not suit up for the game and his future at the school is in doubt. After getting double-figure minutes in his first 12 games as a Ute, he hasn’t seen anywhere near that run in Pac-12 play and has lost his starting job to senior Jason Washburn. Bachynski met with head coach Larry Krystkowiak on Friday to discuss his future with the program, and while there are no immediate answers as to his long-term status, the fact that he did still sit on the bench with the team (although he didn’t dress out), indicates that he isn’t going away permanently quite yet.
4. Arizona bounced back from its disappointing loss on Thursday by jumping out to a commanding early lead against USC and never looking back. The Wildcats held USC to nine points on its first 23 possessions, forcing seven turnovers and 2-of-19 shooting. Aside from the crispness with which the ‘Cats played, another aspect of the game that pleased head coach Sean Miller was the fact that it gave him a chance to extend his bench and find some minutes for guys like Angelo Chol and Gabe York. After playing in the first 14 games of the year, Chol has slid back to take the ninth-man spot in an eight-man rotation, but he played with energy in his eight minutes against the Trojans, grabbing a couple boards and blocking a shot. York, a high-flying freshman, has now played in nine games this year, but the USC game was his first appearance in Pac-12 play and he followed Miller’s advice by being very aggressive in looking for his shot. York played eight minutes and yet found room for five three-point attempts, knocking down a couple. Miller has talked with both guys about their playing time and has come away impressed with their maturity even when the minutes haven’t been there.
5. Colorado took it to California on Sunday and did so without the services of Andre Roberson for much of the first half. Despite losing the nation’s leading rebounder to foul trouble, the Buffs rode some hot shooting to a 34-18 halftime lead and never looked back. After the game, Cal head coach Mike Montgomery had plenty of questions about his team, including whether the team even thought it could win the game and what type of mindset it now has. With conference leader Oregon due in Haas Pavilion next weekend and any distant hopes of an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament receding into the sunset, the Bears need to get it together, and quick. One good bit of news: senior guard Brandon Smith returned to action this weekend after six games lost due to the effects of a concussion.

Just about one-third of the way through our semester, Oregon is the favorite pupil, having earned all As in their exams. Join Professor Pac as we once again break down our class and see who’s joining the Ducks at the front of the class and who’s in the corner with the dunce cap.

Oregon – A

Before we give props to the Ducks for their 5-0 conference start and vault to the favorite position in the conference, let’s take a minute to mourn the loss of the full 18-game home-and-away round-robin of the Pac-10. You see, with UO’s win at UCLA this week and home win against Arizona last week, the Ducks have wrapped up this seasons’ meeting with those two teams. Neither the Wildcats nor the Bruins will get a chance for revenge, at least until and unless they meet up in Vegas come mid-March. But, that’s not the Ducks fault. No, they’ve done what they’ve needed to do early and they’ve set themselves up well. Now, they’ve still got more than two-thirds of the conference schedule remaining, but here are their remaining road games in conference play: Stanford, Cal, Washington, Washington State, Colorado and Utah. They’ll be favorites in all of those games, as well as all of their home games. Sure, there are probably a couple of losses in the mix there somewhere, but barring some significant slide that Dana Altman-coached teams are not known for, the Ducks are a heavy favorite to be the #1 seed in the Pac-12 tournament.

The Diminutive Jonathan Loyd Brings Energy Off The Bench For Oregon (goducks.com)

Focus on: Jonathan Loyd. Freshman point guard Dominic Artis is the rightful recipient of plenty of positive buzz regarding his play, but the diminutive junior backup deserves some credit for accepting his decreased minutes and filling his role. Sure, he can’t shoot a lick. And his turnovers are through the roof this season. But you can see that his defensive intensity has carried over to his freshman pupil and he always brings energy aplenty when he’s on the court. And, consider this: a 5’8” he swatted away a Larry Drew II fastbreak layup tattempt this weekend

Looking ahead: The Ducks host the Washington schools this week and Ken Pomeroy puts the chances that they win each game somewhere north of 85%. Beware the letdown, Ducks.

Arizona – A-

For three quarters of their battle with in-state rival Arizona State on Saturday, the ‘Cats had a battle on their hands, played basically to a draw. But over the last 10 minutes, a time that coincided almost exactly with Mark Lyons coming back in the game (and, with Lyons drawing the fourth foul on Jahii Carson), they outscored the Sun Devils by 15 and equaled the biggest defeat ASU has suffered this season. Over those ten minutes, Lyons repeatedly got to the hoop, scoring 12 points and handing out three assists in likely his best 10-minute stretch as the UA point guard. The problem is the previous 30 minutes, wherein Lyons had 12 points on 11 field goal attempts, zero assists and four turnovers. Sure, he’s one heck of a closer, but as the season ramps up come March, the ‘Cats will need a more complete performance.

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Welcome to Oregon Basketball and The Season of New, a weekly Pac-12 microsite column from Rockne Roll (@raroll). His column will focus on the various issues facing college basketball through the prism of the Oregon Ducks, a program ostensibly on the rise with top-notch facilities and coaching but still subject to many of the same problems suffered by many of the other high-major programs around the country.

As October slides towards November and the fall grows cooler, a great yearly tradition begins to take shape. From Cameron Indoor to Pauley Pavilion, young men across the country focus their attention not on the orange of the leaves, but on the orange ball and orange rim of their chosen game. The cooler weather not only signals that it’s time to break out the sweaters and scarves, but that college basketball season has once again arrived. This phenomenon is no different in Eugene, Oregon, where the turning leaves have been mostly washed away into gutters and down storm drains by the ever-present rain. As water drips off of the high, sharp roof of Matthew Knight Arena, the University of Oregon Ducks team within works to prepare for the new season.

The opening tip of the 2012-13 basketball season for the Oregon Ducks, at home Monday against Concordia University.

“New” really is an operative term for the beginning of basketball season at many schools. Whether due to graduation, transfers, or the lure of fame and fortune in the NBA, a new year invariably means a new roster. The best of college hoops often have to deal with this sort of turnover more than others: Last year’s national champion, Kentucky, must replace its entire starting lineup and then some, with seven players graduating and/or entering the NBA Draft. When the season begins anew, their replacements are assembled and then given only a few weeks of official practice to adapt to the new environment, get into shape, and meld themselves into the larger team.

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

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Last week at this time, we had five teams who were still serious contenders for the Pac-12 regular season title, all of them within a game of the conference lead. This week, the picture has cleared up considerably, but there is still plenty of intrigue out there. California and Washington both scored big wins over two of the other five contenders (Oregon and Arizona, respectively), in turn not only more or less knocking those teams out of the race for the title, but also cementing their status at the top of the heap. Colorado remains in the mix as well, a game and a half back of the co-leaders. The other component of the race at the top of the conference is the jostling for the #4 spot, which will earn the last first-round bye in the Pac-12 Tournament. Oregon and Arizona are currently tied for the fourth spot, but the Ducks own the tiebreaker there on the basis of their earlier win at the McKale Center.

Washington's Win Over Arizona On Saturday Gave The Huskies Reason For Celebration (Elaine Thompson/AP)

What to Watch For

There is really only one big remaining matchup between teams at the top of the conference over the final two weeks of the season: California’s trip to Colorado on Sunday. Other than that, the Bears go on the road to Utah on Thursday before wrapping up their season with a trip to Stanford on the final day of the regular season.

Likewise, Washington will also be spending its last three games on the road, this week against Washington State and next week against USC and UCLA. Depsite the fact that all of those games are on the road, all of those are eminently winnable games for the co-leaders, with the Colorado/Cal game being the sole time when either Cal or Washington will likely not be favored. For the Buffaloes, however, it is going to be an uphill climb. Along with California, they also face Stanford, Oregon and Oregon State, with the latter two on the road – no pushovers anywhere among that group.

As it is, if the Pac-12 Tournament began with the current standings, this is what we’d be looking at. Certainly some pretty interesting semifinals, but my goodness is that Wednesday slate of games awful bad. The best game of the day is at noon and the Staples Center is virtually guaranteed to be whatever the opposite of “rocking” is that day.

Player of the Year Watch

There are a couple of questions here: 1) who is going to win the POTY award, and 2) who deserves to win the POTY award?

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Oregon at Colorado, February 4, 7 PM PST, ROOT-NW/ROOT-RM

After both the Ducks and the Buffaloes took care of business on Thursday night, they sit tied with California a game back of Washington in the Pac-12. And provided the Ducks can get to Boulder from Salt Lake City (their original flight on Friday morning was cancelled due to weather), we should be in for a good fight for Saturday evening. While Colorado has yet to lose a Pac-12 game in their Coors Event Center (aka, the Foam Dome), the Ducks have been the best road team in the conference thus far, winning four of their five tests away from Eugene. However, the combination of the travel problems that Oregon is experiencing and the 5300-foot elevation in Boulder combine to give Dana Altman and his crew a unique challenge. CU head coach Tad Boyle hasn’t shied away from giving some credit to the elevation for his team’s success at home, but whether it is physical or psychological, there is no doubt that a significant advantage exists for at home. The Buffaloes have won their six conference games at home by an average of 28 points, compared with a 1-3 record away from home and the three losses coming by an average of almost 15 points. At home, the Buffs have scored 1.12 points per possession and held conference opponents to a stingy 0.85 points per possession; those numbers get flipped on the road to just 0.93 points per offensive possession while allowing a more reasonable 1.01 points per defensive possession.

The Combination Of Some Rough Travel And The Coors Event Center Could Spell Road Trouble For Oregon

Altman’s crew, however, has been excellent on the road so far this season, handing losses to both Arizona schools, as well as Washington State and Utah. Altman credits his team’s maturity for their play away from home (the team is the 15^th most experienced team in Division I, according to Ken Pomeroy) and Boyle sees their mental toughness as their biggest road asset as well. Another significant strength for the Ducks is their ability to not only get to the free throw line on a regular basis offensively, but also to prevent their opponents from getting to the line. The Ducks are in the top 50 nationally in FTA-to-FGA ratio, setting up an interesting conflict, as the Buffaloes rank 20th nationally in their offensive FTA-to-FGA ratio; in short, the Buffs want to attack the opposition and get to the line on a regular basis, while the Ducks want to play solid defense without fouling. Whichever team is most successful in getting to the line may earn an advantage in an otherwise remarkably even matchup.

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1. Washington had all sorts of trouble finishing off “the best 3-10 team in America” on Tuesday night, as they were tied with Seattle with less than five minutes to play before sealing up an eight-point win. The Huskies made their hay by getting to the line. Repeatedly. No really. A lot. Like 59 times. The fact that they missed 22 of those attempts certainly kept the game a lot closer than it should have been, but give credit to Seattle and their head coach Cameron Dollar (who will someday be a head coach in the Pac-12, mark my words) for fighting to the end. Tony Wroten shook off an awful game against Utah on Saturday with 24 points and 18 trips to the free-throw line, but he still turned the ball over six times and made a couple bad decisions down the stretch. C.J. Wilcox also bounced back from his worst game of the season by going for 25 points and drilling four threes. The Huskies get back to conference play on Saturday by hosting Washington State.
2. In a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Herb Sendek touched on his decision to dismiss Keala King from the Arizona State team. His comment that “sometimes when you’re a part of a team, you have to make sacrifices and play positions that maybe aren’t ideal” indicates that King was upset at having to play the point after freshman Jahii Carson was declared ineligible and transfer Chris Colvin didn’t pan out as the lead guard. King wasn’t really cut out to be a point guard (he turned the ball over on more than 28% of his team’s possession – a far sight better than Colvin’s 34%), but he appeared to be the best of a bad lot. Now, Sendek turns to junior Trent Lockett at the point. Lockett isn’t an ideal candidate for the point either (he turned it over 11 times in ASU’s two games last weekend, but did hand out eight assists), but at this point, he’s the only legitimate option Sendek has.
3. For the first month, maybe five weeks, of his freshman year at Arizona, Nick Johnson looked like anything but a freshman. He played with a confidence and a consistency that belied his year. But, here we are in January and Johnson has but up clunkers in four of his last five games and seems to have lost all confidence in his jumper last week in Southern California, hitting just three of his 15 field goal attempts and missing all six of his three-point attempts. But Johnson remains cool and collected and expects to work through this slump and come out better for it on the other side.
4. Johnson’s teammate, Kyle Fogg, has seen a slump or two in his day too, but now a senior, he is climbing up all manner of career lists in Tucson. When he started on Sunday against USC, it was his 101^st career start, moving him into ninth place on the all-time Wildcat list, tied with Steve Kerr and Reggie Geary. If he continues to start the rest of the year, he’ll have a good chance to pass Salim Stoudamire and Channing Frye to move into fifth place, but Jason Gardner’s record of 135 career starts is completely safe.
5. Beginning to look ahead to the weekend, Oregon point guard Jonathan Loyd is questionable for the Ducks’ Thursday night game at Arizona State, after sustaining a bruised knee in Sunday’s loss to California. He may test his knee in practice today, but it looks like he may be a game-time decision tomorrow night. If Loyd is unable to go, Devoe Joseph and Garrett Sim will be the only two guards available to Dana Altman who have averaged more than 10 minutes per game. Freshman Brett Kingma, a three-point specialist who has struggled with his shot, would be the guard most likely to pick up the extra minutes if Loyd is out.