1. ESPN’s GameDay is on its way to the McKale Center on Saturday for the first time ever to whoop the home crowd into a frenzy in advance of the Washington/Arizona matchup Saturday evening.  But of more importance to Wildcat fans is how, or if, this team currently stuck at sixth place in the conference can turn things around. However, with three losses already, including a missed opportunity this weekend against Colorado, and arguably the two toughest road trips (to the Bay Area and to Washington) remaining on the schedule, maybe it is time for UA fans to back off the expectations of an NCAA Tournament trip that had until recently seemed to be their birthright.
2. Utah got its second win of the conference season this weekend, knocking off Arizona State on Saturday, and in the wake of the dismissal of senior point guard Josh Watkins, this could be a perfect example of addition by subtraction. In booting Watkins, head coach Larry Krystkowiak loses his leading scorer and biggest offensive threat, but he also cleared minutes for some of the younger players on this squad around whom he’ll need to build future editions of the Utah basketball team. As an added bonus, he showed the rest of his players that there are negative consequences for bad behavior under his reign.
3. Sticking in Salt Lake City, junior center Jason Washburn has earned a starting spot and the most minutes in his career with the Utes, but despite leading his team in scoring, rebounding, blocks, field goal percentage and free throw percentage, he is still inconsistent. Krystkowiak says he is prone to “disappear and not demand the ball” and that he doesn’t “run the floor consistently.” With Watkins gone, Krystkowiak needs the veteran to step up and become a team leader capable of providing a good example for his younger teammates.
4. In an announcement that took exactly no one by surprise, Washington State’s Faisal Aden was named the Pac-12 Player of the Week on Monday, a sentiment we shared. But Aden wasn’t the only Cougar who lent a big hand in the WSU sweep of the Bay Area schools this weekend; senior guard Abe Lodwick knocked down a couple threes early in the second half to spark the Cougars, plus helped out off of the ball and can be an important complementary piece for Ken Bone’s club the rest of the way.
5. Oregon and Oregon State will renew the basketball version of the Civil War rivalry on Sunday in their 336^th all-time meeting, but in the interim, both teams have a chance to rest up and patch their bones a little bit. Both teams are coming off home sweeps of the Los Angeles area schools, and the Ducks in particular, are in good shape, tied atop the conference with California. The game will be held in Eugene at Matthew Knight Arena, where head coach Dana Altman says the crowd was “unbelievable” in helping to propel the Ducks to a big come-from-behind second half run to beat UCLA on Saturday.

Team of the Week

Washington State – There are really three choices here, as Colorado, Oregon and Washington State all went 2-0 this weekend while homestanding. While the Colorado and Oregon performances are arguably more important in terms of the conference race (since each keeps up the pace with just two conference losses), the Cougars’ sweep of the Bay Area school is more impressive. We’ll get to Faisal Aden’s heroics shortly, but the two wins on the Palouse were very much team wins. Brock Motum averaged 15.5 points and eight rebounds per game while being ridiculously efficient; Reggie Moore seems to be buying into his role as point guard, handing out seven assists on Saturday despite failing to score; and guys like DaVonte Lacy, Abe Lodwick and Marcus Capers all made significant contributions to the wins. And, let’s not forget head coach Ken Bone, who was still making adjustments and keeping his team’s attention despite a 1-4 conference start.

Faisal Aden's Big Weekend Helped Washington State Sweep The Bay Area Schools (photo credit: Dean Hare, AP)

Player of the Week

Faisal Aden, Sr, Washington State – It wasn’t all that long ago that we were killing Aden for taking 37% of his team’s shots. Yet, this weekend he hoisted 41.2% of WSU’s field goal attempts, and in doing so he dragged his team across the finish line in both games. Thursday night against Stanford, Aden missed four of his first six FGAs, including misses on all three of his three-pointers. Over the rest of the weekend, Aden never shot from behind the arc, converted 17 of his 23 remaining field goal attempts and got to the line 18 times. For the weekend he averaged 28.5 points per outing, made 65.5% of his field goal attempts and posted a true shooting percentage (which includes his scoring from the line) of 75.4%. In short, while Aden’s usage numbers went through the roof, he was very efficient. It remains to be seen whether or not he can keep it up, but for one weekend at least, Aden was spectacular.

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1. Arizona turned the ball over 28 times last weekend in its split with the Oregon schools, and clearly head coach Sean Miller was none too pleased with that effort. During a Tuesday news conference at the McKale Center, Miller repeatedly made reference to his team’s turnover problems, noting that even his 10-year-old son understands the concept of the double-dribble and that his team needs to catch the ball with two hands. He added that they should remember that they will be wearing blue jerseys this upcoming weekend when they travel to the Rockies, so they should try to throw the ball to blue jerseys. Things should improve drastically this weekend for the Wildcats, as Utah and Colorado are both among the worst teams in the country in forcing turnovers.
2. Oregon was one of the teams forcing those Wildcat turnovers last weekend, and senior forward Olu Ashaolu was responsible for a couple of them. Ashaolu transferred from Louisiana Tech this season after finishing his bachelor’s degree there last year, and he’s an important cog in a Duck team that was drastically undersized last season. Ashaolu eventually decided on Oregon in part because of his friendship with fellow Torontonian and Oregon transfer, Devoe Joseph, who Ashaolu played AAU ball with in high school. And Joseph sees the 6’7” forward as vital to their team’s success, because Ashaolu is capable of being a tough rebounder, a scorer inside and a strong interior defender.
3. Washington State returns to Beasley Coliseum on Thursday night for the first time since December 18, after spending their opening weekend of conference play hosting the Oregon schools in nearby Spokane. The Cougars played away from Pullman in an effort to draw bigger crowds when the students were away, and they did draw nearly 18,000 fans for those two games, but Ken Bone and company are glad to be back home this week. Now, if they can just get to work on the glass, they’ll be in business.
4. Some housekeeping from around the conference, beginning with another note from that Bone news conference: Mychal Ladd is doubtful for this weekend with a thumb injury that kept him out of the Washington game last weekend. Ladd has missed six games this season due to that injury, which has flared up again. Washington’s C.J. Wilcox is doubtful for his team’s games against the Bay Area schools this weekend, a big loss for Lorenzo Romar in games with first place on line. And down at UCLA, junior De’End Parker, a junior college transfer who has played in just two games this year with the Bruins in part due to a knee injury, will be looking to transfer back closer to his home in the Bay Area to be near his ailing mother.
5. Lastly, the last three seasons have been underwhelming for that UCLA program, what with a 14-18 performance in 2009-10 improved upon with last year’s NCAA Tournament appearance before struggling out of the gates this year. But head coach Ben Howland has a cadre of supporters in his former players who are now playing in the NBA. Eleven Bruins began this season on NBA rosters, and players and scouts alike credit Howland’s work in getting his guys ready for the next level. And, while players like Kevin Love may not have always loved playing under Howland, they understand that he helped them improve their games.

1. Colorado is out to a 3-0 start in Pac-12 play and has earned plenty of respect from some of the coaches around the conference. The question has been asked is whether Colorado is actually good, or is the rest of the conference that bad? Bill Oram of The Salt Lake Tribune points out that according to both Ken Pomeroy and Jeff Sagarin, Colorado is no better than the seventh best team in the conference and that their schedule, which started with three consecutive home games, makes their current first place standing a little misleading.
2. When Arizona State hosts Oregon on Thursday night, the Sun Devils will be back nearly to full strength – at least as close to the new definition of full strength, following the dismissal of Keala King, as they’re going to get. But ASU faithful are beginning to question the direction of Herb Sendek’s program and wonder, “what’s wrong with ASU hoops?” Certainly Sendek has had some bad luck in Tempe, and the team has a couple transfers, three incoming freshmen and Jahii Carson ready to go next season, but that doesn’t change the fact that the Sun Devils have been downright awful the last two seasons.
3. Arizona has turned the ball over on almost 25% of their possession in conference play, and it is driving head coach Sean Miller crazy, especially when his three most experienced players – Solomon Hill, Kyle Fogg and Jesse Perry – have combined for 26 turnovers in those three conference games, more than half of the team’s total. Miller blames the problem on carelessness with the ball and miscommunication, but expects that the problem could ease a bit as freshman point guard Josiah Turner grows into a heavier role.
4. Washington State has struggled out of the gates in the Pac-12, not only losing a home game to Oregon the first weekend but getting swept at Utah and Colorado this past weekend. With head coach Ken Bone looking to make some changes to kick-start his team, he may be looking for junior point guard Reggie Moore to pick up more of the scoring load. Moore came off the bench on Saturday for just the second time this season, but Bone expects Moore to return to the starting lineup Sunday against Washington.
5. After two weeks of conference play, Gary Horowitz of The Statesman Journal wants to begin comparing Oregon and Oregon State. His conclusion: Oregon State may have the lesser record (they are 1-3, the Ducks are 2-2), but the Beavers have more upside. While I would tend to agree with him, it is also easier to find things to like about the flashier, more athletic Beavs – they’re more fun to watch and they can certainly put the ball in the basket much more easily than the Ducks. But if I had to pick one of these two teams to win one game with my mortgage payment riding on it, you can bet I’d trust Dana Altman to get the job done much more readily than Craig Robinson, regardless of the talent differential.

A couple weeks back, Jeff Nusser at CougCenter made a compelling argument that Faisal Aden, despite being the team’s second leading scorer, was actively hurting Washington State’s chances. Why? Because despite the fact that Aden is one of the least efficient offensive players on the Cougars, he was taking at that time 37.5% of his team’s shots when he was on the floor. That number has since fallen to 37.2% (fourth in the nation), but the fact remains that Aden is taking too many shots and using too many possessions while other more efficient offensive threats go relatively unused. And to be clear, his position was not so much that Aden was to blame for his role in the offense, but that head coach Ken Bone was putting his team and Aden into a bad position by using him as the focal point of the offense.

Faisal Aden Has Been Carrying The Load For Washington State's Offense, But Should His Role Be Scaled Back? (photo credit: Dean Hare, Spokesman Review)

WSU is now four games into Pac-12 play and Nusser’s theory looks pretty spot on. In the Cougars’ three conference losses, Aden’s trigger finger has actually gotten itchier. He has put up 33 field goal attempts in 65 minutes of action, good for 38.8% of his team’s shots. He’s also turned the ball over five times while handing out just two assists, but that’s another issue. In the sole WSU Pac-12 win over Oregon State, Aden only played nine minutes and attempted just one field goal. He did somehow turn the ball over three times in that stretch though. Couple that little bit of information with the fact that the Cougars played arguably their best stretch of the season this year when Aden was on the bench for three games recovering from a concussion (for those keeping track at home, Aden had 0.0% of his team’s shots in those games) and it seems pretty clear that he would be more suited to a more limited role in the WSU offense.

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1. For awhile, as Herb Sendek seemed to be building a new power in Tempe and the Lute Olson regime was falling apart in Tucson, it appeared that the balance of power in the Arizona basketball landscape was shifting. The Sun Devils were ticking up, with James Harden taking ASU to the Second Round and Arizona missing the Tournament for the first time in 25 years. But, after three straight double-figure victories by the Wildcats over their in-state rival, including a 17-point thrashing on Saturday, and with the best recruiting class in the nation headed to play for Sean Miller next season, clearly Arizona is again widening the gap.
2. In California, the gap is closing, at least temporarily, as California completed its first home sweep of the Southern California schools in eight years by handing UCLA its biggest loss in the series in almost ten years. It is the first time since Walt Hazzard’s final year as the UCLA head coach that the Bruins have started conference play with two losses. While two Bruins went off for career high’s offensively (Tyler Lamb with 26, David Wear 17), Ben Howland stubbornly stuck with an ineffective man defense (although, to be fair, his team’s zone defense wasn’t much better) through most of the loss as all five Cal starters, plus reserve Robert Thurman, scored in double figures, shooting a 71.1% eFG and handing out 28 assists on 34 field goals. In short, California did what they needed to do to begin its chase for a conference title in style, while UCLA left Bruin fans considering a coaching change.
3. Washington State bounced back from a horrible defensive performance of its own in its conference opener to hand Oregon State its second loss on the weekend. It was a “gut check” game for the Cougs, according to junior forward Brock Motum, and he came through in a big way, scoring 26 very efficient points and grabbing eight rebounds. Freshman guard DaVonte Lacy was also huge for Ken Bone’s squad, scoring 18 points (just a point shy of his 19-point career-high he set in the loss to Oregon on Thursday), while Reggie Moore handled OSU’s pressure defense with aplomb, turning it over just once in 35 minutes while dishing out nine assists.
4. For Utah, a bad season got worse on Saturday, as the Utes played their first ever Pac-12 conference game and scored its fewest points in a game since 1947 in a 73-33 loss to Colorado. The Utes scored just 11 points in the first half and shot just 24.5% eFG while allowing Colorado to shoot 60%. They allowed CU to grab 42.9% of their own misses, along with 82.1% of the Utes’. Leading scorer Josh Watkins hit just one of his 12 field goal attempts and the whole team was treated to a post-game tirade from head coach Larry Krystkowiak that included threats for future benchings and suspensions for players who were either late to or absent from team-related functions, a problem that has been ongoing and has already resulted in an earlier one-game suspension for Watkins. With 17 games remaining in a season from hell, it remains to be seen how low this proud program can go.
5. Lastly, while some may attribute Washington’s strong start to the conference season to lessons learned in a home loss to South Dakota State, head coach Lorenzo Romar sees these results growing from lessons planted throughout the season. He’s been preaching defense for weeks now in the hopes of correcting some of their problems, and now that is paying off. Not only are stars like Tony Wroten and C.J. Wilcox buying in defensively, but Romar has gotten redshirt freshman forward Desmond Simmons to play like a “junkyard dog,” killing it on the glass and working hard away from the ball.

1. Opening night in conference play was an exciting one, so let’s jump right into it with the game of the night, where Stanford held off UCLA, needing a Josh Huestis block of an attempt by Lazeric Jones to preserve a 60-59 victory. After giving up the first four points of the game, Stanford bounced back with a 15-2 run and never again trailed, although UCLA had multiple attempts to regain the lead in the second half. Jones led the charge for the Bruins, reeling off a career-high 26 points, but it was a couple of threes by Stanford freshman Chasson Randle wrapped around another three by sophomore Anthony Brown that broke a late tie and gave Stanford a five-point lead with five minutes to play. Randle had struggled on the night, hitting just one of his ten other attempts from the field and getting exposed on the UCLA pick and roll throughout the evening, but came up big down the stretch. Prior to the game, Stanford head coach Johnny Dawkins announced that junior guard Gabe Harris would miss the rest of the season after having surgery on his injured right knee. Harris had been averaging over 13 minutes per game off the bench.
2. Up the road a stretch, California had to withstand a late charge from Maurice Jones and USC to pull out a four-point win. Jones hit three 3-pointers in the final four and a half minutes to bring the Trojans back from a 16-point deficit, and were right there, just a point back with the clock running down when Trojan sophomore center Dewayne Dedmon swatted Jorge Gutierrez’s layup attempt. However, the ball wound up in the hands of Allen Crabbe who, in his own words, “just threw it up” from behind the three-point line and was fouled by little-used Eric Stangis. Crabbe hit all three free throws and the Bears escaped. If there was ever a game for Gutierrez to shine in, it was this gritty, hard-fought game, and he certainly stood out, leading his team with 13 points, seven rebounds, seven assists, and four steals. However, his uncharacteristic two-of-seven night from the line was crucial in keeping USC in the game. Even more concerning for Mike Montgomery was his team getting absolutely crushed on the glass, allowing USC to grab 50% of the available offensive rebounds and 74.1% of the defensive rebounds. As expected, sophomore forward Richard Solomon did not play for Cal due to a stress fracture in his foot.
3. Things were significantly less dramatic in the state of Washington last night, although for a brief moment it looked like Oregon State was on its way back from a 20-point deficit to make the Huskies sweat a bit down the stretch. After a wild Ahmad Starks three-pointer brought back to within 83-80, U-Dub closed the game on a 12-0 run to finish off the Beavers. The big story in the game was the played of Husky freshman guard Tony Wroten, who had 26 efficient points on 10-16 shooting, nine rebounds, four assists, just two turnovers, and hit five of his seven free throw attempts. While Wroten has now scored 20 or more in four of his last five games, this was far and away his best game in a young career. Lorenzo Romar also got significant production from the rest of his roster, with five other players – including sophomore wing C.J. Wilcox, who came off the bench for the first time this season – scoring in double figures.
4. Perhaps the biggest surprise on the night in the conference was Oregon going into Spokane and taking apart Washington State, ending the Cougars six-game winning streak in spectacular fashion. While senior forward Olu Ashaolu gets the honorifics after scoring 23 points and grabbing ten rebounds, it was a total team effort for the Ducks, as they shot a ridiculous 78.6 eFG% and controlled the glass. As Craig Powers at CougCenter points out, Oregon scored about 1.31 points per possession on the night, a number that is a bit out of whack since the Ducks spent the last several minutes trying to run out the clock. In the first half, OU scored almost 1.8 points per possession. There’s a long way to go in the season, but this had to be a concerning outing for Washington State head coach Ken Bone.
5. When Utah tips off its first conference game in the Pac-12 on Saturday at Colorado, it will do so without senior guard Chris Hines. Hines broke his left thumb three weeks ago against BYU, and has been playing through the injury for the Utes last three games (including its only two wins of the season), but head coach Larry Krystkowiak says he can barely even catch the ball, so Hines will sit for the time being. Unfortunately for the under-talented Utes, Hines’ backups are banged up as well, as walk-on Alex Mortenson is out after suffering a concussion in practice this week and junior Cedric Martin has been struggling with plantar fasciitis this week and will be a game-time decision on Saturday.

Yesterday we looked back at non-conference play and picked out some of the highlights of the first couple months of the season. Today, as conference play gets ready to tip-off, we look forward to what we expect to happen from here until Selection Sunday. Prior to the start of the season, we took a guess at things like conference standings and All-Pac-12 teams based on limited information. Now, we’ve got twelve or thirteen games upon which to base our next set of guesses, but given the state of affairs in the conference so far, may be no closer to having a good idea what is going to happen from here on out than we were back in November. Nevertheless, here goes:

Projected Standings

1. California 13-5 – While every team in the conference is flawed, the Golden Bears are slightly less flawed than the rest, provided Richard Solomon can return from his injury, Harper Kamp can remain relatively healthy and freshman David Kravish continues to improve. Their quartet of guards (Jorge Gutierrez, Allen Crabbe, Justin Cobbs and Brandon Smith) is the best in the league and head coach Mike Montgomery has a way of squeezing every bit of production out of his players.
   

   With Mike Montgomery At The Helm And A Talented Backcourt, The Golden Bears Are The Slight Favorite In The Pac-12 (photo credit: Christine Cotter)

2. Stanford 12-6 – Johnny Dawkins’ team will prove it is for real, but it may not have the experience or the single elite player capable of scoring with confidence in clutch situations to actually win the title. Chasson Randle or even Dwight Powell could grow into that type of player, but it may be a year or more away from happening. The Cardinal travel to Berkeley on the final day of the regular season in what could be a game rife with title implications.
3. Arizona 12-6 – It seems like everybody is just waiting for Josiah Turner and Nick Johnson to turn it on, take over this team and turn the Wildcats into an explosive offensive force. They’re talented enough to make that happen, but 13 games into the season, it is looking like Solomon Hill, Kyle Fogg and Jesse Perry are going to have to continue as the go-to guys for Sean Miller. And while those guys are nice players, they are all more suited to the role of contributors rather than stars, at least on teams who hope to win a conference title. However, the fact that the Wildcats only have to play Cal, Stanford, Oregon State and Oregon once each is definitely a bonus.
4. Oregon State 11-7 – Craig Robinson’s has an exciting and young squad that may have only scratched the surface of its talent so far. However, given their history of losing games that they have no business losing, they’ve got to be in the same “prove-it” category that Stanford occupies. Nevertheless, don’t be surprised if the quintet of Ahmad Starks, Jared Cunningham, Devon Collier, Joe Burton and Angus Brandt turns itself to be the most talented starting five in the conference. Read the rest of this entry »

1. Three games in the conference last night, none all that interesting, although I suppose it is worth noting these days when the Pac-12 gets through a weeknight without sustaining any more losses. Arizona faced the toughest competition when they hosted Oakland and their talented and prolific senior point guard Reggie Hamilton, but the ‘Cats survived as they “held” him to 31 often spectacular points. Solomon Hill played just about as well as he’s ever played, scoring 23 points, grabbing 11 rebounds, handing out three assists and refusing to let the Wildcats lose. Elsewhere, freshman Norman Powell had a career-high 19 points as UCLA won its fourth straight and stuck its head over .500 for the first time this year by knocking off UC Irvine by 29. And Oregon used a 19-3 run in the middle of the second half to break open a tie-game against North Carolina Central and escape despite a sluggish performance.
2. Arizona State junior center Ruslan Pateev was suspended for one game by the NCAA on Tuesday following an altercation (jump to the 30 second mark here) during the Sun Devils’ game Monday night in which he took a swing and connected to the back of the head of Southern Mississippi’s Torye Pelham following a little scuffle under the basket. Pateev was ejected from that game after being given a Flagrant 2 foul, and if he receives another foul of that degree this season he will be suspended the remainder of the year.
3. Washington head coach Lorenzo Romar is trying to right the ship in Seattle and think he has narrowed down the Huskies’ problems to three areas: 1) defense, 2) ball movement, and, the big one, 3) chemistry. Thing one and thing two can be fixed either through effort or game-planning, but with a ton of scorers who like to have the ball in their hands coupled with a play-making point guard like Abdul Gaddy who needs to have the ball in his hands to be effective, there have been some problems figuring out everybody’s roles. And with Tony Wroten now taking a larger part of the offense, and often doing so by creating for himself off the dribble, guys like Terrence Ross and C.J. Wilcox have seen their shot attempts diminish. Ross and Wilcox both averaged over 13 field goal attempts per game in the first eight games, but since Wroten entered the starting lineup, Ross has averaged just eight while Wilcox has averaged 10. Wroten, meanwhile, has taken 38 shots from the field in those two games, and although he did so very effectively (scoring 50 points on those shots), a bigger concern is his ability to create for his teammates, having dished out just four assists in 68 minutes.
4. Across the state, Washington State is back to full strength for the first time this season, as senior captain Abe Lodwick played for the first time, while Faisal Aden and Mychal Ladd returned from injuries in the Cougars’ last game against Western Oregon. In their absence, senior Charlie Enquist stepped up with by far the best stretch of his career, while freshmen DaVonte Lacy and Dexter Kernich-Drew saw dramatic increases in their playing time. Given the fact that the Cougs have now won their last five after starting the season 2-4, head coach Ken Bone has a chemistry test of his own coming up in the future. The players who helped WSU win those five straight have earned the right to continue getting minutes, while the returnees are certainly among the most talented Cougs. It will be interesting to see how those precious minutes get divided up in Pullman over the coming weeks. WSU has just one remaining non-conference game before they host the Oregon schools to open conference play, a week from tomorrow.
5. Lastly, Lost Lettermen asks the question, is the West Coast Conference better than the Pac-12? Jim Weber says yes, if only for one season, pointing to Gonzaga, Saint Mary’s and BYU as the standard bearers. Anthony Olivieri takes the negative (rightly), pointing out that Cal and Stanford appear to be as good as the top of the WCC, while a team like Washington (and I would include Arizona) still has plenty of upside. And as bad as the bottom of the Pac-12 is this season, remember that Utah just beat Portland last night, and Portland (who has struggled through an absolutely brutal non-conference schedule) isn’t anywhere near the worst team in the WCC. Certainly the Zags, Gaels and Cougars are all solid programs, but even with the Pac-12 at its nadir, it is still better than the WCC. If you don’t just believe me, ask Ken Pomeroy, Jeff Sagarin and the RPI.

This week’s honors head north, with the state of Washington sweeping the awards despite the fact that the Evergreen State’s teams had widely divergent weeks. While the Huskies came up short against some top-shelf competition in New York City, the Cougars continued their road back from near-ruin at the 76 Classic by taking care of some quality mid-majors.

Washington State Has Won Four In A Row Following Their Last Place Finish At The 76 Classic

Team of the Week

Washington State – Since the Cougars’ lost weekend in Anaheim, this team has regained focus and turned a corner. They have now won four straight, including three wins at Beasley Coliseum by an average of 32 points, and are rolling. This week they took to the road on Wednesday and beat a solid Idaho team (just ask Oregon State) when junior point guard Reggie Moore hit a jumper with under a second left to give the Cougars the win. Then they came back and just killed a good Santa Clara team by 38 points behind a career-high 27 points from Brock Motum. Senior forward Charlie Enquist continued his astonishing emergence, posting 18 and 10 in that win. Head coach Ken Bone will still need Moore to play a lot more like he did as a freshman than as he has so far this season (his turnover numbers are way up while his free throw rate is way down), especially when the level of competition goes back up. But after the last couple of weeks, that late-game collapse against UC Riverside in the 76 Classic is becoming increasingly befuddling.

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