Compiling preseason All-America teams is a difficult task because nobody knows what will come during the upcoming season. There will always be several players who fall short of expectations and there will always be several relatively unknown types who will unexpectedly emerge to stardom. When our outfit of seven RTC pollsters selected their preseason All-America teams in November; nobody could have guessed that only five of the 15 players chosen would live up to their hype; Villanova’s Josh Hart, Oregon’s Dillon Brooks, Iowa State’s Monte’ Morris, Washington’s Markelle Fultz, and Kansas’ Josh Jackson. Hart was the only player projected to be a first-teamer who ended up there. The 10 other players who did not make our postseason team are Duke’s Grayson Allen and Jayson Tatum, California’s Ivan Rabb, Maryland’s Melo Trimble, Wisconsin’s Nigel Hayes, Indiana’s Thomas Bryant, NC State’s Dennis Smith, Xavier’s Edmond Sumner and Trevon Bluiett, and Kentucky’s Bam Adebayo. All turned in varying degrees of productive seasons but were surpassed in achievements by the names that moved ahead of them on our list. Here are the 2016-17 RTC All-America Teams.

First Team All-America

• Frank Mason, Senior, Kansas (consensus) (20.9 PPG, 5.2 APG, 49% FG, 47.1% 3FG). After being little more than a complementary contributor during his first three seasons in Lawrence, Mason wrapped up his collegiate career this season in spectacular fashion. What the point guard lack lacks in stature (he is listed at just 5’11”), he made up for it in big time performances. Kansas earned its 13th consecutive Big 12 regular season title and advanced to the Elite Eight this season, and neither of those would have been possible without Mason elevating his game to a superstar level. One of the coolest things about college basketball is when a relatively unheralded recruit develops into one of the country’s most accomplished players – and Mason certainly personified that in his senior season. Kansas fields a great team every year, but it is certain the Jayhawks will miss Mason’s services when they hit the hardwood again next fall.
• Josh Hart, Senior, Villanova (consensus) (18.7 PPG, 6.4 RPG, 51% FG, 40.4% 3FG). Hart starred on last season’s National Championship team, but he took his game to another level during his senior season. The Big East Player of the Year joined Villanova legend Kerry Kittles as the only players in program history to amass 1,800 points, 700 rebounds, 250 assists, and 150 steals. Villanova’s season ended with a surprising Second Round loss to Wisconsin in the NCAA Tournament, but that defeat should not cloud anyone’s perception of Hart’s season, as he was phenomenal from the opening tip of the first game to the final buzzer of the last one.
• Lonzo Ball, Freshman, UCLA (consensus) (14.6 PPG, 7.6 APG, 6.0 RPG, 55.1% FG). Last year at this time, UCLA was coming off a very disappointing 15-17 season that suggested the 2016-17 campaign would be a make-or-break year for Steve Alford in Westwood. Luckily for the Bruins’ head coach, the arrival of Ball as the gem of a star-studded recruiting class aided significantly in morphing UCLA from a losing team to a Sweet Sixteen squad. A dynamic point guard known for his incredible court vision and ability to make his teammates better, Ball also helped had a knack for making key plays in big games – most notably in a December win at Kentucky and in a February home win over Oregon. Unfortunately for Bruins fans, they will not get to experience more of those star performances, as Ball quickly made his intention to enter the NBA Draft known following UCLA’s Sweet Sixteen loss to Kentucky.
• Justin Jackson, Junior, North Carolina (18.2 PPG, 4.7 RPG, 2.8 APG). Following North Carolina’s heartbreaking defeat to Villanova in last year’s title game, Jackson chose to test the NBA Draft waters before ultimately returning to Chapel Hill for his junior season. At the time, Jackson stated, “The best choice for my basketball future is to return to school and play for the Tar Heels next season.” His statement turned out to be prophetic, as he became North Carolina’s go-to guy on his way to leading the team in scoring and earning the ACC Player of the Year award. The Tar Heels are a balanced unit with talent littering the roster, but Jackson’s emergence to stardom is the most important reason why Roy Williams’ team has another chance to play for the title this weekend in Phoenix.
• Caleb Swanigan, Sophomore, Purdue (18.5 PPG, 12.5 RPG, 52.7% FG, 44.7% 3FG). The sophomore big man was a double-double machine for the regular season Big Ten champion — finishing a stellar year with 28 double-doubles and having four games where he grabbed 20 or more rebounds. A big reason for Swanigan’s increased productivity in his sophomore campaign was improved conditioning, as his minutes per game rose from 25.7 to 32.5. He also added a reliable three-point shot to his arsenal, improving his percentage in that are of the game to a robust 44.7 percent. As a result, the Boilermakers advanced to their first Sweet Sixteen since 2010, and that charge was led by a monster season from the All-American.

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We’ve been treating freshmen and non-freshmen in the Pac-12 like opposing sides of the bracket in breaking down our season-ending honors, but with the conference itself announcing its award winners and all-league honors, it’s time to let fly with our All-Pac team and picks for awards, with all players finally in the pool and up for honors.

All-PAC Team

Lonzo Ball is RTC’s pick for Pac-12 POY (Photo: Getty Images)

What we lack in creativity, we make up in substance. It’s hard to argue with any of the choices here, although the point of contention is of course the inclusion of Washington’s Markelle Fultz. It’s hard to knock a guy who is a likely top-two pick in the upcoming NBA Draft, and it’s even harder to compare him with a player like Oregon’s Jordan Bell, who occupies such a contrasting space in terms of role, skill set, position and usage. For consistency’s sake, let’s look at the twin criteria of Net Efficiency Differential combined with Relative Defensive Efficiency. Fultz finished with a negative differential (-4.7) in conference play, while Bell finished with a staggering +33.2 differential.  Of course, that’s tremendously impacted by the noted factors above, especially usage. Bell logged an 18.2 percent usage rate in conference play while Fultz carried a massive load for the Huskies at 33.2 percent.

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The regular season is over, which means the real fun is about to begin. The Pac-12 Tournament tips off in Las Vegas today and there is plenty to look forward to. Although Oregon — the league’s prohibitive favorite at the start of the season — is still the best bet to take home the tournament title, there are several teams with plenty on the line this week and a few more hoping to play spoiler. Here are five things to watch for in Sin City this week.

Dana Altman Seeks Back-to-Back Pac-12 Tourney Titles (USA Today Images)

Who gets to stay on the West Coast? Now that Gonzaga has officially run roughshod over the rest of the WCC, the fourth No. 1 seed is likely North Carolina’s to lose. But even if Oregon, Arizona or UCLA can’t earn a No. 1 seed by winning the Pac-12 Tournament, there is still plenty of incentive beyond that. The winner will likely be in position to either get the fourth No. 1 seed if the Tar Heels stumble early, or they will earn the top No. 2 seed, presumably in the West Region. Location and comfortability will not be the determining factor for which Pac-12 teams make a run to the Final Four, but don’t discount the luxury of staying close to home. Even if the players don’t seem to mind the travel, the coaches know the benefits. This means that there is very little chance that any of the Big Three will rest on their laurels this week.

If California wins twice, will that be enough to get the Bears into the NCAA Tournament? The Golden Bears are the bubbliest of the Pac-12 bubble teams. They appeared in good shape a month ago but their ugly skid to end the season has put them in a precarious position approaching Selection Sunday. Beating an already defeated Oregon State club is an obvious must but isn’t enough by itself — they will probably also need to beat a Utah team that skunked the Golden Bears by 30 points just last week. Even then, the Utes are not an NCAA Tournament team and therefore the Selection Committee may not be swayed. Of course, Cuonzo Martin shouldn’t worry about anything beyond that just yet. He should be much more concerned with his team’s 8-of-46 (17.4%) three-point shooting slump over the last three games, and getting Jabari Bird (1-of-13 from deep over the same span) back on track.

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Earlier this season we arrived at a formula for evaluating the most efficient freshmen in the Pac-12. Essentially, we took net efficiency differential and factored in a player’s individual defense relative to his team. As of January 9 — the rough midpoint of the regular season — these were the five most efficient conference freshmen.

1. T.J. Leaf, UCLA
2. Lonzo Ball, UCLA
3. Rawle Alkins, Arizona
4. Markelle Fultz, Washington
5. Lauri Markannen, Arizona

Arguably the most talented class of freshmen to ever enter the Pac-12, UCLA’s Lonzo Ball takes the cake. (AP)

Now that we’re at the end of the year, it is time to revisit this list and see how everyone grades out with a full body of work.  The key to this whole premise is the value put into player efficiency, as this list would look much different if you instead used statistical volumes or per game averages. KenPom, as a salient example, ranks Fultz as the best player in the Pac-12 based on a combination of ability and usage rate. However, I’m going to stray from the Great KP here and stick with the previous formula for a couple reasons. First, while usage rate is certainly something to consider, the other names on this list are similar enough in usage to merit a reasonable comparison. Second, KenPom uses the entire season to compile his numbers while we’re sticking solely with Pac-12 play (which is still a bit noisy thanks to unbalanced schedules). This serves to clean up the unwieldy variables of non-conference scheduling and make for a fairer analysis. Here is how our quintet now ranks using the key criteria cross-referenced with defensive efficiency relative to team defensive performance. Read the rest of this entry »

The unforced error, most commonly quantified in tennis, is universally agreed upon as annoying. No matter your task, an error sustained but perhaps not earned, is peak frustration. As it translates to basketball, the non-steal turnover would seem to be among the most frustrating of unforced errors. This is the time of ball forfeiture that looks like an errant pass, a dribble off the foot, or an extra step and a travel. I imagine you cringed just reading that list.

Cal Outlasted Utah Last Night Partially Because of a Low 10 Turnovers (USA Today Images0

In this week’s Pac-5, we look at the Pac-12’s leaders in unforced errors. To quantify this, we’ll look at the percentage of a team’s turnovers that were not caused by theft. Here are the Pac-12’s team leaders in unforced errors:

1. California, 64% of turnovers are non-steals – This is in fact a nationally bad number, ranking as the ninth-highest such ratio in college basketball. It might be particularly frustrating when you consider there are three seniors in Cal’s backcourt. There is, of course, also a freshman, Charlie Moore, who actually leads the Golden Bears in turnover rate. Furthermore, by volume, this must be wildly frustrating as the Bears play at the slowest tempo in the conference. That’s a lot of UFEs.
2. Arizona, 60% – This one doesn’t hurt too bad when you consider the Wildcats commit a percentage of turnovers that is about at the national average.
3. Washington, 58% – Considering that all these coughed-up opportunities could actually be Markelle Fultz jumpers? Also, Fultz owns the nation’s 28th-highest usage rate yet turns the ball over on just 14.9 percent of possessions.
4. Oregon, 56% – Last season, Casey Benson had an outrageous handle at the point. This year he’s yielded those minutes to a Payton Pritchard, a freshman, who’s perhaps a greater scoring threat but something more of a turnover liability (as is Dillon Brooks, at 21%).
5. Utah, 55% – We’re inching towards the national average (54%) so maybe this one isn’t as tough a pill to swallow as, for example, Cal? Too soon to mention those two teams in the same sentence?

NOT LISTED: Oregon State. The Beavers have the sixth highest turnover rate in the nation, which by itself is frustrating. They’re turning the ball over (stolen or otherwise) on nearly a quarter of their possessions.

On Monday in a gym in western Massachusetts nearly 3,000 miles east of Seattle, Nathan Hale High School (WA) forward Michael Porter, Jr. lit up an Oak Hill Academy team littered with Division I talent to the tune of 37 points, five rebounds and four assists. Back in the Emerald City, Washington head coach Lorenzo Romar is in danger of losing his job. The Huskies are drowning in a sea of defensive lapses and wasted offensive possessions, all the while squandering the services of arguably the best player in college basketball, Markelle Fultz. Over the last 15 years, Romar has banked significant good will as the most successful head coach in program history. But as the Huskies have churned out legitimate NBA talent over the past five seasons without any real NCAA Tournament success to show for it, even his staunchest defenders have begun to come around. And yet, the only person that seems to stand between Romar and a near-certain axing is the 18 year-old Porter.

Michael Porter Jr. is really good, but is he good enough to keep Lorenzo Romar from being fired?

The prep superstar is a lot of things. He is the No. 2 overall recruit in the Class of 2017 and a likely NBA lottery pick in 2018. He is also Romar’s godson and the crown jewel of Washington’s next recruiting class. His father, Michael Porter, Sr., is currently an assistant coach there, and his younger brother, Jontay Porter, is a top 40 recruit in the Class of 2018 who may reclassify to join his sibling in Seattle as soon as next season. Fans and administrators alike are well aware of the significant athletic gifts of the Porter brothers, but they are also well aware that the Porter brothers are only committed to Washington for as long as Romar and their father remain employed by the university. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s very much a Year of the Freshman in college basketball and the Pac-12 has followed suit. As we now find ourselves through two weeks of conference play, it’s a good time to check in on the headlining freshmen in the Conference of Champions. Washington’s Markelle Fultz is the Pac-12’s leading scorer and the front-runner as the top pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, but there are a number of other high-scoring freshmen in the league. In fact, we could probably just list the top five scorers in the Pac, slap the top five freshmen label on them, and call it a day. Here’s what the list would look like if we did just that.

Markelle Fultz is the Presumptive #1 Pick in the 2017 NBA Draft (USA Today Images)

1. Markelle Fultz, Washington – 22.1 PPG
2. TJ Leaf, UCLA – 17.4 PPG
3. Lauri Markannen, Arizona – 15.9 PPG
4. Charlie Moore, California – 15.2 PPG
5. Lonzo Ball, UCLA – 14.7 PPG

Pretty good, right?  Those are your top five freshmen by scoring average. They’ve all played enough minutes for us to trust in the validity of their averages, but what happens when you rank these five players based on offensive efficiency?  Here’s where things start to get interesting.

Well then.  First, we see that Markannen, whose shooting splits are insane, vaults to the top of the group. California’s Moore gets voted off the island altogether; Arizona’s Rawle Alkins jumps into the picture; and Fultz slides down to fourth in our rankings. This is why efficiency is important to consider when judging players. Does Offensive Rating make Markannen a better player than the others? No, but it does clearly identify him as the most efficient offensive player regardless of draft potential. That’s all well and good, but what about defense? For that we turn to defensive efficiency, an admittedly noisy statistic compared with individual Offensive Rating, but still a useful and informative metric. Limited strictly to defense, here’s how the top five freshmen scorers in the conference.

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Last night in Washington, a 6’4” combo guard showed off a dizzying array of skills, set Twitter ablaze and almost certainly turned the heads of the numerous NBA scouts watching on ESPN2. In other news, the Huskies’ Markelle Fultz scored 22 points on 16 shots. Oregon sophomore Tyler Dorsey had, in the words of his coach Dana Altman, “one of those games,” unleashing a scoring flurry as good as any you will see in college basketball this season. With Dillon Brooks straddled with foul trouble in the second half and Washington threatening to hang around, Dorsey hit a three-pointer off a pass from Brooks and didn’t stop shooting until the game was over. When he was finished, he had made six consecutive buckets (five from downtown) in scoring 17 points in fewer than 12 minutes. His eight made three-pointers were three more than his career-high and his 28 points represented a career-high against a Power 5 opponent. But it wasn’t just the sheer number of three-pointers that made Dorsey’s performance so impressive last night, it was the variety in which he got those points that was notable.

Tyler Dorsey Put On A Show Last Night, But Can He Keep It Up? (Samuel Marshall/Daily Emerald)

Dorsey wasn’t just camping on the perimeter waiting for a kick-out pass. He was swishing shots in transition, pulling up effortlessly off the dribble and putting on a catch-and-shoot clinic. No stranger to 20-point games during his collegiate career, Dorsey looked as confident as ever in his touch last night. You’d be hard-pressed to find one of his second-half shots that even hit the rim. The question now becomes whether his performance against a lackluster Washington defense is a sign of things to come for the Los Angeles native, or just another tantalizing tease of his vast offensive potential. Remember that this was supposed to be a breakout season for the sophomore, the kind of emergence capable of making an already elite Ducks’ offense completely unstoppable. Oregon is still waiting for that breakout.

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The game is evolving away from the basket and toward the three-point line. That’s what Daryl Morey and James Harden would have you believe. The Golden State Warriors would have you think the same. We don’t need advanced metrics to understand that 3>2. Especially if you can make it, the three-pointer is the most valuable in the sport. This distance trend isn’t reserved for just the pros. The collegiate three-ball is being shot at a higher clip than ever before. A 36 percent share of all shots are from distance. Like we explored last week, teams make an effort to help their best shooters make that shot. But what if that’s not your strongest suit?

Considering his skill set, it’s not a huge surprise Thomas Welsh tops this list. (Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

What if you’re better off the bounce or closer to the basket? What if, philosophically, your team isn’t a three-point shooting team? This week we want to consider the Pac-12’s best mid-range players. It isn’t a lost art! It’s just a less appreciated and certainly a less sexy shot. It’s neither three points nor a dunk. Like middle management, the mid-range jumper isn’t glamorous, but it is effective. So who’s the most effective at it in the Pac this season? Here are the Pac-12’s five leading mid-range shooters (quantified by total number of makes):

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One of the biggest changes in college hoops over the last 10 years has been the rise of several consistently strong mid-major programs to the status of legitimate national title contenders. George Mason first crashed the Final Four party in 2006 with a gutsy, emotional Elite Eight win over #1 seed Connecticut. That paved the way for the rise of Butler (2010, 2011), VCU (2011), and Wichita State (2013), each of which were led by dynamic young coaches building winning programs. Throw in the likes of Gonzaga, San Diego State and Xavier, and the growing parity brought with it added competitiveness and a widening of the NCAA hoops pie. But this year is all about the blue-bloods. Kentucky, Duke, Indiana, Kansas, North Carolina and UCLA are all in the AP top 10 for the first time since 1994. While some of those schools have maintained relevance over the intervening seasons, the simultaneous rise of the Hoosiers and Bruins augurs a shift back to the traditional power programs.

College Basketball Benefits When the Elite Programs Are Elite (USA Today Images)

The “why” for this trend could very well be recruiting. Kentucky’s John Calipari was the first coach to truly embrace the one-and-done model of recruiting. The theory is basically that if you can gather the most talented players in the country — regardless whether all of them will be headed to the NBA after just one season — you should. Yes, there are challenges with youth, inexperience and with program continuity, but he proved with the 2012 National Championship and four Final Fours in five years that if you recruit the best players, challenge them in practice, and preach selflessness and defense, you can win. Mike Krzyzewski noticed and Duke jumped on board. Roy Williams also has a slew of McDonald’s All-Americans, and Bill Self has never shied away from recruiting one-year talents regardless of whether he plays them. UCLA this season joined the party with a pair of freshman All-Americans in Lonzo Ball and TJ Leaf. So far, Steve Alford‘s accumulation of talent has helped transform a formerly teetering program into the current #2 team in the country.

Conventional wisdom once held that experience trumps talent in the NCAA Tournament. This was the rationale for the VCUs, Butlers and Wichita States of the game. But as major programs blend experienced returnees with those talented NBA prospects, they often overwhelm their less athletic, overachieving rivals. So, does this early trend hold? That remains to be seen. Perhaps those talented freshmen will revert to traditional norms or hit the rookie wall as the long season works its way into spring. Or perhaps injuries will take a toll. Or maybe some of those power programs in smaller conferences will again crash the party. It wouldn’t be a shock. But so far this season, it’s been a feast for the rich. How fat they get we shall know in good time.

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