1. Less than a day after Oregon State got one of its biggest non-conference victories in recent memory, current Salt Lake Community College guard Gary Payton II signed with the Beavers. Payton is, of course, the son of former Beavers legend, Gary Payton, and like his dad, “The Glove,” he is nicknamed “The Mitten.” He is a capable rebounder who is averaging 7.4 RPG this season with the Bruins, in addition to scoring at an 11.0 PPG clip. On the other end of the floor, Payton is a harassing defender who will fill all the “hustle” categories on the stat sheet. The Beavers return to the floor after their upset win at Maryland in six days, when they’ll face Southern Illinois-Edwardsville in Corvallis. With the aforementioned win and this notable signing, head coach Craig Robinson is enjoying a spurt of momentum that his program hasn’t seen in a while.
2. Down the road in Eugene, Oregon remained undefeated on the young season last night with a 69-54 win against Utah Valley. The Ducks were once again led by Houston transfer Joseph Young, who scored 20 points in 31 minutes of action. Oregon improved to 3-0 on the year, but the Wolverines provided a stiff challenge for 30 minutes before the Ducks pulled away.
3. Arizona head coach Sean Miller recorded his 100th win at Arizona on Monday night with its beatdown of Fairleigh Dickinson in the first round of the NIT Season Tip-Off. The creative hashtag commemorating the achievement, #100Pointsfor100Wins, popped up on Twitter after the 100-50 victory, and athletic director Greg Byrne honored the moment by presenting Miller with the game ball afterwards. “Only 489 more wins and a national title to go to catch Lute,” says the Tucson Citizen. Miller notched his 101st win last night when the Wildcats rolled over Rhode Island, 87-59. The Wildcats move on the NIT semifinals in New York City next Wednesday.
4. In other on-court action, USC dominated and overmatched regional rival Cal State Fullerton on Tuesday, taking an early 24-8 lead and never looking back. The Trojans’ attack was balanced as guard Byron Wesley had 22 points and center Omar Oraby added 15, but once again, coach Andy Enfield saw little production from his bench. That will have to change when the competition improves, starting eight days from now against Villanova.
5. After an opening three games against the likes of UMBC, Miami (OH) and Idaho State, it was tough to see just how much Arizona State had improved over the offseason. One thing was for sure which was that the shot selection and passing game had definitely gotten better, and that this was definitely a team with more threats than all-everything point guard Jahii Carson. The Sun Devils showed all of that in Tuesday’s six-point road win against UNLV. Their offensive efficiency continued in Vegas, scoring 52 points in the second half and putting away the game at the free throw line. They won’t sneak up on anybody after this win, but Herb Sendek has a fun team to watch, no doubt about it.

Out of the country? Living under a rock? Here’s what you missed in the first full week of Pac-12 basketball.

Roberto Nelson Poured In 31 Points In Oregon State’s Upset Win At Maryland (credit: Andy Cripe)

Best Game – Oregon State @ Maryland: Arizona-San Diego State would be a fine pick here as well, but the Wildcats held a comfortable lead for nearly 35 minutes in that one. In College Park, things were exiting and intense from the outset. The whole atmosphere, bolstered by an appearance from the President of the United States, made this feel like something much more than a mid-November game. And on a day when Indiana State won at Notre Dame and Belmont upset North Carolina, it was the Beavers’ turn to pull the shocker. The knocks on Craig Robinson‘s team remain; it is largely a two-man offense without a great rebounder, but it has a solid distributor in Challe Barton and two capable three-point shooters in Angus Brandt and Olaf Schaftenaar. Who knows where the unpredictable Beavers go from here, but the Maryland win provides a boost of momentum that the program desperately needed.

Upsets – There were three upsets in the conference this week, starting late last Monday night when BYU walked into Maples Pavilion and hung 112 points on Stanford. Junior Chasson Randle scored 33 points for the Cardinal, but it was nowhere near enough after a horrific showing on the defensive end of the court. Three days later, UC Irvine destroyed Washington on its home court, taking a 38-36 halftime lead and turning it into a 14-point win. And of course, the Beavers topped Maryland to close out the week. Oregon State went on an 8-0 run to start the second half and never trailed in the final 20 minutes, winning by a final of 90-83.

Power Rankings (As voted upon by Connor Pelton, Andrew Murawa, and Adam Butler):

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1. Oregon State scored a big win on Sunday evening, both for themselves and for the conference. Playing at Maryland in front of, among others, President Obama, the Beavers looked impressive, getting big nights from a pair of seniors and scoring a road win against a solid ACC squad. Roberto Nelson led the way with 31 points (he’s now averaging 30.3 PPG this year), but the big difference for the Beavers was the presence of forward Devon Collier, who scored 29, grabbed 11 boards and blocked a couple of shots. After a game missed due to suspension, he at least gives Oregon State some athleticism and size up front. When Eric Moreland becomes available come January, this will be almost a whole different team than the one that melted against Coppin State last week. And just for the record, Craig Robinson and the Beavers are now 4-0 in games attended by the President.
2. Now, about that loss to Coppin State, it is just one of three particularly concerning defeats around the conference, as Vince Grippi of The Spokesman-Review writes. While the Stanford loss to BYU itself isn’t all that damning, the fact that it came at home and in a game where they gave up 112 points looks bad. But worse yet are OSU’s loss to Coppin State and Washington’s loss to UC Irvine. Certainly some portion of these losses could be excused away by suspensions and/or injuries, but regardless, these losses will hurt conference RPI numbers in the long run.
3. Despite that loss last week, Stanford has somewhat gotten back on track, most recently on the road against a good Denver team on Sunday. Chasson Randle continued his hot start to the season with a 29-point explosion (on 14 field goal attempts) as the Cardinal distanced themselves in the second half after a tight first 20 minutes. The Cardinal now kick off a faux-tournament with a home game against Texas Southern this week and one at the start of December against South Dakota State, with the real part of the Legends Classic bracket set for Monday and Tuesday of Thanksgiving week in Brooklyn. Stanford will open that event with a match-up against Houston and, provided they win, a likely resume game with Pittsburgh in the final.
4. Washington State has also had a hot guard to start the season, namely DaVonte Lacy, who has averaged 24.5 points in the Cougars’ first two outings. But maybe the best news for Ken Bone’s squad is that freshman Ike Iroegbu has averaged 20 minutes, 10.5 points and just 1.5 turnovers per game in his first couple of outings. If Iroegbu can continue to provide some minutes at the point, it allows guys like Lacy and Royce Woolridge to play more off of the ball.
5. Lastly, Jim Hague of the Hudson Reporter has a piece on Kyle Anderson of UCLA and the differences between his rough start to his college career last year and his more comfortable role this season at UCLA. With Larry Drew II locked in at the point last year, Anderson spent most of the year off the ball, playing up front as almost an afterthought. This year, he’s the main man, running the show on offense and more comfortably stuffing the stat sheet. While the story — aided and abetted by Kyle Anderson Sr. — is that this will be the younger’s last year at UCLA before heading off to a professional career, the sophomore isn’t willing to go down that road quite yet.

A Pac-12 adaption of Every Day Should Be Saturday’s Hatin’ Steve Spurrier character. 

Larry Krystowiak (Credit: The Grizzoulian)

• It’s just not hoops season until Washington loses to a Big West team by 14 at home. Thanks, UC Irvine.
• Who doesn’t love the new foul rules? Two and a half hour games. Fifty fouls. This game is about flow, kids.
• Oregon’s at it again, guys.
• I’ve got more important things to do at 7:00 AM than watch a Quinnipiac–La Salle game. Slackers.
• Is there a coach with more job security than Craig Robinson after losing to a lower-level MEAC team? Is there a coach other than Craig Robinson taking his team to the White House this week? The answer is in there somewhere, folks.
• Robert Morris will look to continue its dominance of Kentucky on Sunday in Lexington. LOL.
• How many more times does Stanford have to give up 100 points before Johnny Dawkins is fired?
• Grand Canyon has opened its season at 0-2. Stockholders ain’t gonna be pleased.
• Gary Payton II has committed to Oregon State. They call him “The Mitten.” That’s not a joke. Really.
• Yeah, we lead the nation in points scored. Play someone other than Evergreen State, you say? Haters gonna hate.
• The Marshall Henderson show is back. Once a Ute, always a Ute, is what I say.
• Colorado has found the key to student attendance – bacon. No word on how USC’s free Ferrari promotion is working out.

Who Won the Week? is a regular column that will outline and discuss three winners and losers from the previous week. The author of this column is Kenny Ocker (@KennyOcker), a Spokane-based sportswriter best known for his willingness to drive (or bike!) anywhere to watch a basketball game. And man, will those be tested this winter. Today’s forecast high temperature? 39 degrees. It’s November 15. It’s only going to get worse from here.

WINNER: The Champions Classic

The outstanding play of Andrew Wiggins was just one of several highlights from the Champions Classic in Chicago. (AP)

Though there was many a spectacular game in the first week of the season – and some of that is certainly just because it’s good to be back watching hoops – the Champions Classic proved a worthy spectacle to start the season. In its third year, the season-opening tournament with four of college basketball’s best programs may have hit its pinnacle thus far. The four programs are each ranked in the top five of the Associated Press poll, and each came in with significant star power. Despite facing Kentucky’s heralded group of freshmen – stop me if you’ve heard that before – Gary Harris, Keith Appling and Adriean Payne took Michigan State to a wire-to-wire 78-74 win in game one of the double-header. Appling’s performance was particularly spectacular, scoring 22 points, grabbing eight rebounds as a point guard, getting eight assists and nabbing four steals. The Wildcats’ most-touted recruit, Julius Randle, shone through despite the early-season backcourt inconsistency John Calipari’s teams are sometimes prone to. The freshman put up 27 points and 13 rebounds despite going against Payne for most of the night (though he did have eight turnovers). But game one’s one-freshman show was trumped by game two’s two-freshman battle. Kansas’ Andrew Wiggins and Duke’s Jabari Parker went back and forth throughout their teams’ match-up. Parker’s 27-point, nine-rebound stat line may have outshone Wiggins’ 22-and-six showing, but the pair’s captivating late-evening game ended up going to the Canadian’s Jayhawks, 94-83. The good news for this season is that Randle, Wiggins, and Parker all looked like the stars they were billed to be coming into college. The good news for the next three seasons? The four schools have agreed to do these neutral-site games for the next three years. See you next year.

(Related winners: Michigan State and Kansas, for getting a couple of top-level non-conference wins; Randle, Wiggins and Parker, for matching their hype. Related losers: Tarik Black, who only had a single rebound and three fouls for the Jayhawks; Kentucky and Duke.)

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1. With the start of the early signing period well underway, we’re going to spend almost all of this morning’s rundown on recruiting. And to kick things off, not only did Arizona have a big night on Thursday by getting a hard-earned victory over a tough San Diego State team, but they heard whispers of some very good things for the future as well. Stanley Johnson, a top-10 recruit out of Mater Dei in the greater Los Angeles area, will announce his decision on where he will attend school next season and the rumors are that Johnson will select Arizona over competitors like USC and Kentucky. With four-star guys Craig Victor and Parker Johnson-Cartwright already committed, Sean Miller’s got the beginnings of another phenomenal class.
2. On the other side of the things, Oregon State is struggling through a rough start to the season, but Beaver fans not only can celebrate the signing of a new recruit, but this specific recruit – junior college transfer Gary Payton II – offers up ties to the most recent glory days of the basketball program in Corvallis. While “The Mitten” doesn’t have the accolades that “The Glove” brought to OSU, he is a strong defender like his father and will provide some excitement for the Beavers next season. Meanwhile, there are three other recruits who have already verbally committed to Oregon State who may sign in the coming days. The big question that remains is whether head coach Craig Robinson will still be around to enjoy the fruits of his recruiting labor.
3. Up in the Bay Area, both Cal and Stanford have signed highly regarded recruits. Mike Montgomery signed four-star point guard Ahmaad Rorie, who had committed to the Golden Bears almost two years ago, while Stanford inked five-star power forward Reid Travis, who just committed to the Cardinal last week. Johnny Dawkins still has a couple four-star recruits in point guard Robert Cartwright and center Michael Humphrey who have already verbally committed, but they still need to make it official. And then, of course, we’ll need to see if Dawkins is still around to welcome them into Palo Alto next season.
4. Let’s switch from NorCal to SoCal to check out what USC and UCLA got done yesterday. Trojan head coach Andy Enfield signed three players, including big guys Malik Price-Martin and Jabari Craig along with four-star point guard Jordan McLaughlin, all of whom will be significant upgrades in terms of players who fit in with the style of play that Enfield wants. Expect these three to get big roles early for the cardinal and gold. Meanwhile, across town, Steve Alford signed Kevon Looney – a five-star power forward –and Hungarian power forward Gyorgy Goloman, who is spending 2013-14 at a prep school in Florida. Looney, in particular, is a big-time get for UCLA.
5. Lastly, we’ve got football again tonight. And, while we’ve got sufficient focus on basketball this time of year, we’ll be sure to take a couple breaks this weekend to keep our eye on some exciting Pac-12 football. Connor and I continue our battle for prognosticating supremacy, and we’re in a tight contest. Last week we both went 4-1, with Connor eking out a fun one when Arizona State knocked off Utah, and me riding Myles Freaking Jack !!!!! (yes, I believe those exclamation points are now officially a part of his name) to a UCLA win over Arizona (although I was wishing I was watching a UCLA/Arizona basketball game the whole time). On the season, Connor’s still got a one-game lead on me, with him checking in at 58-15 and me at 57-16. Our game of the week comes tonight, when Washington and UCLA meet up at the Rose Bowl (a 6:00 PM football game at the Rose Bowl on a Friday night? Yeah, calling that thing half full at kick-off will be extraordinarily optimistic). I’m leaving the Bruins bandwagon to hop on Bishop Sankey and company, while Connor’s going with the Bruins at home.

1. Did everyone survive the tipoff marathon? Only one team from the Pac-12, Stanford, got to participate this season, and the showing was not a good one. BYU took an eight point lead into the locker rooms at halftime at Maples Pavilion, and the deficit was held right around there for the final 20 minutes. The Cardinal defense was atrocious, allowing 112 points and allowing two Cougar players to score over 25 points.
2. Nike unveiled its turquoise “N7” uniforms on Tuesday, and Oregon State will be one of five teams to don them this November. Florida State, New Mexico, and both the Nevada men’s and women’s teams had unis designed for them by Nike. Click here for a closer view at the Beaver threads, featuring a blue, ghost Beaver on the back and an orange and black tartan print running all the way from top to bottom. The Beavers will debut the jerseys against Southern Illinois Edwardsville on November 26.
3. Oregon head coach Dana Altman raised a few eyebrows when saying that he wasn’t disappointed in two of his starters, Dominic Artis and Ben Carter, for selling their team-issued shoes. The violation earned a nine game suspension for each of them, but Altman said he is only disappointed for the pair, and not in them. The suspension didn’t come around to hurt the Ducks in their opener, an 82-75 triumph over Georgetown in South Korea.
4. While the rest of the nation was watching Michigan State-Kentucky and Kansas-Duke, California was busy handling a Denver team that made the NIT last season. The Golden Bears got their second win on the young season thanks to a tremendous performance on the defensive end of the floor, something rarely seen across the NCAA this year with the new fouling rules. Sophomore guard Tyrone Wallace recorded three steals, while both Justin Cobbs and Sam Singer added two more. Down low, forward Richard Solomon had two blocked shots and pulled down 16 rebounds.
5. If you grill it, they will come. That’s the plan brought forth by the Colorado athletic department, who will be giving out 10,000 free strips of bacon to students who attend the Jackson State game on Saturday. This definitely goes down as one of the top college hoops promotions of all time.

1. So. Stanford. Out to save Johnny Dawkins’ job and salvage a single NCAA Tournament appearance for its talented senior class. Yeah, that team. Well, they gave up nearly 1.3 points per possession last night in a home loss to BYU, in a regulation game that featured more scoring than any game played last season anywhere, losing 112-103 at Maples Pavilion. A college basketball game that had more scoring than seven of the nine NBA games on the same night. The good news is that scoring is up, and we could attribute that to the new emphasis on enforcing hand-checking rules. Or, maybe Stanford is just a really bad defensive team.
2. Let’s finish getting the bad news out of the way up front: the Portland Tribune called Oregon State’s home loss to Coppin State on Sunday night “unforgivable.” Considering Beavers head coach Craig Robinson is another Pac-12 coach squarely on the hot seat, “unforgivable” losses are probably not easily forgiven. The fact that the team played without a pair of suspended frontcourt players doesn’t really garner a lot of sympathy, especially since its opponent was playing without its leading scorer and rebounder from last year’s team. Still, Devon Collier is due back tomorrow night and Roberto Nelson is a stud, so there is at least some hope. But that Coppin State loss is something that the RPI is never going to take any excuses for, and, the dip the Beavers will take in the RPI will ripple throughout the conference all season long.
3. UCLA avoided being painted with the upset victim brush on Friday night, dodging a late deep three-point attempt to hold on for a five-point win over Drexel, but head coach Steve Alford hopes to get in plenty of work on the half-court offense with the Bruins. While Kyle Anderson had some promising moments getting penetration and passing out of the paint, the team often stalled when unable to get into transition. But Alford and senior forward David Wear agree that those problems can be fixed over time with practice. Given that Travis Wear is expected back within the week, the team will have another accomplished half-court weapon.
4. Two games into the season, Colorado has yet to look very good, and veteran point guard Spencer Dinwiddie has made a total of just four field goal attempts. Head coach Tad Boyle isn’t all that concerned, though, noting that his junior has done plenty of other things well. Even though he’s hit just  over 26 percent of his shots from the field so far, Dinwiddie has been able to get to the line 17 times and make 14 of those attempts in order to add to his production. He’s also regularly recognized as one of the best perimeter defenders in the conference. In other words, he doesn’t always need to score to have a positive impact on the game. That said, Boyle says he’d still like to see Dinwiddie be more aggressive.
5. Lastly, a bit of a look ahead to tonight, when four conference teams will be in action, including Arizona State, where head coach Herb Sendek will face one of his former teams as Miami (OH) travels to Tempe to face the Sun Devils. Sendek got his start at Miami, spending three seasons in southeastern Ohio. Prior to tonight’s game, Arizona State will honor Charlie Coles, who was an assistant under Sendek at Miami before becoming that program’s head coach. Oh, and just another little tidbit that may help you understand the ASU/Arizona rivalry a bit more: In Sendek’s final season at Miami (OH) before he went to North Carolina State, he led his RedHawk team to a first-round upset of Arizona in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

The Pac-12 opened the 2013-14 season with a big splash in South Korea and ended with a head-scratching upset in Corvallis. Let’s take a closer look at how the conference fared through the first three days of the regular season.

Young, A Transfer Out Of Houston, Made His Case For Newcomer Of The Year In The Pac-12 After A Stellar Opening Night Performance Against Georgetown. (credit: Lee Jim-man)

Best Game – Oregon vs Georgetown: The stage couldn’t have been bigger. A top 20 Oregon team, missing two of its starters after receiving suspensions earlier in the week, against a good Georgetown club, being played in South Korea on ESPN at the Armed Forces Classic. The Ducks jumped out to a 19-9 lead on the Hoyas before they finally found their offense, but Georgetown eventually settled down and got a Mikael Hopkins jumper with 10 seconds remaining in the first half to pull within three. Oregon held onto a lead for the final 15 minutes of the game, but each time it looked as if it would pull away, Georgetown would come up with a big stop to stay within striking distance. The dagger came with two and a half minutes to play, as senior Richard Amardi slammed home a dunk to end a mini-Hoya run, putting the Ducks up 73-68. Junior guard Joseph Young led Oregon with 24 points and five rebounds.

Upsets – Only one, but it was a biggie. Coppin State, who was picked to finish ninth in the MEAC, went into Corvallis without its best player and topped Oregon State, 78-73. The Beavers, of course, were without two of their starting forwards, Devon Collier and Eric Moreland, so the loss may not be held against Craig Robinson‘s team if they are in the mix for an NCAA bid come March (assuming they’re in the mix at all). But regardless, this was a pathetic performance turned in by the Beavers. Except for a brief spurt of points from center Angus Brandt late in the second half, the only source of offense came from senior Roberto Nelson, who scored a career-high 36 points.

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1. Washington knocked off a game Seattle squad on Sunday night in its season opener, but the win may turn out to be something of a Pyrrhic victory as sophomore forward Jernard Jarreau left with a knee injury just two minutes into the season. As of this writing, there is no news on the severity of the injury, but Jarreau is expected to undergo an MRI today. With senior center Perris Blackwell already out after suffering a concussion in their exhibition game last Wednesday, and with junior Desmond Simmons out for up to two months following knee surgery, the Huskies were forced to even turn to sophomore center Gilles Dierickx (sure, just when I figured out how to spell Krystkowiak without thinking twice, you break out this name on me) for frontcourt depth. But, it was mostly newcomer wings like 6’5” JuCo transfer Mike Anderson and 6’4” freshman Darin Johnson who helped the Huskies compete on the glass, as they grabbed 15 rebounds between them.
2. While the Huskies evaded a potential upset on Sunday night despite being shorthanded, Oregon State wasn’t so lucky. Playing without suspended forwards Devon Collier and Eric Moreland, the Beavers fell to Coppin State despite a career-high 36 points from senior guard Roberto Nelson. Given that the MEAC, Coppin State’s conference, is a mere 1-89 against power conference teams in the last two seasons, this is not a good sign for head coach Craig Robinson in his quest to keep his job. Luckily, Collier will be back in the next game, but Moreland won’t be back until conference play kicks off. Coppin State comes out of a brief weekend as an honorary member of the Pac-12 with a 1-1 record, after California handled them on Friday night.
3. Stanford head coach Johnny Dawkins got excellent news on Friday afternoon when 6’7” 2014 recruit Reid Travis committed to the Cardinal early in the day. He’s a bit undersized for a frontcourt prospect, but he can score in the post and hit the face-up jumper. He’s presently the highlight of a three-man Stanford recruiting class that consists entirely of players ranked in the top 100 in ESPN’s 2014 rankings. Now, all Dawkins needs to do is get his team into the NCAA Tournament in order to earn the right to coach those guys next season; if his team fails to make the Dance this season, expectations are that this will be his last season on The Farm. The Cardinal got off to a sketchy start on Friday night, needing to hold off a pesky Bucknell team on the way to a four-point win, but will have a chance  to earn a solid non-conference win tonight at home against BYU.
4. Aaron Gordon officially began his career at Arizona on Friday night, and we’ll have some thoughts about his and the Wildcats’ performance later today. But, in the meantime, Anthony Gimino of the Tucson Citizen has a timeline of Gordon’s first game with the Wildcats. While he did plenty of things very well, let me just give you a hint that the form on his shot causes me quite a bit of distress.
5. Lastly, while there weren’t a ton of blowouts on behalf of Pac-12 teams this weekend, Arizona State did crush its first bit of competition, as they handed UMBC a 35-point defeat on Friday night. Jahii Carson led the way with 19 points and five boards, but the highlight was the fact that everybody in the Sun Devil starting lineup got into double figures, while the bench added an additional 25 points. We’ll see how much this remains a theme as the season goes on, but the Sun Devils drew 30 foul calls from their opponent, getting to the line for 44 free throw attempts. With a guy like Carson, nobody really expects to be able to guard him at all, but with fouls actually being called now, his offensive effectiveness could skyrocket.