We’ve spent the last several months marching to Vegas, so let’s tip things off a bit later today with our Pac-12 Tournament preview.

Bracket

Favorite: Oregon

This may not be the very best version of the Pac-12 Conference in its illustrious history, but it is a certainty that this has been a strong and deep conference. For Oregon to win 14 games this year against an unbalanced in-conference schedule tougher than that of either Utah or Arizona is impressive. While the Ducks’ lack of depth (310th in the nation in bench minutes) is concerning in a three-game/three-night scenario, they’ve done enough to prove that they’re the best team in this conference until proven otherwise.

Next Best Chance: Utah

The Utes opened conference play by getting swept at the Bay Area schools followed shortly thereafter by an 18-point loss to Oregon at the Huntsman Center. Since that loss, the Utes have won 12 of 14 games (with another loss to Oregon among those two) and the issues that were apparent in January — Brandon Taylor struggling; Lorenzo Bonam learning; a soft front line; chemistry questions — have all been addressed. The Utes still need to prove that they can play with Oregon, but they are rolling right now and could use a strong Pac-12 Tournament performance as a springboard into next week.

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The NBA trade deadline is now less than two weeks away, which means professional basketball writers get to throw together a bunch of hasty trade ideas and rumors in an exercise that always looks like so much fun. College basketball writers get left out of the trade deadline party because, as those who have been paying attention already know, trades are outlawed in amateur athletics. In an effort to crash that party, we are going to waste some space this week analyzing several potentially smart trades for Pac-12 contenders that will not happen. We stick to intra-conference trades to make it easy and because the thought of a bunch of petty Pac-12 coaches bickering over the fairness of those trades would be so entertaining for the rest of us. And remember, talent in addition to remaining years of eligibility are important. How else would Washington State rebuild?

Arizona gets Gary Payton II and Oregon State gets Ray Smith and Kadeem Allen

Can You Imagine Arizona If They Traded for Gary Payton II? (Oregon State Athletics)

Corvallis is a football town first and foremost but the good residents there would still likely burn the whole thing to the ground if the Beavers tried to trade away Payton II. Some analysts believe that Oregon State will be an NCAA Tournament team so Wayne Tinkle would potentially be a buyer rather than seller at the deadline. But for a limited team with young talent and a bright future, leveraging a senior like Payton II for future assets is the smart play. His arrival in Tucson doesn’t help Arizona’s immediate shooting need but he does give the Wildcats a true point guard and a more explosive scorer. Given his popularity, Oregon State would probably think long and hard about this trade but eventually would come to their senses and grab an NBA talent like Smith and two years of a poor man’s Gary Payton II (in Allen).

Washington gets Rosco Allen and Stanford gets Matisse Thybulle

Washington is still in the hunt for the Pac-12 title but head coach Lorenzo Romar is smart enough to know better than to mortgage his team’s bright future for a run this season. The Huskies’ backcourt is their strength and has too much depth to make it worth tinkering with. However, an offensive-minded stretch forward who can shoot the three and takes care of the ball would fit in nicely in the Huskies’ fluid frontcourt. Allen would probably be the least athletic forward of the bunch but he would bring polish, offensive nuance and enough athleticism to run with the young Huskies. He would offer important spacing to a team that struggles to perform in half-court sets and wouldn’t be asked to do too much defensively. Romar would probably rather part with David Crisp or Donaven Dorsey than the versatile Thybulle, but there would be enough contenders pursuing Allen so that he might be willing to pay for a rental player who could help deliver a Sweet Sixteen banner to Seattle.

Oregon gets Ike Iroegbu and Washington State gets Kendall Small and Roman Sorkin

Dana Altman Needs Backcourt Depth and Ike Iroegbu Is An Easy Solution (Michael Arellano/Emerald)

Oregon is in the most precarious position of any Pac-12 contender because it is a flawed team despite its recent hot streak and its most intriguing trade chips are in the current rotation. The Ducks’ two immediate areas of need are in backcourt depth and rebounding help. If Dylan Ennis were healthy, Dana Altman would be inclined to pursue a rebounder like Josh Hawkinson. But the Ducks’ backcourt is so thin right now that getting a player like Iroegbu is more important. The junior turns the ball over too much and is not a great defender but he would give Altman’s backcourt a creative playmaker and dead-eye shooter (46.2% 3FG) at a relative discount. Oregon doesn’t have the pieces to go after Payton II or Bryce Alford, but Small and Sorkin offer enough long-term upside to convince the Cougars to part with an inconsistent talent like Iroegbu.

Cal gets Tony Parker and UCLA gets Stephen Domingo and Kameron Rooks

Despite his immense talent, Parker is probably too moody and inconsistent to garner much interest as a last-minute rental. But Cuonzo Martin, perhaps sensing that this is his only year with Jaylen Brown and Ivan Rabb, could be persuaded to take a low-risk flyer on a big-time addition. Cal would love to take some interior attention away from the precocious Rabb and Parker would undoubtedly do that. Rabb is a good enough shooter that he and Parker could play together without floor-spacing issues and Parker is a good enough post defender and rebounder that Rabb could use his length to bother shooters on and off the ball. The question would be whether Martin could get the most out of Parker and make him a more consistent player. If so, Cal might become a scary postseason proposition. For UCLA, Steve Alford would get a chance to start fresh with a young core while adding depth to his frontcourt.

Utah gets Bryce Alford and Colorado gets Kyle Kuzma and Isaiah Wright

Utah is firmly entrenched in “win now” mode whether it likes it or not. Jakob Poeltl will likely not be back for his junior season and the Utes will also lose three other rotation members including Jordan Loveridge — their third-leading scorer and best outside shooter. UCLA, on the other hand, has a solid young nucleus and a top-ranked recruiting class coming to Westwood. If Alford was ruthless enough to ship his own son out of town, now would be a good time. For Utah, the Brandon Taylor experiment has run its course. Alford isn’t known for his defense but he is still a major upgrade on both ends of the floor and he would give his new team another deep threat to pair with Loveridge. Brekkot Chapman has not improved the way Utah would have liked but he is good enough to capably replace Kuzma and Chris Reyes is a reliable backup. Kuzma is the perfect second or third big man for the new-look Bruins. He is athletic and skilled enough that he could become a double-double machine once he is away from Poeltl’s long shadow.

In the next three weeks leading up to season tipoff, the Pac-12 microsite will be evaluating each of the league’s 12 teams. Today, we head to Palo Alto.

Stanford Cardinal

It feels like we are entering Year 20 of the Johnny Dawkins era in Palo Alto, but in reality he has only been the head coach on The Farm since 2009. The Cardinal have made the NCAA Tournament just once in the Dawkins era, earning a bid in 2014 and defeating New Mexico and Kansas to make the Sweet Sixteen. Dawkins may have saved his job with that season’s strong finish, but the Cardinal again missed the NCAA Tournament in 2015 (they did win the NIT, if that matters to anyone). They have now lost their top three scorers to graduation, including the program’s all-time leading scorer, Chasson Randle, and current Los Angeles Laker, Anthony Brown. Given those departures, this was already looking like a rebuilding year. And then came the off-season injuries. Starting point guard Robert Cartwright (compound fracture of his arm) went down for the season, and starting shooting guard Marcus Allen (stress fracture in his foot) likewise for who knows how long. There’s now little doubt that this team is at least a year away from competing in the Pac-12. If the Cardinal can remain competitive this season, Dawkins could buy himself more time to rebuild; but bottoming out will leave fans with a sour taste in their mouths and athletic director Bernard Muir with a decision to make.

Johnny Dawkins’ Job Could Be In Trouble If Stanford Doesn’t Perform. (Photo: AP)

Strengths: Normally, no matter the attrition, there is always at least one strength on which a team can lean. But for this Cardinal team, almost everything is unknown. Randle, Brown and center Stefan Nastic barely left the court last season and were the only players to average double figures. Now the onus falls on returnees like Allen, Cartwright, senior forward Rosco Allen and promising sophomore Reid Travis to lead a crop of talented freshmen. Nothing against any of those players, but it’s hard to know exactly how much they can contribute. Rosco and Marcus Allen (no relation) logged the most minutes, but both looked like nice supporting players and nothing more. Travis battled injuries last season but showed some promise in his time on the floor; still, it’s tough to predict how much better he will be this season. Christian Sanders has barely been able to get off the bench in his three seasons in Palo Alto, and while the freshmen enter with ample decoration, they also have that whole “never played college basketball” thing going against them. Perhaps the most encouraging part of Stanford’s roster is that, while they may not have as much standout talent this season, they do have a deep roster of potential contributors. Unfortunately, in a conference as good as the Pac-12, that might not be nearly enough. Read the rest of this entry »

Here are some news and notes from the Pac-12’s opening conference weekend.

• We’re, what, two months into the college basketball season, and I’m not sure I’ve written the name Josh Hawkinson yet this year. Consider this blurb my official apology for such an egregious oversight. Last year, he played in all but three of Washington State’s games, but never more than 13 minutes, never scoring more than six points, never grabbing more than six boards. This year, he’s averaging 31 minutes per game and has only once had an outing where he failed to score at least six points or grab at least six boards. Over the weekend against the Bay Area schools, he was the best big man on the floor, and that came against frontcourts featuring senior bigs like Stefan Nastic and David Kravish. (By the way, the fact that Jordan Railey had his best pair of games in his career does not bode well for Cal and Stanford’s frontcourt defenses). Hawkinson is not going to amaze you with his athleticism. He’s not what you would call a visionary passer. He’s a decent face-up shooter, but by no means the second coming of Dirk Nowitzki either. He just gets it done. He’s got a great motor; he understands the game; he’s tough on the boards; and he has completely bought in to Ernie Kent’s philosophy. He’s on the short list of players in this conference who have made the biggest jump in production from last year to this one.

Josh Hawkinson May Be The Pac-12’s Most Improved Player

• To say that it was not a good weekend for UCLA basketball is to engage in annoyingly obvious understatement. The Bruins went to Colorado on Friday night to face a struggling Buffaloes team without its best player, and despite Colorado’s best efforts to fluff up UCLA’s offensive confidence early in the game via a series of turnovers leading to breakaway layups, the Bruins offensive woes continued. Against Utah on Sunday, it was even worse. The gold standard for UCLA offensive ineptitude was their 44 points against Kentucky on national TV. In that game, the Bruins scored those points on 68 possessions, good for 0.647 points per possession. Their 39 points on 60 possessions in Boulder works out to 0.65 points per possession. So, um, progress? In all seriousness, UCLA just has absolutely no offensive confidence right now. Norman Powell is a mess. Kevon Looney can only get so far on effort alone. And Tony Parker can’t seem to get out of his own way, earning only 20 minutes per game this weekend in part due to his continuing problems with dumb fouls. And then there is Bryce Alford. Yikes. For the weekend he was 2-of-26 from the field, 0-of-13 from deep, with five turnovers against nine assists. And let me tell you, those Rocky Mountain scorekeepers were generous in only giving him five turnovers. Now, that’s only one bad weekend, and we’re not going to write off all the other good things he’s done to this point — but with UCLA’s offensive struggles, you’ve got to start with the quarterback, right? The shooting thing? That’s mostly an aberration. Still, Alford is definitely earning a reputation as a guy willing to take bad shots. And on a team with a fragile personality right now, launching wild early-shot-clock bombs while the rest of the team stands around and watches is not going to build much cohesion. Alford is plenty capable of shooting his team into games, but as the point guard, he’s also in part responsible for how the guys around him perform. There were numerous times this weekend where he delivered a beautiful dime on the run that bounced off the hands of a guy like Thomas Welsh, Noah Allen or Tony Parker. But you know what? Alford’s got to know that those guys aren’t really capable of making those kinds of catches and play to his personnel accordingly. This 0-of-13 shooting from deep is not going to continue, but for the Bruins to regain their confidence, Alford’s got to find ways to get Powell, Looney, Parker and Isaac Hamilton good looks on a regular basis, especially early in games. He’s got to be the facilitator, first and foremost.

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Stanford’s biggest strength may be its senior returnees from last year’s Sweet Sixteen team – Chasson Randle, Anthony Brown, and Stefan Nastic. But with guys like Dwight Powell, Josh Huestis and John Gage now departed, there are going to be plenty of opportunities for a frontcourt player to step into the mix and up his production in a big way this season. Certainly freshman power forwards Reid Travis and Michael Humphrey are going to have a say in how minutes along the front line get distributed, but there are a pair of players from Johnny Dawkins’ 2011 recruiting class who were highly regarded but have yet to make a big splash in the Pac-12: junior center Grant Verhoeven and redshirt sophomore power forward Rosco Allen.

With More Minutes Due, Grant Verhoeven (30) Should Have A Bigger Role For The Cardinal (AP Photo/Steve C. Wilson)

Verhoeven has played in 52 of the Cardinal’s 70 games over his first two years on campus, but he has only received double-figure minutes eight times. His career-high scoring for a game is four points. He grabbed eight boards against Northwestern early last season, but that remains the only time that he’s grabbed more than three rebounds in a game. And still, there is reason to suspect he’s in for a much bigger role this season. While Nastic is the clear starter in the middle, he’s not a guy who is going to eat up all of the minutes and Verhoeven is the player most poised to function as Nastic’s understudy in the paint. He’s a powerful force crashing the boards or setting bone-crushing picks, and although you shouldn’t expect him to turn into a reliable scorer overnight, he’s a physical presence down low who will use up his allotment of fouls (he committed 9.2 fouls per 40 minutes played last season) and getting after the glass (his 14.4 DR% and 7.4 OR% are more than respectable and should increase). He won’t be a flashy player for Dawkins, but he may be an important minutes-eater on the front line.

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The Pac-12 microsite will preview each of its league teams over the next few weeks, continuing today with Stanford.

Stanford Cardinal

Strengths: Losing an all-league player (Dwight Powell) and one of its premier defenders (Josh Huestis) will be an adjustment, but there is still enough of the group remaining from Johnny Dawkins’ first NCAA Tournament qualifier to make some noise. Look no further than senior Chasson Randle, the team’s top scorer from a season ago and one-half of a seasoned backcourt to go with the Pac-12’s reigning most improved player in Anthony Brown. The duo started all but one of the Cardinal’s 36 games last season. Center Stefan Nastic, a fifth-year senior like Brown, also logged significant minutes as a starter in the run to the Sweet Sixteen.

Chasson Randle (5) and Anthony Brown (21) give Stanford a formidable backcourt high on experience. (Ben Margot/AP Photo)

Weaknesses: Brown just happens to be Stanford’s top returning rebounder at a mere five boards per contest. Those two aforementioned departures, Powell and Huestis, combined to pull down 15 rebounds per game, accounting for 43 percent of the team’s production. Coming into the program will be a pair of top-50 frontcourt recruits, Reid Travis and Michael Humphrey, but the boards and their development will be worth watching early. Point guard play is also a concern, despite the abilities of Randle and Brown. Powell led the team in assists last season as a stretch-four, and freshman Robert Cartwright is the only true floor general expected to play a role. Read the rest of this entry »

1. Let the dissection of the Pac-12 media poll begin. The league will have its media day from the San Francisco headquarters today, and the schools will be represented by each head coach and a few select players. The Pac-12 Networks and website will have live coverage, and here’s a schedule of when to expect each coach to take the stage and address the media in attendance. Who’s ready for commissioner Larry Scott’s rose-colored declaration about how the league is stronger than it’s ever been and another non-story update on the failed DirecTV negotiations? If there is such thing as suspense on this day, it will come from the predicted order of finish behind the likely favorite, second-ranked Arizona. In fact, the folks in Tucson are already wondering whether the Wildcats can run the table in conference play.
2. Speaking of Wildcats and running the table, USA Today’s Scott Gleeson highlighted the group from Kentucky and skimmed through its schedule to pinpoint the toughest tests that stand in the way of a perfect season for the preseason No. 1. Among the contests circled was the December 20 matchup with UCLA in the CBS Sports Classic. Quality opponent and neutral court – the game will be played in Chicago – is a good start to the makings for an upset. And, as Gleeson pointed out, the timing of the game should give both programs a fair barometer and good sample size to mesh. That will be particularly important for the Bruins, who add Isaac Hamilton and Kevon Looney to the mix but are short on experience and in search of a defensive identity.
3. The intrasquad showcases continued Wednesday as Stanford put on a Cardinal and White scrimmage. Head coach Johnny Dawkins has work to do in reloading the program’s first NCAA Tournament qualifier of his six-year tenure. It appears he has already found the breakout star of Year 7, as Rosco Allen turned heads with a winning performance in the dunk contest and 11 points and six rebounds in the 20-minute scrimmage. A team that finished in the top five in the Pac-12 in three-point shooting, the Cardinal have another dead-eye shooter to watch as Dorian Pickens edged out Chasson Randle in the contest. Randle, a first-team all-conference pick last season, led all scorers with 18 points on 5-of-9 shooting.
4. In Salt Lake City, Utah hosted its “Night With the Runnin’ Utes.” After a lackluster intrasquad scrimmage last Friday, head coach Larry Krystkowiak said his team is “making progress” and has the ability to go two-deep at each position. Utah played 16-minute halves that include a halftime shakeup in the rosters. It was a good night to be on Jordan Loveridge’s team as the junior scored a combined 27 points in split duty for each squad. The forward finished 8-of-11 from the field, including 4-of-5 from beyond the arc, and converted all seven of his free throws. The sidebar of the night belonged to 7-foot freshman Jakob Poetl, who returned after missing a week of practice because of a concussion suffered while playing dodgeball during a team dinner at Krystkowiak’s house. The Austrian collected 12 points, five rebounds and two blocks.
5. At Colorado, sophomore guard Jaron Hopkins is making it a point to be more aggressive. Head coach Tad Boyle, who is looking to fill the void left behind by standout Spencer Dinwiddie, said the notable difference is in Hopkins’ decision-making. Hopkins received a crash course in his first year as the Buffaloes adjusted after Dinwiddie’s season-ending injury, so the transition should be more accelerated and less foreign this time around.

Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll go through each Pac-12 team one by one and recount the season that has just completed and begin to turn the page to what we might see next season. Today, Stanford.

What Went Right

It wasn’t always pretty, and you probably still can’t say that this Stanford team ever consistently played up to its potential, but Johnny Dawkins and his senior class finally got to the NCAA Tournament. And they didn’t stop there, beating two solid teams – New Mexico and Kansas – in the Big Dance in order to earn an unlikely Sweet Sixteen appearance. The team was well-balanced on both ends of the court; Chasson Randle took that long-awaited next step in his personal development; and Dwight Powell eventually slid into a new role in order to begin potentially a new era for Stanford basketball.

Chasson Randle Had A Breakout Season In Leading The Cardinal To The Sweet Sixteen (Marcio Jose Sanchez, AP Photo)

What Went Wrong

One major problem plagued the Cardinal all year: team-wide inconsistency. We saw it early in the season when the team decided to forgo any inkling of defense in a loss to BYU while giving up 112 points; or a couple weeks later when they were unable to come up with any more than a half worth of good basketball in Brooklyn in the Legends Classic; or in conference play where they backed up their non-conference accomplishments with an 0-2 start in the Pac-12. Nowhere was this more evident than in the Sweet Sixteen where, coming off of a win over Kansas, the Cardinal had a beatable Dayton team between them and a date with the Elite Eight. What happened? The Flyers scored at will against the Cardinal; Randle was at his brick-tastic worst; and Dawkins and company let a big opportunity slip away without much of a fight.

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1. Utah has received, and frankly earned, plenty of criticism over the weakness of its non-conference schedule this season. Games against BYU and Boise State are solid, of course, but past that you’re delving into teams like Fresno State (bad), Idaho State (worse), Savannah State (oh, for crying out loud) and Evergreen State (are you serious? Is that even a place?). But certainly part of the reason for that is the fact that head coach Larry Krystkowiak was welcoming to Salt Lake City an almost entirely new roster, again. Beginning next season, expect things to beef up some, as the Utes will play Kansas in a “neutral” site game in Kansas City, as well as traveling to the Caribbean to compete in a Puerto Rico Tip-Off event. Now all that is well and good, but where the Utes have ditched the possibility of scheduling home-and-homes with in-state schools Utah State and Weber State, they are now struggling to come together with BYU and extend that particular series. And that would be completely unacceptable.
2. Speaking of scheduling, do you realize that it is now the middle of December and Oregon State has played exactly five games? How does that happen? Sure, it allows Craig Robinson to brag about the fact that his team has only lost twice so far (nevermind that those losses were to Coppin State and DePaul), but after Arkansas Pine-Bluff was kept at home last weekend by an ice storm, the Beavers are in the midst of 12 straight days without a game. They’ll make up for some of it later in the month with three games in four days as part of the Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu, but clearly the Beavers have yet to build any momentum.
3. Doug Haller of AZCentral.com shares a post comparing the top six assist guys in the Pac-12 and the differences in how those assists are handed out. For instance, Oregon’s Jonathan Loyd, the conference’s assist leader, hands out 31 percent of his assists to Mike Moser, and 34 percent of all his assists lead to layups or dunks. While that last number is certainly a fine amount, UCLA’s Kyle Anderson, on the other hand, creates dunks or layups on better than 60 percent of all his assists.
4. We’re a little bit late to this unfortunate piece of news, but Stanford took a big loss earlier this week when it was announced that senior point guard Aaron Bright’s season and collegiate career are over due to a dislocated right shoulder. He’ll undergo surgery in January. His loss marks the third Stanford player lost for the season to injury (Andy Brown’s career was ended by yet another torn ACL in the offseason, and Christian Sanders is out for the year with a hip injury), while forward Rosco Allen has yet to play a game due to a stress fracture. None of this makes things any easier for head coach Johnny Dawkins as he tries to keep his job in Palo Alto. As for Bright, the high point of his career will go down as his run to the postseason NIT MVP honors during his sophomore campaign.
5. Lastly, we’ve got plenty of good match-ups this weekend, but without a doubt, the Pac-12 highlight is Arizona’s trip to Michigan on Saturday where the Wildcats will try to fight through a raucous road crowd in order to defend their #1 ranking. Mitch McGary and company will give Sean Miller’s frontcourt perhaps their biggest test of the season to this point, while guys like Nik Stauskas, Derrick Walton and Zak Irvin will test their perimeter defense. Adam Butler of Pachoops.com got together with Dylan Burkhart of UMHoops.com to preview the battle.

We continue unveiling our team-by-team breakdowns, in roughly the reverse order of where we expect these teams to finish in the conference standings.

Stanford Cardinal

Strengths. Experience and depth. Oh, and a lot of talent. This Cardinal roster is littered with upperclassmen, with seniors Dwight Powell, Aaron Bright and Josh Huestis expected be in a starting lineup joined by a couple of juniors in Chasson Randle and Anthony Brown. More upperclassmen are among the names of  the guys in competition to contribute off the bench – John Gage, Stefan Nastic, Robbie Lemons. And if there are still some holes left after listing those guys – and there definitely are – the freshmen and sophomores on this club are generally highly regarded players who are expected to be able to fill roles around the stars on this team; prospects like Grant Verhoeven, Rosco Allen, Christian Sanders, Elliott Bullock, and twin guards Marcus and Malcolm Allen.

Stanford Basketball Has Enough Talented Veteran Depth To Return To The NCAA Tournament (Steve Solis / PRPhotos.com)

Weaknesses. There’s all that veteran talent, but the most this group has accomplished in their time on The Farm is an NIT title a couple years back. And while that was a genuine accomplishment for a program coming back from the ashes left in the wake of Trent Johnson’s departure, last year the Cardinal failed to improve upon it. The blame for the lack of success comes down on the head of one man: head coach Johnny Dawkins. He’s assembled plenty of talent in Palo Alto, but now is the time for his group to put it all together. A lot of that will have to do with finding a coherent rotation. Last year, 12 different players on this team played in more than 20 games and averaged more than five minutes per game; nine of them averaged more than 10 minutes per contest. Ideally, we’d like to see Dawkins find his eight-man rotation and, depending on the circumstance or the opponent, rotate a ninth guy in there as needed. But these players need to know their roles, and even if it means some of the guys on the bench wind up wearing a redshirt or seeing a year of eligibility go down the tubes, that may be better in the long run for the ultimate goals of the program.

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