1. We’re now officially halfway through the conference season (man, does time ever fly) and after nine games we’ve got a tie at the top of the conference, with both California and Washington sitting at 7-2. For much of the season, the Huskies have been considered a significant disappointment, underachieving despite boasting one of the most talented rosters in the Pac-12. But this weekend, they scored a huge road win at Arizona in front of a prime-time ESPN audience, capping a sweep of the Arizona schools and earning what is their most impressive road victory of the season. But, as is typical of the Huskies, it seems, it didn’t come easy. At the final media timeout, the U-Dub held a 62-52 lead on the Wildcats and appeared to be coasting. But, turnovers, missed free throws, blown layups and porous defense (not to mention a healthy helping of Solomon Hill) found the game tied up with nine seconds left after a Hill three. But, following the three, freshman guard Josiah Turner was called for a blocking foul in the backcourt, some 60 feet from the basket, with just five seconds left, sending C.J. Wilcox, a 90% free throw shooter to the line. He made both of them, but Turner had redemption on his mind, driving the length of the court in the final seconds, getting all the way to the cup, only to have his shot blocked by Washington freshman Tony Wroten at the buzzer. The last time these two teams played in Tucson, it was Zona’s Derrick Williams rejecting Darnell Gant in the closing moments to seal the win for UA. The loss sends Arizona two back of the leaders in the conference, and cements them in a situation where they will need to win the Pac-12 Tournament to earn their 27^th NCAA Tournament invitation in the last 28 years. Furthermore, they’ll have to do so without junior forward Kevin Parrom, who broke his foot in the game and is out the rest of the year. Meanwhile, the Huskies are tied for first place, and if nothing else, at least are in the conversation for an at-large tournament bid, even if their overall resume is lacking.
2. California earned its spot at the top of the midway standings by knocking off rival Stanford Sunday night, using a 20-9 run in the middle of the second half to put the Cardinal away. But senior guard Jorge Gutierrez, who had a career-high 12 rebounds to go with 11 points on the night, said the game with Stanford wasn’t necessarily a rivalry game, claiming that the Golden Bears just want to win games regardless of who they’re playing. Nevertheless, the win not only keeps Cal in first place, but it knocks the Cardinal down a peg; they’re sitting at 5-4 in the conference, two games back of the leaders.
3. Oregon now sits a game back of Cal and Washington, after blowing a nine-point second half lead and seeing their rival Oregon State run away from them with a blistering offensive performance in the second stanza. The Beavers scored 53 points, shot a 66.1% eFG and hit five of their seven three-point attempts after the half, led by junior guard Jared Cunningham who had 24 of his 27 points after the break. The win brings OSU back within a game of .500 in conference play and marks the team’s first road win in conference play. They’ll get a chance to bolster their road chops next week with a trip to the Rockies for games with Colorado and Utah.
4. Speaking of Colorado, they’re tied with Oregon a game back of the conference leaders, but they’re coming off a shellacking by UCLA in Los Angeles on Saturday in which the Buffs’ struggles on the road were highlighted. They’ve won just one conference road game in the first half of the schedule, and that was against a struggling USC team, so they’ll have to find a way to earn some road wins the rest of the way if they want to remain among the conference leaders, a task easier said than done with trips to the Oregon and Arizona schools still remaining. As for the Bruins, they’re in a pack along with Arizona and Stanford of talented teams sitting a couple games back of the conference leaders. However, much like those other two teams, they’re in win-the-Pac-12-tourney-or-else mode.
5. Lastly, back to those Trojans for a second, as they got the job done this weekend for the first time in conference play, knocking off Utah on Saturday. Maurice Jones and Garrett Jackson each scored 16 points (the total a career-high for Jackson), freshman Byron Wesley handed out seven assists and junior Greg Allen hit three threes as Kevin O’Neill’s club broke a nine-game losing streak. But, the news was not all good for the Trojans, as sophomore forward DeWayne Dedmon tore the MCL in his left knee during the team’s loss to Colorado on Thursday night and will miss the remainder of the season. Dedmon’s injury means that the Trojans have now lost five different players to season-ending injuries.

Kraig Williams is an RTC correspondent. He filed this report after the Arizona-Utah game on Thursday night.

Much like the rest of the Pac-12, the Arizona Wildcats are an enigma in college basketball this season. The Wildcats sit at 13-6 and 4-2 in conference play after blowing by Utah, 77-51, Thursday night.  After leading by just five at halftime, Arizona blasted past an undermanned Utah squad in the second half even without Solomon Hill who was ejected from the game for a flagrant-two foul for an apparent blow to the back of Cedric Martin’s head. Beating overmatched teams has been Arizona’s M.O. all year. In terms of RPI (an admittedly flawed statistic, but one the NCAA selection committee uses), the Wildcats have fallen to the best five teams they have played (Gonzaga, San Diego State, Florida, Oregon and Mississippi State). Against the rest of their schedule, they are 13-1 with the one outlier being a road loss to UCLA. Looking at their NCAA selection sheet shows an average RPI win of #180 and an average loss of #52. The Wildcats beat who they are supposed to and not much else this season.

Arizona Easily Handled Utah On Thursday Night

The problem, of course, is this gives Arizona a resume of a plucky mid-major out of a conference like the WAC, not a perennial Pac-12 powerhouse. The Wildcats’ best win thus far is either at New Mexico State, or in the McKale Center against Duquesne, neither of which will jump off the page at you. That, combined with losing to Oregon and needing overtime to take down Oregon State last week at home, was enough to knock them out of Andy Glockner’s mock bracket this week, placing them precariously on the bubble. That same bracket features a myriad of mediocre bubble squads like Minnesota and Marshall making the cut.

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1. It’s tough to decide where to begin on another wild night in the Pac-12, but we’ll have to go with our RTC Game of the Week between Colorado and California in Berkeley, the game with the biggest impact on the conference race. The Golden Bears handed the Buffaloes their first conference loss of the season, and overcame a horrendous shooting night from their two stars, as senior Jorge Gutierrez and sophomore Allen Crabbe combined to hit just four of their combined 26 field goal attempts. However, they rode senior forward Harper Kamp down the stretch, as he out-dueled Colorado’s senior Austin Dufault in a battle between two unlikely stars. In the end, however, California’s experience paid off, as the Buffs suffered through some bad shots in the closing minutes and sealed their fate with an unfortunate turnover with just under a minute left, followed up by their failure to secure a defensive rebound following a missed Cal foul shot. While the game was tight throughout, the Buffs’ failure to come through in the clutch was entirely predictable for a young team playing its first road game since the late 60s. Or something like that.
2. Across the San Francisco Bay and south a bit, Stanford was having some unlikely trouble with expected Pac-12 cellar contender Utah, who turned in its third-straight extremely solid performance in losing by just three despite coming into the game a 22-point underdog. The Utes fought back from a seven-point half-time deficit to actually lead the game through much of the early part of the second half. However, it was Cardinal sophomore forward Josh Huestis who provided the heroics, scoring all 13 of his points in the second half on six-for-six shooting (including a three) and grabbing ten total rebounds. He did miss all three of his foul shots, but that was de rigeur for the evening, as the teams combined to shoot just six-of-26 from the charity stripe, with Utah especially kicking itself by missing all but one of its nine free throw attempts. Larry Krystkowiak’s club simply does not have the talent to give away those types of points and pull out road victories. Likewise, while Johnny Dawkins will take this win and look forward to a tough battle with Colorado on Saturday, knowing they are tied with Cal atop the Pac-12 standings, this was not a win that inspired a ton of confidence.
3. Oregon State dropped its second consecutive overtime game Thursday night, losing to Arizona in 15 less minutes than they required on Saturday night. Does that qualify as progress? The game was marred somewhat by a little scuffle late in the overtime period, following a fast break layup by Kyle Fogg that put the Wildcats up six, during which Fogg drew the fourth foul on OSU guard Jared Cunningham. Following the play, Fogg started yapping at Cunningham, which drew a shove in retaliation. From there, the Arizona bench came close to emptying, some Oregon State players came onto the court and there was some general pushing and shoving that resulted in Cunningham and Fogg both earning technical fouls – the fifth personals for each – and Kyryl Natyazkho and Joe Burton being ejected for leaving their benches. While the whole thing was stupid and immature, special demerits go to Fogg and teammate Solomon Hill, upperclassmen who are supposed to be the leaders of this Wildcat team, both of whom acted like anything but leaders. Lost in all that was Arizona freshman Nick Johnson breaking out of a mini-slump by hitting three threes on his way to 19 points in a complete performance that included a offensive rebound slam just before the dustup. Cunningham was also big for the Beavs, scoring 22 points, but it was Ahmad Starks who caught fire at the end of regulation, scoring seven points on three straight possessions, preceded by a beautiful strip of Hill on a fastbreak, to get Oregon State into overtime. Nevertheless, the Beavers fall to 1-4 in conference play, while the Wildcats keep pace with Stanford, Cal, Colorado, and Washington atop the conference with just one loss.
4. Lastly, Oregon scored the lone road victory of the night in the conference, going into Arizona State and coming out with a workmanlike nine-point win. Just looking at the stat sheet, this was an incredibly tight game in a lot of areas, but it again came down to the fact that the Sun Devils just don’t have a point guard able to run this team effectively. Junior guard Trent Lockett did his best playing out of position, scoring 23 points on eight-of-11 shooting, grabbing four rebounds and handing out five assists, but he turned it over seven times and Arizona State turned it over 16 times as a unit, while forcing just eight turnovers by the Ducks. Oregon was led by senior Devoe Joseph who had 15 points, three threes, four steals, and four assists.
5. Looking ahead to the weekend, we have a couple of big rivalry games on Sunday, including Washington hosting Washington State. Last year, the Cougs swept the season series in a couple of games that weren’t really that close. This year, however, the Washington State defense has been particularly bad, in part due to the premature losses of interior presence DeAngelo Casto and underrated perimeter defender Klay Thompson. Given that the Husky defense hasn’t been much to write home about either, we could be in for quite the shootout in the hardwood version of the Apple Cup.

Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences. He is also a Pac-12 microsite staffer.

Reader’s Take

Top Storylines

• This past weekend likely saw the best regular season game of the Pac-12 schedule, as Stanford battled Oregon State for four exciting overtimes before finally securing an all-important road victory.
• Given the relative homogeneity of the conference, the recipe for winning the regular season title is going to be: 1) take care of business at home; and 2) steal a handful of road games against the middle and bottom of the Pac. On both of those fronts, Stanford is looking good now, sitting with California, Washington, and Arizona atop the conference. What’s that you say? Colorado actually leads the conference with a 3-0 record? Sorry Buffs, but get back to me once you have tasted the road in the Pac-12. Right now all three of their wins have come at home.

Stanford's Four Overtime Win Over Oregon State Helped Keep Them Among The Contenders In The Pac-12 (Rick Bowmer/AP)

• Elsewhere this past weekend, Thursday night was upset central as all six underdogs came away with victories that night, before things got back to normal, as only Stanford was able to spring the upset. UCLA got back to .500 in conference after sweeping the Arizona schools, making the Bruins and Buffs the only homestanders to win both of their games last weekend.
• And, lastly, the Pac-12 lost another promising player to immaturity this week, as Keala King was dismissed by Arizona State head coach Herb Sendek after being left back from the Sun Devils’ trip to the Los Angeles-area schools week along with Kyle Cain and Chris Colvin. In Sendek’s press conference on Tuesday, he referred to King being unhappy with being forced to play point guard in the absence of ineligible freshman Jahii Carson and butting heads with Sendek over his role. As a result, King joins the growing list of Pac-12 players who have divorced their programs this season. Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Thursday night in Anaheim, the two blueblood Pac-12 basketball programs squared off in a battle of deeply flawed teams. While neither UCLA nor Arizona has lived up to either of their historical standards or even their diminished expectations heading into the 2011-12 season, both programs have reasons to believe that not only will things get better in a big way next season, but that they have the ability to improve between now and the Pac-12 Tournament in March. However, at the same time, if changes aren’t made and improvement not shown, both of these teams could continue to disappoint. So, below, the reasons for hope and the reasons for concern for both UCLA and Arizona.

Reasons for Hope – UCLA

The Bruins played without sophomore center Joshua Smith last night, as he was sidelined due to a concussion he suffered in practice on Wednesday. However, in his postgame press conference, head coach Ben Howland noted that Smith was making significant progress in his quest to improve his conditioning, reporting that he was down to his lowest weight in more than a year and that he had been putting in extra running and completed a three-mile run on Sunday. Improved conditioning should keep him on the floor for longer stretches, make him more effective for those stretches, and would hopefully improve his ability to avoid cheap defensive fouls. He still has to prove that on the court, however.  Another positive for the Bruins was the play of the Wear twins last night. The sophomores turned in their best collective performance, combining to score 34 points on 13-of-16 shooting while grabbing ten rebounds and just generally playing more aggressively and actively than they had displayed in the past. As Howland noted, this is really the first time in their career that they’ve played extended minutes, so there is still improvement to be had from both of them. Ideally, Thursday night was a first step towards realizing that improvement.

David Wear, And His Brother Travis, Are Still Growing Into Full-Time Players (photo credit: Lawrence K. Ho, LA Times)

Reasons for Hope – Arizona

In the previous ten games Solomon Hill had played against the two Los Angeles area schools, the LA native had averaged about five points and three rebounds. Thursday night Hill went for 16 points and 11 rebounds and has clearly matured to the point where he is the team’s go-to offensive player and their team leader. He’s a versatile 6’6” wing capable of scoring off the bounce, rebounding with the big boys (he’s second in the conference in rebounding), and creating for his teammates (he leads the Wildcats in assists and is 14^th in the Pac-12). More importantly, he is beginning to lead by example. And perhaps his leadership is starting to rub off on Josiah Turner. The mercurial freshman point guard earned back his starting position which he last held in the Wildcats’ season opener, played the most minutes of his career, and scored nine points, grabbed six rebounds and handed out three assists – not the most impressive of lines, but a start at least. Turner was effective at getting in the lane and drawing contact (he got to the line six times) and also showed a willingness to look to set up his teammates. He’s got plenty of talent; if he can harness it positively, the Wildcats will be better for it.

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Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences. He is also a Pac-12 microsite staffer.

Reader’s Take

Top Storylines

• The home teams dominated play this week, going 9-1 in the first weekend of conference play. Fans around the conference will gnash their teeth and overreact to the first two games and anoint teams like Washington, Stanford and California as the runaway favorites, but the fact remains that even in a down year in the Pac-12, the eventual winner of the regular season title will need to win their fair share of road games, while still defending their home court. So, it is good news for the Huskies, Cardinal and Golden Bears, but they’ve still got a lot to prove before distancing themselves from a team like Oregon State, who dropped its first two games of the year in disappointing fashion.
• The one road team to score a win last weekend was Oregon, who played almost a perfect game in their opener against Washington State, scoring almost 1.8 points per possession in the first half, shooting a 78.6 eFG% and sweeping to a 17-point road win. They were brought back to earth a bit on Saturday, when a suddenly hot Washington team tore through them, but a 1-1 record for the Ducks is a significant accomplishment. If they can back that up by holding serve as the Bay Area schools come north this weekend, they’ll be in business.

Olu Ashaolu's Double-Double Led The Ducks To The Lone Road Win In The Opening Week Of The Pac-12 (Young Kwak/AP)

What to Watch For

• A week of conference play only tells half of the story. This week, for the most part, teams that benefited from opening week homestands have to head on the road, while last week’s road warriors get the comfort of some home-cooking. The biggest clashes of the week may come when the Oregon schools host the Bay Area schools. If either Stanford or California is able to somehow pull off a sweep, they have earned the early title of Pac-12 favorites. Meanwhile, Oregon State, considered by some (ahem), to be the conference favorite prior to last weekend has a lot to prove. The Beavers absolutely have to win both of their games this weekend at Gill Coliseum to still be considered a legitimate contender to the throne. Read the rest of this entry »

1. Washington is the talk of the Pac-12 this week, after having swept the Oregon schools in impressive fashion the opening weekend of conference play. And while Tony Wroten, C.J. Wilcox, Terrence Ross and Abdul Gaddy impressed offensively, the Huskies understand that it was their success on the defensive end that is most responsible for their 2-0 record. Wroten cited the Huskies loss to South Dakota State as the wake-up call they needed to get their act together on the defensive end.
2. Ben Howland admitted on Tuesday that the only chance UCLA has of earning an NCAA Tournament bid is to win the Pac-12 Tournament in March. Sure, this isn’t exactly a newsflash to anybody who has paid attention to the Bruins’ struggles this season, but some UCLA fans see this as Howland already waving a white flag. Realistically, it is simply a rational, truthful assessment of where the Bruins stand right now and Howland knows that the remainder of the UCLA regular season schedule is aimed simply at getting his team ready to play its best basketball of the season over four days at the Staples Center in early March. Other Pac-12 coaches may not have admitted as much, but certainly Howland is not the only Pac-12 coach facing similar circumstances.
3. UCLA’s next challenge comes Thursday in a homecoming for Arizona’s Solomon Hill, when the Wildcats face the Bruins in Anaheim as part of the Wooden Classic. Hill, who graduated from Fairfax High School (not exactly all that close to the Honda Center, where the game will be played), has struggled with the pressure of road games against his hometown schools in years past (just 14 points and 15 rebounds in 94 minutes in his four road games against the Southern California schools the past two years), but he’s playing his best ball of his career now and is a catalyst for Sean Miller’s team.
4. Anybody who has watched Utah play this season knows that Larry Krystkowiak needs new talent on that squad – and fast; what you may not have realized was just how quickly he needs the talent. With several Utes out with a variety of injuries, the team has been forced to use assistant coaches in their practices just so they can have enough bodies to go five-on-five. So, as a result, Krystkowiak is considering holding open tryouts among the student body to find some warm bodies with which to practice. And considering the depths to which this proud program has sunk, it is not out of the question that somebody could find themselves suiting up from that pool for a Pac-12 game in the near future.
5. Lastly, some sad news, as former UCLA head coach Gene Bartow passed away at the age of 81 on Tuesday following a two-year battle with stomach cancer. Bartow took over for the legendary John Wooden at UCLA in 1975, went 52-9 in two seasons in Westwood including a trip to a Final Four, before leaving to begin the athletic program at UAB. Bartow was not only the athletic director at UAB but also the basketball coach for the Blazers for 18 years, racking up 340 wins and nine NCAA Tournament appearances there (including seven straight trips and a run to the Elite Eight in 1982). He was inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009 and as of today, Bartow is 48^th on the list of the all-time winningest college basketball coaches, with a career record of 647-353. Bartow’s son Murry succeeded his dad at UAB and is now the head coach at East Tennessee State. Our condolences go out to the entire Bartow family.

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 »

With non-conference play involving Pac-12 teams all but wrapped up and the tip-off of the conference season bearing down on us, we have a good chance today to look back at the first half of conference play. If you have been reading the RTC Pac-12 microsite this season, you know how bad the conference has been, so we are not going to spend a lot of time rehashing every suspension, defection, or other soap opera, nor are we going to remind you every loss to a Middle Tennessee State or South Dakota State. For the most part we are going to reward the best performances to this point, and tomorrow we’ll also spend a bit of time trying to forecast what should be a wide-open and relatively unpredictable conference race. But first, the awards from the non-conference portion of the Pac-12 schedule.

Player of the Year, Non-conference Edition:

F: Devon Collier, Oregon State – Among the most improved players in the conference, he is second in blocks, 11^th in points, and boasts a stellar 127.8 offensive rating.

Collier Was A Defensive Specialist Last Year, But Has Turned Into An Efficient Offensive Player In His Sophomore Campaign (Credit: Stephen Dunn, Getty Images North America)

The rest of our 1^st team All-Pac-12, non-conference edition:

F: Solomon Hill, Arizona – The versatile junior leads the Wildcats in points, rebounds, and assists, and he is the emotional heart of his team.

C: Josh Owens, Stanford – He has been a stud up front for the Cardinal, leading the team in points and rebounds while hitting nearly 62% of his shots from the field.

G: Jared Cunningham, Oregon State – He is the Pac-12’s leading scorer. He leads the league in steals. And he’s the best perimeter defender. We will find a spot for him on our first team.

G: Terrence Ross, Washington – The only player in the conference in the top ten in both points and rebounds, he also blocks more than a shot per game and is capable of connecting from deep.

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