1. On the heels of Wednesday night’s loss to Nevada, and in the midst of the second straight rough season, Arizona State on Thursday announced a two-year contract extension for head coach Herb Sendek. The timing of the announcement may seem peculiar, but Dan Bickley of The Arizona Republic thinks that it was actually the perfect time, assuming the athletic department believes that Sendek is the guy for this program. With further losses expected to pile up this season, especially if freshman point guard Jahii Carson is declared ineligible in the next week, announcing an extension later in the year as the team sinks toward the bottom of the conference would be met with even more consternation from a beleaguered ASU fan base.
2. On the heels of an historic loss on Wednesday night and with BYU coming up this weekend, Utah head coach Larry Krystkowiak announced that senior point guard Josh Watkins, who had been suspended earlier in the week for “conduct detrimental to the team,” had been reinstated and would play against the Cougars on Saturday. The Utes still don’t have a prayer of winning that game, and, as Bill Riley points out, things are going to get worse before they get better because there simply isn’t enough talent on this current Utah roster to compete, even in a weakened Pac-12.
3. In Tucson, all eyes are on the situation with another suspended point guard, Josiah Turner of Arizona. The talented freshman was on the verge of regaining his starting role earlier in the week before he missed a practice and was suspended for the Wildcats’ trip to Florida on Wednesday. Scott Terrell of the Tucson Citizen points out that despite all of Sean Miller’s success on the recruiting trail, he’ll need Turner to be the man at point if he hopes to see his team live up to all its talent. Nick Johnson slid over to the point on Wednesday and gave a good effort, but he is clearly not the answer at the one, while sophomore Jordin Mayes is best suited to a back-up role. With no true point due to arrive at Arizona next year either, these next couple of Wildcat squads will need to be quarterbacked by Turner.
4. Oregon State freshman center Daniel Gomis got his first chance to practice as a member of the Beavers on Wednesday after breaking his leg last summer. The 6’10” native of Senegal is still working his way back into game shape and may eventually take a redshirt this year, but OSU head coach Craig Robinson will wait until after December to make a final decision on Gomis’ status for the rest of the season. Gomis is a very athletic big man who runs the floor well and defends hard, but his offensive range doesn’t extend much farther than the distance of a dunk. Barring injury or some other calamity for OSU, expect Gomis to sit out the rest of the season and begin his freshman season next year.
5. Finally, as if we didn’t know, Jon Wilner puts it into plain black and white just how bad this conference is this year. Among the lowlights, the conference is: 0-9 against ranked teams; 2-8 against the Mountain West; 0-3 against San Diego State; and 9-13 against power conference leagues. And the teams with the two best records in the conference? Stanford (8-1) and Oregon State (6-1) have built their records against schedules ranked 201^st and 249^th, respectively, by Sagarin.

Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences.  

Reader’s Take

Top Storylines

• More Behavioral Problems – While the struggles of the Pac-12 conference as a whole has been well-documented, the sheer number of off-the-court distractions coaches up and down the conference have had to deal with has been astounding. There’s the ongoing Reeves Nelson soap opera at UCLA. Josiah Turner has been patently unable to get it together in Arizona. Jabari Brown quit on his team after just two games because he was “only” getting about 26 minutes a game. This week Utah suspended Josh Watkins, one of just three players in the Pac-12 to score in double figures in each of his team’s games (Washington’s Terrence Ross and Washington State’s Brock Motum the other two). Then there are lesser lights like Oregon’s Bruce Barron (quit on his team as well), Arizona’s Sidiki Johnson (suspended, dismissed and now transferring out) and Washington State’s D.J. Shelton (suspended). That’s not even including Joshua Smith’s issues, Jerime Anderson’s legal troubles, or Jahii Carson’s inability to get eligible. While the play on the court has been less than stellar around the conference, it is the off-the-court nonsense that is giving the conference the biggest black eye.

Josh Watkins' Troubles Are Only the Latest and Greatest...

• Surprising Players Stepping Up – In the place of all the missing or invisible players, these teams have needed somebody to step up, and there have been some surprising players that are doing their part. Just looking at the five players that were nominated for the Pac-12 Player of the Week last week gives you a list of surprising names: Charlie Enquist, Ahmad Starks, Anthony Brown, Keala King and, the winner of the award, Solomon Hill. No disrespect to any of those guys, but I don’t think you would have found any of those names on most preseason all-Pac-12 teams. Hill has been a versatile and steadying force for Arizona.  Not only is the junior post leading the team in points (12.4 PPG), assists (3.1 APG) and minutes (31.5 MPG), but Hill is also grabbing the second most rebounds (7.8 RPG), and he’ll likely be a candidate for the Pac-12 award on a semi-regular basis throughout the year. But Charlie Enquist? That’s a guy who had scored a total of 50 points and grabbed a total of 41 rebounds in his 54 games in his previous three years in Pullman. This week he scored 28 and grabbed 19 rebounds. Meanwhile, King was awful at Arizona State last year (36.5% from the field, 1-18 threes, more turnovers than assists), but has scored 65 points in his last three games while posting a 75.8 eFG%. Starks had 16 points and four threes in Oregon State’s win over Montana, and Anthony Brown scored 27 points in two games for Stanford this week. For the underachieving teams in this conference to improve between now and March, they’ll need players to step up and make bigger-than-expected contributions.
• Stanford For Real? – At the start of the season, it was more or less consensus that there were four teams in the upper tier of the Pac-12: Arizona, Cal, UCLA and Washington. It didn’t take long for one of those four teams to drop from that group (I’ll let you guess which one that was), but with Stanford sporting the best record in the Pac-12 at 8-1 so far (the lone loss a tough six-point defeat at Madison Square Garden to Syracuse), the Cardinal may have jumped up into that group. Of Stanford’s eight victories this season, seven of them have come by 12 or more, with only their most recent come-from-behind win against NC State being a tight one. And at least one RTC correspondent came away from that game impressed enough to confirm that Stanford is good enough, at least defensively, to contend for the conference title. The Cardinal are now in the midst of 13 days off surrounding finals, and really only have one challenging non-conference game remaining (December 22 against Butler). But, if the Cardinal can pick up where it left off, coach Johnny Dawkins‘ squad will be a tough out during conference play.

Player of the Year Watch

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1. With finals taking precedence over basketball at most schools across the country, we hit the doldrums of the college basketball schedule this week. Up next for Pac-12 schools is a big one, though, with Washington set to battle Marquette in Madison Square Garden tonight as the headliner of the Jimmy V Classic. The Huskies had hoped to get senior guard Scott Suggs back from his foot injury in time for this game, but he remains doubtful to play tonight though he could still possibly be back for Duke on Saturday. With the Huskies coming off a late collapse against Nevada on Friday night and Marquette riding high from their win over in-state rival Wisconsin, this game could set up nicely for Lorenzo Romar’s club.
2. Aside from Washington’s big week, the other huge matchup in the conference this week is Arizona’s trip to Gainesville to face Florida on Wednesday. The Gators have been without forward Erik Murphy for the last three games with a knee injury, but he is expected to return for this game and he’ll present problems for the Arizona bigs, pulling them away from the basket and opening up the lane for the quick Gator guards to penetrate.
3. Following California’s loss to San Diego State on Sunday, the Golden Bears dropped out of both the AP and ESPN/USA Today polls, leaving the conference without a single representative in either poll. Stanford, Cal and Arizona earned votes in the ESPN poll, while Oregon State also got a couple of votes in the AP poll. Meanwhile the Pac-12 announced its Player of the Week award on Monday, and Arizona’s Solomon Hill took home the hardware over other nominees like Keala King, Ahmad Starks, Anthony Brown and Charlie Enquist. Really. Did anybody on the planet have that quintet as future Player of the Week nominees even just a month ago?
4. With UCLA in the midst of some serious struggles, Ben Howland admits he has made some mistakes and will change some things up going forward. To begin with, he now says that, in retrospect, he probably should have left Reeves Nelson at home after the mercurial forward missed the team plane to Maui a couple weeks back. Further, after sticking with his man-to-man defense to this point, Howland interrupted a reporter who was asking a question about how UCLA allowed Texas to shoot 70+% in the second half during the post-game press conference on Saturday, and volunteered the fact that he probably should have recognized earlier that this team needed to play more zone. He added that he’d be spending practice time working on alternatives to the man-to-man defense that currently isn’t working.
5. Lastly, it seems like it wouldn’t be a Pac-12 Morning Five without some negative personnel situation to talk about. Earlier today Utah coach Larry Krystkowiak announced the indefinite suspension of point guard Jiggy Watkins, and Connor Pelton filled you in on the details of that. Reading the thoughts of some Utah fans indicates that they’ve had enough of Watkins’ antics and are ready to move on. Aside from showing up to school in the fall more than 30 pounds overweight, falling asleep in classes and missing practices, Watkins has been almost the entirety of the Ute offense. Utah averages 60 points a game, and Watkins accounts for 17.7 of those. Meanwhile, Watkins rightfully uses over 39% of Ute possessions (the highest usage rate in the country), takes over 38% of the team’s shots when he is on the court (sixth in the nation) and still manages to hand out assists on more than 52% of all his teammates buckets when he is on the court (good for second in the nation). While Watkins has plenty of holes in his game, the drop from him down to Kareem Storey or Anthony Odunsi will be significant, making a bad Utah team even worse in the short term.

Here’s a look at the power rankings that Drew and I have compiled after the fourth week of Pac-12 games. Here we go!

1. Stanford, 8-1: You couldn’t have asked for a better week if you’re a Cardinal fan. Stanford won the three games they played in by a combined 67 points, which included a dominating performance on the road against Seattle and a résumé building win against NC State. They now have a great chance of finishing non-conference play 11-1, but they will have to get past a talented Butler team in order to achieve that. Stanford now will take a 13-day break for finals and some extra rest. Up Next: 12.17 vs. San Diego

Guard Aaron Bright leads the cheers on the Stanford sideline. (credit: Bob Drebin)

2. Oregon State, 6-1: The Beavers only played one game this week and they waited until Sunday to do it. However, the wait was worth it, as the Beavers dominated Montana, 71-46. Just to show you how far OSU has come in a year, Montana defeated Oregon State by five in last December’s meeting. Up Next: 12.9 vs. Idaho

3. Arizona, 6-2: Two mid-majors, two wins for the Wildcats. They started off the week on Tuesday with a closer-than-comfort win over New Mexico State, then closed out the week with a 14-point win over in-state rival Northern Arizona. The Wildcats will now begin a brutal four-game stretch that includes opponents like Florida, Gonzaga, and Oakland. Up Next: 12.7 @ Florida

4. California, 6-2: It wasn’t a terrible week for California, but it could have been a lot better. After destroying McNeese State to open up the week, the Golden Bears lost a heartbreaker at San Diego State yesterday. It would have been an instant classic, but San Diego State would eventually outlast the Bears, 64-63. Up Next: 12.7 vs. San Jose State

5. Oregon, 4-2: The Ducks had a rough week despite their 1-1 record. Their win over UTEP was only by five points, and contrary to what CSN announcer Jordan Kent said after the game, any win is not necessarily a good win in the eyes of the selection committee. Oregon had a chance to make up for the bad game with an upset of BYU in Salt Lake City, but the Ducks went ice cold in the second half and fell, 79-65. Up Next: 12.10 vs. Fresno State

6. Washington, 4-2: It’s time to panic in Seattle. A 13-point loss at Saint Louis is one thing, but no matter how young and inexperienced a team is, you can’t lose to Nevada. It will most likely just get worse before it gets better for Washington, as the Huskies face Marquette, Duke, and UC Santa Barbara in their next three games. Up Next: 12.6 vs. Marquette in New York City Read the rest of this entry »

Mike Lemaire is an RTC correspondent. He filed this report from Sunday’s Stanford-NC State game.

For the first 33 minutes of its game against North Carolina State, Stanford looked nothing like the team that just nine days earlier had led No. 5 Syracuse by six points with less than five minutes to play. The Cardinal committed cheap fouls, they let the Wolfpack take open jump shots, and they allowed CJ Leslie and Ricardo Howell to catch the ball deep in the post for easy baskets. Then, over the next four minutes, Johnny Dawkins’ team played with a renewed sense of urgency.  They pressured the ball, fought through screens, were more physical on the low blocks and grabbed every rebound in sight. The result was a defensive effort that proved they are a legitimate contender for the Pac-12 crown.

Aaron Bright And His Teammates Have Plenty of Reasons To Smile After Starting The Season 8-1.

Entering Sunday’s game, the Cardinal was ranked eighth in the country in defensive efficiency. But with a little more than seven minutes left to play, NC State had opened up a 61-52 lead and Stanford’s defense was the primary guilty party. The Wolfpack shot 55.6% from the field in the first half to lead by four entering halftime, and Mark Gottfried’s team took advantage of Stanford’s flat start to the second half to increase the gap. But by the time the game clock read3:06, Stanford led 64-63 and they looked nothing like the same defense that had been on its heels four minutes earlier. They only forced two turnovers, but the Wolfpack had only mustered three free throws. The Cardinal never trailed again, finishing off a 76-72 win and posting perhaps the best non-conference win they will get all season long.

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Improvement. Two weeks ago, Pac-12 conference teams posted an 11-17 record against Division I teams. This week, they were 14-7. Yes, the wins in there are mostly over teams like McNeese State, Pepperdine, UC Riverside and Grambling, but a few Pac-12 schools scored some decent wins, such as Arizona taking care of New Mexico State and Colorado beating of Georgia (although they came back a couple of nights later and lost a heartbreaker against their in-state rival, Colorado State). And then there was the weekend, which kicked things off in proper fashion with Washington looking sloppy in a road loss at Nevada. On Saturday, UCLA looked like the team we expected to see for 16 minutes, before turning into the team we’re getting used to seeing for the rest of the game in a home loss to Texas. USC was dominated by Minnesota, Oregon let BYU run away in the second half, and Utah – well, poor Utah. Nevertheless, though we may be grading on a curve here, we’ve got some excellent report cards to hand out.

Team of the Week

Stanford – Stanford had the biggest win of the week Sunday night, bouncing back from a 12-point second half deficit to knock off a solid North Carolina State team to make it a perfect 3-0 week for the Cardinal. While the earlier wins over Pacific and Seattle aren’t going to do them much good when the selection committee gets around to discussing them in March, they at least did what they were supposed to do in those games, winning by a combined total of 65 points. Johnny Dawkins’ team had six different players score in double figures at least once this week, with Josh Owens, Chasson Randle, Aaron Bright and Anthony Brown doing so twice.

Player of the Week

Solomon Hill Has Done A Little Bit Of Everything For The Wildcats (Ethan Miller, Getty)

Solomon Hill, Jr, Arizona – Sean Miller praised Solomon Hill up and down this past week, saying that he “is clearly playing better than he ever has,” and that he is a “jack-of-all-trades in a very positive way for us.” Through eight games, Hill leads the Wildcats in minutes played, points and assists, and is second on the team in rebounding. According to Ken Pomeroy’s initial individual rankings, Hill is the most efficient contributor on the team. And this week was a good summation of what Hill does for this team. He averaged 13.5 points, 6.5 rebounds and five assists while playing an average of 34 minutes a night, shooting a 65.8% eFG and knocking down three threes in the Wildcats’ two wins.

Newcomer of the Week

Spencer Dinwiddie, Fr, Colorado – In an up-and-down week for the Buffaloes, Dinwiddie was not only the most consistent of CU’s impressive freshmen guards, he was probably the best player on the team. He scored 16 points in each game, grabbed 7.5 rebounds per contest and added three long-range bombs as well. The freshman from Los Angeles had averaged just 4.8 points per game prior to this week, but earned significantly more playing time this week and played with an offensive aggressiveness that he had not earlier displayed. If he and classmate Askia Booker can continue to improve as they have done in recent games, the Buffs could be a solid middle of the Pac team come conference play.

Yesterday was a lousy day for the conference. Aside from a breakout performance by Terrell Stoglin to lead a struggling Maryland team over Notre Dame, it was losses all round for the other three conference teams in action.  Turnovers did in North Carolina State who otherwise played a very strong game on the road at Stanford. Andre Young went cold and Clemson has now dropped three home games against in-state rivals after hosting South Carolina. Kansas State locked down Virginia Tech’s scorers in the second half and stole one on the road. While none of these losses is particularly “bad,” aside from Clemson’s loss to South Carolina, Virginia Tech needs to find some quality wins this non-conference season if it wants to make the tournament. The Wolfpack’s loss to Stanford is a “quality loss,” considering how close NC State came to getting a high-caliber road win against a Stanford team that has looked very good in the early going. Still, the win would have been that much more impressive.

As rough as yesterday was for conference teams, tonight promises to be a little bit better. The ACC has a very good chance to go undefeated this evening. Of course, there is only one game tonight, so maybe that’s not so impressive. Still, it’s all the Atlantic Coast Conference has going down tonight, so let’s talk about it.

The Only Game

• Charleston Southern at Florida State at 7:00 PM on ESPNU

So this has the making of a rout on paper. Those aren’t all that thrilling generally, but if you can get in the right mindset, this one has the potential to be a defensive masterpiece.  Florida State can play lock down defense on the perimeter and in the paint. They force turnovers and the whole team is pretty tall. Charleston Southern’s average shooting, not particularly good rebounding, and mediocre ball handling points to a low scoring game for the Buccaneers. As mediocre as the team is offensively, they are even worse defensively.

Let’s go back to the height thing for a second. The two tallest starters for Charleston Southern are 6’5″. The two shortest starters for Florida State are 6’5″. It’s a rough match-up.

Leonard Hamilton's Seminoles Should Win Easily Tonight

The one favorable match-up for Charleston Southern comes on the defensive end. Charleston Southern has actually been nearly as good as Florida State in terms of forcing turnovers while the Seminoles have displayed a shocking indifference to taking care of the ball. If the Buccaneers can force turnover and then get made baskets before the defense is set, they have a chance to get some points on the board and get an edge in terms of extra possessions. It’s a slim advantage, but it might be their best chance.

1. It was another busy weekend for Pac-12 basketball teams, and replicating previous weeks, it was another weekend piled high with losses and roster turnover. To kick things off with relatively happy news, USC had expected sophomore forward Dewayne Dedmon to miss four to six weeks with a stress fracture. As it turned out, it was closer to four to six days that Dedmon missed, as he returned to action Saturday when the Trojans traveled to Minnesota, losing 55-40. Dedmon showed up to the game with a boot on his right foot, but played anyway, and although he didn’t contribute much worthwhile, for a roster that needs all the warm bodies it can get, his return is welcome.
2. Okay, enough with the marginally good news; on to the carnage. In Arizona, we can officially close the books on Sidiki Johnson’s run as a Wildcat. Career totals: seven minutes, one point, two rebounds. In news that surprises no one, the university announced Sunday that Johnson has left the program and will transfer out. Meanwhile, up in Berkeley on Saturday, California announced the indefinite suspension of sophomore forward Richard Solomon for behavior “contrary to university and athletic department values.” He didn’t travel with the Golden Bears to San Diego on Sunday, as Cal dropped a one-point game to San Diego State.
3. We knew well before the season started that this year’s Utah squad would be bad. On Saturday, a 30-point loss to Fresno State dropped the Utes to 1-6, the worst start in the history of the basketball program. The team’s lone win was a 58-55 squeaker over San Diego Christian, a NAIA team that isn’t even much good at that level. Fresno State had previously lost to teams like Texas-San Antonio, Manhattan and North Dakota State, meaning the Utes didn’t even get blown out by a good team. We’ll continue to keep an eye on this squad and root for them to get a win here and there, but it is an awful shame that for the school’s first year in a major conference, they have to be cursed with the worst team in the history of the school.
4. Okay, enough negatives. There were some positives around the conference this weekend (and yes, this means I won’t even mention Washington’s overtime loss to Nevada or UCLA folding like a tent against Texas). To begin with, Arizona State played its first true road game of the season on Saturday, and came away with a 67-64 win against a Tulsa squad in the middle of an absolutely brutal stretch in their schedule. Still, give credit to the Sun Devils who saw sophomore Keala King notch 18 points, four assists and three steals (nevermind the six turnovers) to lead the team, while junior center Ruslan Pateev scored as many points Saturday as he had in the previous six games combined. ASU was helped by the Golden Hurricane missing six of their nine free throw attempts in the last four minutes, but still, a win is a win. And, just to get ASU fans’ hopes up, the university expects to hear about Jahii Carson’s eligibility on Monday.
5. There were a couple more big wins this weekend, the first one a literal big win, as Washington State crushed Eastern Washington by 26 points behind 20 points and 13 rebounds from senior center Charlie Enquist. WSU has won its last two games by a total of 58 points, holding its two opponents to an effective field goal percentage below 30%. Enquist, who had scored a total of 50 points and grabbed 41 rebounds in his 54 total games prior to this season, had career highs in virtually every category on the stat sheet. A more impressive win for the conference came Sunday afternoon, when Stanford rallied from a 12-point second half deficit to defeat North Carolina State. Josh Owens led the way for the Cardinal (now 8-1 and knocking on the door of the Top 25) with 19 points and seven rebounds, while freshman guard Chasson Randle continued his strong run, scoring 16 points, grabbing six rebounds and playing some smothering defense during the Cardinal’s second half run. Stanford now takes nearly two weeks off as their student-athletes deal with finals.

1. Thursday night was quiet around the conference with Stanford’s demolition of Seattle the only game of the night. Little can be taken away from the game due to the imbalance of talent, but the fact that Seattle won the battle on the boards could be used as ammunition for Stanford coach Johnny Dawkins in the practices leading up to the Cardinal’s next game against North Carolina State on Sunday. Given that the Wolfpack has been strong on the glass (especially on the offensive end) thus far, they could present problems for Stanford if they’re not careful about that area of the game.
2. Friday night’s slate is pretty light as well, but in the sole game, Washington head coach Lorenzo Romar has a chance to earn his 200^th win as the head coach of the Huskies. Including his stints at Pepperdine and Saint Louis, Romar has 292 wins in his career, but a win against Nevada would make him only the third coach (after Hec Edmundson and Marv Hashman) in Washington history to achieve that milestone. Of course, Romar has quite a long way to go if he ever hopes to catch Edmundson (the namesake of the Hec Ed), who compiled 488 wins as the head coach of the Huskies from 1920-47.
3. UCLA gets back to work on Saturday, hosting Texas at the Sports Arena. The Bruins hope to build on the momentum begun in their last game, where they earned their first win against a Division I team this year. In order to turn things around, they’ll need to pick things up on the defensive end, and freshman guard Norman Powell hopes to be able to help his team do just that. Taking a cue from former Bruin Arron Afflalo, Powell announced his desire to “lock down the other team’s best player.” Ben Howland has to like that enthusiasm (along with the youngster’s excellent athleticism), but Powell will have to prove his ability to become that type of defensive presence in order to continue earning more minutes.
4. Sean Miller expected junior forward Solomon Hill to be a team leader both vocally and by example this season, but Hill’s game has taken a big step forward as well. It’s not just Hill’s team-leading 12.0 points per game. Or his team-leading 3.1 assists per game (even more impressive considering he’s a 6’6” guy who started at power forward in the Wildcats’ last game). Or even his 7.9 rebounds per game. The fact that Hill has only turned the ball over nine times in the last five games (after coughing it up eight times in the first two games) while handling the ball on a regular basis has been big. The fact is, Miller sees Hill as his jack-of-all-trades. And, with the experience Hill has built up in his first two seasons in Tucson, he has shown a good ability to play through foul trouble this year. Despite having picked up four fouls in five different games this season, Hill has never seen his minutes severely limited by foul trouble.
5. Finally, with the first ever Pac-12 Championship game in football coming up tonight, it’s time to wrap up the battle between Connor and I for the Big Civil Apple Duel title. My Hail Mary pass to try to catch up to Connor last week fell short, as I went 3-4 in rivalry week, while my opponent went 4-3, extending his lead to four games on the season, with only the Oregon/UCLA mismatch left to play. And, as much as I would like to imagine a scenario by which UCLA is able to keep the Friday night game interesting, I’m only picking UCLA by a score of 28-27 out of desperation, boredom and a healthy dose of sleep deprivation. Connor sees Oregon winning 45-14 (and who can blame him), but regardless of the score, the first round of this battle is already decided. However, I’ll have my chance at revenge, as next week we’ll start picking some basketball games every week and we’ll (thankfully) be resetting our records at that time.

Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences. 

Reader’s Take

Top Storylines

• Tournament Trip-Ups – The early season exempt tournaments are always an exciting time of the year in college basketball. Teams from conferences across the land get a chance to meet, usually on a neutral floor, and play several games against quality competition in a relatively short span, giving coaches a chance to figure out exactly what to make of their new collection of players and giving fans a chance to get introduced to their new teams. For the Pac-12 schools, this season’s batch of early season tournaments was largely a bust. You know when the two best results for the conference in these tournaments were Oregon State’s two-point loss to Vanderbilt in the finals of the Legends Classic and Stanford’s six-point loss to Syracuse in the finals of the NIT Season Tip-Off, that things didn’t exactly go as planned. And the less we speak about the last place finishes of Utah and Washington State in the Old Spice Classic and the 76 Classic, the better.
• Oregon’s Growing Pains – Last week, the bombshell out of Eugene was that five-star freshman guard Jabari Brown was leaving Dana Altman’s program after just two games. Then news broke Tuesday night that fellow freshman guard Bruce Barron was also leaving the program – this time after just five games, only three of which Barron played in (seven minutes per game). Those two defections make for six players that have left the Oregon program since Altman’s arrival. Certainly the first four of those transfers make sense, as many coaching changes result in roster changes, but Brown and Barron were Altman recruits, and guys who were getting playing time. The fact that Brown and Barron were close friends does provide something of an explanation for Barron’s decision, though. If there is any good news in this shakeup for Oregon, both players are continuing with their classes at the school for this semester, meaning their defections could have no negative impact on the team’s APR.

The Trend Of Ducks Flying The Coup Is A Troubling One For Oregon Fans. (Jim Brown/US Presswire)

• Injuries – The Pac-12 probably hasn’t had any more injuries than any other conference this season, but they have had their share of important ones. USC lost senior point guard Jio Fontan to a torn ACL prior to the season, had freshman center Curtis Washington saw his season end with a torn labrum, and just last week saw sophomore center Dewayne Dedmon go down with a stress fracture in his foot that will keep him out for four to six weeks. Utah is missing 7’3” center David Foster, who broke a foot in the Utes’ exhibition game, and he is still deciding whether he’ll return this season or take a medical redshirt. And Washington is still waiting to find out about senior guard Scott Suggs who broke a toe prior to the season. Suggs hopes to begin practicing this week with a possible return December 10 against Duke.

Player of the Year Watch

Last week, Jared Cunningham was coming off consecutive games in which he had set a new career-high for himself, and combined with his defensive prowess, he was the POTY frontrunner. Now, he’s coming off two-straight more modest performances scoring-wise (10.5 PPG), but remains the Pac-12’s leading scorer with 20.8 points per game. The next three spots on the conference scoring list are manned by Utah’s Josh Watkins (18.8 PPG), Arizona State’s Trent Lockett (17.5 PPG) and Washington State’s Faisal Aden (17.0 PPG), good players all, but guys who likely won’t have an impact on the POTY race, simply because they play for bad teams.

Cunningham Remains at the Top of our POTY Watch

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