Rushing the court: a rite of passage for college basketball fans; an endearing hallmark of the sport; the name of a pretty darn good college basketball blog. Last week’s “controversial” rushing of the court by Indiana fans after their win over Wisconsin got me thinking: What would it take for each of the schools in the Pac-12 to break out a good old-fashioned RTC this season? Now, there are some people who have come up with all the rules for when RTCing is allowable. We’ve even posted our own general guidelines around here in the past. But my own personal recommendation for court rushing (and a good, if dangerous, motto to live your life by): If it feels good, do it. So, if Washington State, say, wants to rush the court for a ho-hum mid-January win over Oregon State, for instance — hey, more power to ya. But RTCing anytime something marginally good happens ruins the specialness of it. So, what follows would be the most likely scenarios for possible court rushings in the Pac-12.

After Washington State Upset Gonzaga in 2006, Cougar Fans Filled The Court (Kody Whiteaker, AP Photo)

First, we’re going to group a bunch of schools together. What do Stanford, California, Arizona State, Utah, Colorado, Oregon State and Oregon have in common? Those are the seven remaining road games on Arizona’s schedule. These guys are all easy. If they beat #1 Arizona (even if the ranking changes) at home this year in just about any way – blowout, last-second buzzer-beater, or game getting called after the first possession with the home team up a hoop – you can expect to see an exodus of students from the stands out onto the court. And it will be good. And really, each of those schools has a fighting chance against the Wildcats and you have to figure at some point the ‘Cats will get caught. Maybe even twice. So, the expectation is that there is at least one RTC in the Pac in our near-future.

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1. Much of the time, a demotion of an upperclassman that results in a freshman or sophomore filling the open role can make relationships sour in a hurry. However, that hasn’t been the case for Oregon State junior point guard Challe Barton and freshman Hallice Cooke, who have remained close after Cooke grabbed Barton’s starting spot earlier this month. Despite only averaging 8.8 MPG in Pac-12 play, the junior can typically be seen waving a towel on the bench and one of the first to greet players coming off the floor during a timeout. Barton’s laid-back attitude and easy smile certainly helps, but knowing that playing time on coach Craig Robinson’s squad can flip drastically at the blink of an eye, he knows that he needs to be ready to go and engaged at all times. If Cooke keeps up his current pace, however, that starting job is going to be locked up for awhile. The freshman has provided a much-needed spark to a struggling offense, averaging 10.5 PPG in his last five appearances.
2. The Beavers got a huge win last night in the Civil War battle against Oregon, jumping out to an early 16-point lead and eventually holding on for an 80-72 upset. Oregon State is now in a tie for eighth in the conference standings and has a great chance of getting back to .500 when it faces Washington State on Wednesday night. On the Ducks’ side of it, things are not going well. The job that Dana Altman has done so far in the month of January is by far the worst in his four seasons with Oregon. His team is currently free-falling down the NCAA Tournament seed lines and desperately needs a sweep at the Washington schools this week.
3. After suffering a stress fracture in his leg in mid-September, freshman guard Que Johnson got off to a slow start at Washington State. But the redshirt freshman grew more comfortable within the offense as the non-conference season wore on, and he has now become the team’s go-to guy with junior DaVonte Lacy out with various injuries. In this piece examining Johnson’s performance thus far, Jeff Nusser takes a look at his statistics and compares them to former Cougs’ great, Klay Thompson. Johnson is blowing past the freshman Thompson in terms of efficiency, using his aggressiveness to shoot at a 51 percent clip from inside the three-point line. He is also showing some early traits of Thompson’s late-game clutchness, hitting an overtime-forcing three with 10 seconds left against #15 Colorado, then knocking down the final three free throws of a three-point win against Utah a few days later. As Nusser says, putting these comparisons on a freshman may be unfair, but the early returns have been nothing less than terrific. Washington State returns to action Wednesday night against Oregon State in Pullman.
4. Rush the Court’s resident bracketologist, Daniel Evans, released his updated projections over the weekend, and Arizona claimed his top overall seed once again. Next up are Oregon and Colorado on the five and seven lines, respectively, and California and UCLA coming in at eight and nine. Stanford remains squarely on the bubble and is listed as the second team out of his field.
5. The Ducks debuted some nice new kicks in last night’s rivalry game with Oregon State, their “JumpDucks.” Long a testing ground for anything Nike has to offer, Oregon was the first one to get a crack at re-doing the Michael Jordan Jumpman logo, replacing it on the shoe’s heel with a shadow Duck mascot. The new Air Jordans look very cool and would be sure to sell quickly if Nike goes down that road. We’ll let you use your wildest imagination to dream up what’s up next for the stylistic offerings of Oregon athletics.

When UCLA knocked off Colorado at the Coors Events Center on Thursday night, there were pretty clearly five future pros on the court. Unfortunately, one of those five – Spencer Dinwiddie – was reduced to assistant coach, forced to the bench by an ACL torn on Sunday afternoon. Below, we’ll break down the games of all five of these guys, including Dinwiddie and his upcoming NBA decision.

Zach LaVine’s Athleticism And Shooting Accuracy Have Him In The Lottery Discussion

Zach LaVine, UCLA – While Joel Embiid has gone from a projected first-round pick in the preseason to now being in the discussion (if not atop the heap) for the first pick in the draft, it is UCLA’s freshman wing who has skyrocketed the furthest. While it was clear LaVine was talented, he’s gone from off the NBA radar to seemingly everybody’s pet pick as an NBA Lottery Pick, as soon as the 2014 Draft. Yeah, in a draft as loaded as this year’s, this guy has come out of nowhere to be mentioned right up there with stars like Marcus Smart and Willie Cauley-Stein and Aaron Gordon. And, it isn’t hard to see why. He’s got ridiculous athletic ability. He’s a 6’5” guy with some point guard past. And he is filling it up from deep this year, stroking 48.3 percent from three through Thursday night’s win at Colorado. He’s terrific running off a screen, catching a pass, squaring up and drilling a three; given his size and leaping ability, there are very few defenders who can challenge such a shot. And yeah, his jumper is nowhere near textbook, but he’s certainly knocking them down. All that said, his game still has plenty of room for improvement. His handle is weak; he doesn’t have much of a game off the bounce; he hasn’t shown the ability to go get his own; he doesn’t show much interest in defending; and at 6’5” and 180 pounds, he gets pushed around by a stiff breeze. But, consider that all of those issues are eminently fixable. And further consider that even without those things, to this point he’s been really impressive. I’ve been very slow to come around to the idea that he’s got lottery potential after his freshman season (in part because it is much more likely for players to patch up the blatant holes in their games while in college than in the NBA), but considering his upside, you can bet that – provided his production continues near this pace – there is some NBA GM who will promise him a lottery pick. In other words, UCLA fans, soak in all you can of LaVine over the next couple months, because this is it.

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Believe it or not, we’re about halfway through the season right now. So, it is time to revisit our Best in the West rankings. We did this about a month back, but to remind you, here’s how we roll. We take all the schools west of the Rockies (and we’re going to be a bit generous with our geography – basically we’re looking at schools from the Pac-12, Mountain West, West Coast and Big West and then some of the schools from the Big Sky and WAC) and give you the top 20 teams. But, rather than just ranking schools #1 though #20, we’re going to divide all these teams up into tiers of similar quality. Below, you’ll see our Top 20 teams in the West (their overall rank will be in parentheses), with descriptions of what we think the teams in each tier have in common, plus brief comments on some of the teams in our list.

The Best of the Best – In a league of their own.

• Arizona (#1 overall, Pac-12 #1) – Not only are the Wildcats head and shoulders above the rest of the teams out West, the argument can be made that they’re on a tier of their own nationally as well.

Arizona Has Established Themselves As A Team Head and Shoulders Above The Rest. (Kevin Sapio, USA Today)

Contenders to the Throne – And all Top 25 teams.

• San Diego State (#2 overall, Mtn West #1) – Last time we did this, we had three teams in this tier, and the Aztecs were not among them. This time, the Aztecs are the only team aside from Arizona that should be considered a sure-fire Top 25 team.

Solid NCAA Tournament Team – Just outside the Top 25, but all with plenty of upside.

• California (#3 overall, Pac-12 #2) – These teams are all bunched together by just about any metric. While I think you can make a case for any one of them for something like the #24 or #25 spot in your national Top 25, you can make an equally valid case that all of these teams deserve to be on the outside looking in. That being said, it is likely that if you make a national top 35, every one of these squads should probably be in there. We’ll take the Golden Bears by a hair over the rest of this group on the basis of their hot streak minus a couple of key players, but really, all these teams are very tight.

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Last month we introduced our new project, which is centered around determining the top YouTube moment in Pac-12 basketball history. We continue the nomination portion with Oregon.

[ed note: These are just the top moments we could find on YouTube, which has a vast number and array of videos, but we won’t be able to cover the entire 99 years of the conference.]

1. After a dust-up last week where NBA scouts were complaining about the seats that UCLA gave them for the battle between the Bruins and Arizona, Draft Express did a poll of NBA scouts to see which schools treated them the best (i.e., gave them good seats and maybe a meal) and, perhaps unsurprisingly, UCLA was atop the heap of the schools that got negative comments. The whole article is really pointed at UCLA: You spend a ton of space in your media guides promoting your former players who are making it big at the next level, but you’re not rolling out the red carpet for the scouts and executive who determine the worth of the next round of NBA prospects. We’re not going to spend a ton of time on this, but doesn’t this whole thing seem a bit absurd? For instance, in some cases where the NBA scouts got seats that didn’t meet their needs, they had to (gasp!) ask  their multi-hundred-million dollar organizations to go onto StubHub and purchase them better tickets. The horror! Even at Arizona, which was among the schools most often mentioned as being good to NBA scouts, somebody had the temerity to complain about the price of the great seats they were given, prices which were likely considerably lower than the amount that could have been charged for those seats. In other words, forgive me if I don’t join this particular hunger strike.
2. We posted yesterday about the Spencer Dinwiddie injury (too long; didn’t read: it sucks), but that knee injury wasn’t the only one to befall a Colorado player in Seattle on Sunday. Freshman wing Tre’Shaun Fletcher also tweaked a knee in that game, and although he returned to action after the injury, it was later determined that this injury will require surgery, costing Fletcher the next six-to-eight weeks. While this injury is not an ACL injury, it is damaging to the team as Fletcher certainly would have been due for a bump in minutes without Dinwiddie in the lineup.
3. After ripping off 13 straight wins to start the season, Oregon is now riding a three-game losing streak, with a pair of those losses coming at home. Luckily, the Ducks now have a week where they can focus on just one game — their road trip to face Oregon State in Corvallis on Sunday. Confidence may be dipping, but head coach Dana Altman recalled the last time the Ducks went through a multi-game losing streak: the final two games of last season when they lost on the road to Colorado and Utah. What happened next? The Ducks went to Las Vegas, won the Pac-12 Tournament, and then advanced to the Sweet Sixteen. In other words, it would be very unwise to count out these Ducks in mid-January.
4. We’ve got another big intrastate rivalry game this week to check out as Arizona State travels to Arizona tonight. Herb Sendek was asked about trying to compete against a team that is recruiting on the elite level that the Wildcats are doing right now. And, not surprisingly, he called it a challenge, noting that what they’re doing is “absolutely astonishing” and “almost unprecedented.” Put it this way; as Adam Green of ArizonaSports.com notes, of the seven players in the rotation at Arizona, five were five-star recruits coming out of high school, while a sixth was a four-star recruit. By comparison, Jahii Carson is the only Sun Devils’ recruit to earn more than three stars coming out of high school.
5. Lastly, Utah drew rave reviews in its first weekend of conference play, taking Oregon to the wire on opening night before beating Oregon State. But last weekend on their first road trip to the Washington schools, their offense took a major step back. Tonight, as they host USC, goal number one for Larry Krystkowiak and company is to compete better on the offensive end of the court, including getting out in transition more often, something their Trojans’ opponents probably want as well. With talented offensive players like Delon Wright, Jordan Loveridge and Brandon Taylor, this shouldn’t be a problem.

Periodically throughout the next two months, the Pac-12 microsite will be taking a look at the league’s postseason outlook. We start today.

NCAA Tournament

• Arizona (#1 Seed): Arizona has been atop the national rankings for five consecutive weeks now, and while some dispute whether it should be the top overall seed, no one has the Wildcats below the one seed line right now. They currently boast quality wins against San Diego State, Duke, Michigan, Washington and UCLA, with four of those coming away from home. The Cats remain one of three unbeatens across the land and have another chance at a good win on Thursday against Arizona State.
• Colorado (#4-#6 Seed): The Buffaloes have a pair of top 10 victories going for themselves, but that’s about the only positive they have to look at right now. Head coach Tad Boyle lost his leading scorer for the remainder of the season and another member of his typical nine-deep rotation until mid-March all in 40 minutes at Washington on Sunday, so while the Buffs’ résumé currently looks in the #4-#6 seed range, anything better than a #7 come Selection Sunday would make Colorado fans very happy. Staying on that line instead of the #8 or #9 would be crucial if it hopes to advance through the opening weekend, as that’s the difference between say, Virginia and North Carolina in the opening round as well as avoiding a #1 seed in the second game.
• Oregon (#5-#7 Seed): Sure, Oregon is sliding hard and fast right now, but the Ducks will be fine so long as this three-game losing streak doesn’t go beyond that. The Ducks need to keep these losses in a vacuum, and while it will definitely be a black mark the rest of the way, wins at Washington and against UCLA back in Eugene could make this skid a distant memory by the first of February. They will need to shore up their defense some in order to remain in the upper half of the NCAA field. Oregon ranks 306th in the nation in points allowed per game, and finding a way to keep their opponents below 80 will be key.

Joseph Young Leads Oregon’s High-Flying Offense With 18.8 PPG, But The Ducks Need To Shore Up Their Defense In Order To Remain On The Eight Line Or Higher (AP)

• UCLA (#8-#10 Seed): The jury is largely still out on the Bruins, who have won 13 games but only one of which can be classified as a “quality victory.” With four of their final five games this month either against teams that are locked into the NCAAs or on the bubble, that can change in a hurry but they’ll need to be ready to take advantage of those opportunities every night out.
• California (Bubble IN): Going into conference play, California was typically a middle-of-the-road NIT team according to bracketologists around the country, and that was with some slack being cut since it had lost Ricky Kreklow and Jabari Bird for an extended period of time. Boy, what a difference two weeks can make. The Golden Bears have worked their way into the NCAA field, possibly as high as a #10 seed, thanks to three road wins to start Pac-12 play. With the three-game road trip now out of the way, and the fact they don’t leave the state of California again until February 12, things are definitely looking up for the Bears.
• Arizona State (Bubble OUT): The Sun Devils, like UCLA, have been tough to figure out so far. They only have one quality win, and while there is only one bad loss to their name, performances like the ones they put up against Creighton and Washington won’t be convincing anyone that they’re ready for the field of 68.  Read the rest of this entry »

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

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

Arizona is once again the unanimous top choice this week, but every spot below the Wildcats saw more turmoil than usual. Check the results below.

It Was California Freshman Jordan Mathews’ Night At Matthew Knight On Thursday (Chris Pietsch/AP)

1. Arizona (17-0, 3 Points). Comment: “It seemed like there was just an overall lack of focus and too much hero ball going on early. Once everyone settled in and started moving the ball around, there was no way USC was able to get back into it, and Arizona asserted itself by finishing the game with a 25-10 run to win the game by 20.” – Jason Bartel (@jasonbartel)
2. California (12-4, 6 Points). Comment: “And so the Bears have won three straight conference road games by an average margin of eight points. Who saw that one coming? With three straight winnable games on the horizon, Cal has a sudden and unexpected opportunity to make some serious noise in the Pac-12.” – Nick Kranz (@GoldenBlogs)
3. UCLA (13-3, 10 Points). Comment: “UCLA enters the AP poll with a loss to Arizona.” – Adam Butler (@pachoopsab)
4. Colorado (14-3, 14 Points). Comment: “Damn. Dinwiddie news is terrible. Have a feeling Boyle will get this team to respond, but doubt they can make the second weekend now.” – Andrew Murawa (@AMurawa)
5. Washington (11-6, 18 Points). Comment: “Those who have complained about Romar’s offense definitely have been put to silence. The UW offense looks much improved in the second year of the high post system, as the Huskies have been using an array of screens and cuts to get Wilcox and the rest of the guards open.” – Erik Erickson (@Erik_Erickson)
6. Stanford (10-5, 19 Points). Comment: “Maybe we start a new segment in here that’s just called WHAT DOES THE STANFORD SAY? and then I just write or link to whatever I want and it’s wildly unpredictable and completely upsetting but you’re attracted to that instability by some unintelligible force that keeps telling you that they’ll change. Did I just describe my ex-girlfriend?” – Adam Butler (@pachoopsab)
7. Oregon (13-3, 21 Points). Comment: “Oregon could not capitalize on their golden opportunities to steal one from Stanford as their last two shots clanked off the rim; first Johnathan Loyd’s jumper and then a driving layup from Dominic Artis, allowing the Cardinal to escape with an 82-80 win.” – Jake Tabor (@JakeTabor541)
8. Arizona State (13-4, 22 Points). Comment: “The Sun Devils are in a tough spot going forward, too, as eight of their 14 remaining games come against Arizona, California, Colorado and Oregon. Herb Sendek’s crew has a fight on its hands just to get to .500 in the Pac-12.” – Matt Norlander and Jeff Borzello (@EyeOnCBB)
9. Oregon State (9-7, 25 Points). Comment: “The Beavers beat Stanford, 81-72! Great reward for a great week of practice. Really impressed by the team on both ends of the court.” – Connor Pelton (@ConnorPelton28) Read the rest of this entry »

Seven Sweet Scoops is a weekly column by Sean Moran, the RTC recruiting guru. Once a week he will bring you seven notes from the high-stakes world of college basketball recruiting. We also encourage you to check out his contributions at The Intentional Foul, dedicated to recruiting coverage and analysis. You can also follow Sean at his Twitter account @Seanmohoops for up-to-date news from the high school and college hoops scene. If you have any suggestions as to areas we are missing or different things you would like to see, please let us know at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Back in September there were a lot of rumors that five-star center Cliff Alexander (#5 – 2014) and five-star guard JaQuan Lyle (#22 – 2014) would be a package deal. Recall that Alexander committed to Kansas in November, and at the same time, Lyle was busy starting his senior season at Huntington Prep (WV). Now, with Lyle scheduled to take an official visit to Kansas on Saturday, the chance to united with Alexander remains strong. With a rivalry game against Kansas State on tap, Bill Self will look to reel in his third five-star recruit in the class of 2014. Originally a Louisville commitment, Lyle is a 6’5” guard who specializes in putting the ball in the hole. A pure scorer, he is also one of only three players in the Top 100 that remains uncommitted.

Heading to Lawrence this weekend for my official #kubball #RockChalk

2. UCLA Stays Hot Despite Loss to Arizona

Days removed from scoring 107 points against crosstown rival USC; Steve Alford stayed hot on the recruiting trail with a surprise commitment from one of the top Los Angeles area sophomores in Lonzo Ball. Currently a four-star guard ranked No. 20 in the class of 2016, Ball committed to the Bruins on Wednesday night. The 6’5” guard averaged 14.3 points per game as a freshman at Chino Hills (CA) and has been called “a dream player” by his high school coach. The highly-ranked player on the West Coast can light it up from deep and is also a strong ball-handler for his size. After Andy Enfield nabbed point guard Jordan McLaughlin (#38 – 2014) and took a dig at UCLA’s pace, it’s been all UCLA in the battle for SoCal supremacy. Not only did Alford quickly put together the No. 7 ranked recruiting class in 2014, highlighted by five-star Kevon Looney (#14 – 2014), but now they’ve landed another future star in Ball.

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Welcome back to the RTC Podblast. With a loaded week of big games this week, there was plenty to talk about, including Arizona-UCLA, Memphis-Louisville, Michigan State-Ohio State, Iowa State-Baylor, and Randy’s annual comeuppance. As always, Shane Connolly (@sconnolly114) leads us through the discussion, with an added cherry on top looking forward to a mildly entertaining group of games this weekend.

Make sure to add the RTC Podcast to your iTunes lineup so that you’ll automatically upload it on your listening device after we record. And feel free to contact us through Twitter or email — we’re listening.

• 0:00-5:34 – Memphis Proves Randy Wrong
• 5:34-9:44 – Arizona Escapes Pauley Pavilion Unscathed
• 9:44-15:19 – But Ohio State Doesn’t Escape East Lansing
• 15:19-16:08 – Iowa State Rolls Baylor
• 16:08-19:19 – Saturday Games Preview
• 19:19-21:51 – Sunday Games Preview