Andrew Murawa (@amurawa) is the RTC correspondent for the Pac-12 Conference. He filed this report after the second session of the Pac-12 Tournament in Las Vegas on Thursday evening.

The evening pair of quarterfinals began with the expectation that there was no way it could live up to the atmosphere and excitement of the afternoon session. And, while it took some time for all of the fans to filter in from happy hour, by the second half of the first game, we had a really good crowd. And what a game that first one was as Utah stormed back from an eight-point second-half deficit against California, survived a seven-minute scoreless streak and got a miraculous Jarred DuBois three over the outstretched arm of 6’10” David Kravish in the waning moments to force overtime, where they would eventually win the game. Lots of little things to mention from this contest:

• First and foremost, gotta give props to Larry Krystkowiak. Aside from rebuilding his roster from scratch, he’s also done a great job getting incremental improvements out of this team over the course of the season. Remember when this team lost to Stanford by 31? Or lost at the Oregon schools by an average of 14.5 points per game? Now this team is riding a four-game winning streak, shows all the hallmarks of being a well-coached team and is a deserving semifinal entrant. Just wait until the talent level gets to where he wants it.
  

  Larry Krystkowiak Has Done A Great Job Getting A Rebuilding Program Into The Pac-12 Semis

• Utah freshman Jordan Loveridge struggled early, missing seven of his first nine shots, but then hit back-to-back threes to give Utah its first second-half lead, then hit another big three at the start of overtime to extend the Utes’ momentum. He’s had some ups and downs in his first year for the Utes, but he’s a special talent who will eventually, maybe as soon as next year, be an all-conference guy.
• Richard Solomon continues to be one of my favorite/most-frustrating players in the conference. Dude’s got all the talent in the world, but his motor is often lacking. Case in point tonight: He got 37 minutes of action, probably competed really hard for about 20 of those minutes, and wound up with eight points, 11 boards and three steals.
• Cal’s Ricky Kreklow, who has missed 24 of his team’s 31 games this season due to a foot injury, played 18 minutes tonight, his most in a game since November, and knocked down two big threes in the first half that kept the Bears sticking around when little else was going right. A lanky wing with a nice shooting touch, it would be a nice addition if he’s good to go without concern for his foot.

Read the rest of this entry »

Day one of the Pac-12 Tournament is complete, and we received good games all throughout from the basketball gods. From an overtime thriller to start the day, to the discovery of a possible Cinderella in the Pac-12 field, it was a solid start to the league’s little version of March Madness. Here are four things that stood out on day one of the Pac-12 Tournament.

Colorado Used Its Height Advantage To Advance To The Quarterfinals (credit: Julie Jacobson)

1. The Charity Stripe – The free throw line was the X factor in Arizona State‘s 88-87, overtime win over Stanford today. The Sun Devils made 14 of 17 free throws in the win. Stanford? It made one. ASU also shot 50% from behind the arc and got a 34-point performance from star point guard Jahii Carson. If Herb Sendek and company can keep up this kind of production on offense, their mediocre play on the defensive end of the court will be forgotten.
2. Climbing the Bubble – The Devils also kept alive their flickering at-large hopes with the win, improving to 21-11 on the season and giving themselves a chance to pick up a quality win against UCLA tomorrow. A game late on Wednesday just down the road helped their chances as San Diego State bested Boise State, although the committee might still favor the Broncos’ résumé over that of ASU’s. Tomorrow the bubble action will pick up even more as Iowa faces Northwestern and Southern Miss plays UAB. Even with an upset of the Bruins, it’s tough to see Arizona State making the field if both the Hawkeyes and Golden Eagles get victories Thursday. Read the rest of this entry »

When Utah hosts Oregon today at the Huntsman Center, it will not only be a game that has a major impact on our eventual Pac-12 regular season champion, it will also be the day where five Ute seniors will be honored in their final home game. Among that group will be one guy – David Foster – who hasn’t played a minute in either of the school’s two seasons in the Pac-12 (and yet who still will go down as the all-time leader in blocks at the school), another – Ryan Osterloh – who has earned a total of six minutes this season (and in his career), a third – Jarred DuBois – who only played one season in Salt Lake City, after parts of four at Loyola Marymount, and a fourth – Cedric Martin – who spent just two years wearing the Block U and is averaging just 7.4 points per game this year. All of these guys have their own stories and all make for an interesting take (until just moments ago, Foster was going to be the main target of this post), but today we’re going to look at the career of senior center Jason Washburn.

There Hasn’t Been Much Team Success, But Jason Washburn Has Steadily Improved In His Four Seasons

After a redshirt season to start his career with the Utes under then-head coach Jim Boylen, Washburn got his playing time started in 2009-10, at the same time as Foster returned from his LDS mission for his sophomore season, giving those Utes their version of a twin tower frontcourt. That year’s Utah team also featured Marshall Henderson as a freshman in near-constant danger of slipping into meltdown mode and  junior Carlon Brown in the midst of yet again failing to live up to the potential he had flashed as a freshman two years earlier. Washburn was clearly playing second fiddle in the middle to Foster in his first year, earning just a third of the minutes available to him, but flashed plenty of potential in posting a career-high offensive rating (according to Ken Pomeroy), shooting free throws at an unsustainable 86% rate, and blocking better than 6% of his opponents two-point field goals, that last one a number that stayed pretty steady.

Read the rest of this entry »

We are down to the final week of our season-long Pac-12 Pick’em contest, with both Adam and Parker holding a slight lead over Drew and me. Yesterday’s results are included in the standings, and Drew and I took advantage of the upsets with Stanford and Washington pulling out wins. With just eight games remaining, Drew needs to make up two games on the leaders and I need three. Oregon’s visit to Colorado and Indiana’s meeting with Michigan headline the list as our games of the week.

The only difference between the co-leaders right now comes in UCLA’s visit to Seattle, where Parker takes the visiting Bruins and Adam has host Washington. Drew is unable to tie Adam since they only differ on one pick, but I could catch all three if everyone swings my way in the coming days. That would mean a road upset from Oregon would be needed, along with a UW win over UCLA and a USC loss in Pullman. If two or more competitors are tied at the top after Sunday’s action, we will have a Pac-12 Tournament pool to determine the winner.

Congratulations to UCLA, who used a terrific sweep of the Arizona schools last week to climb atop our latest Pac-12 power rankings. Oregon follows closely behind, using the return of point guard Dominic Artis to boost itself in a rivalry win against Oregon State. California comes in as a unanimous pick at the three spot. The Golden Bears won their sixth and seventh straight games last week, dominating Utah and Colorado for nearly identical 18- and 16-point victories. Colorado, Arizona, and USC make up the second tier of our rankings. The Buffaloes earned an at-large clinching split in the Bay Area, while Arizona fell hard in two games in Los Angeles. USC continued to make its case for an NIT berth as the Trojans earned back-to-back upset wins over the Wildcats and Sun Devils. Arizona State, Washington, Stanford, Oregon State, Utah, and Washington State round out the remainder of the rankings.

• Free-falling Cats. Arizona is not in a good place as we head into Championship Week and Selection Sunday. Despite its 23 victories, Arizona has dropped its last two games and fallen to fifth in this week’s rankings. They are also on the five seed line in most bracket projections, but if they close out the season with a thud, a six seed would likely be in the Wildcats’ future. That would mean a Third Round matchup with a team like Kansas State or Michigan State, something Sean Miller and company desperately would like to avoid. To do that they’ll need a Territorial Cup sweep of Arizona State and a quarterfinal P-12 Tourney win in Las Vegas.
• Rising Trojans. Fighting for their coach’s job and a backdoor bid to the NIT, USC has been playing some good hoops as of late. Eric Wise has been a force down low the past couple of weeks and he makes a great half of a one-two punch with guard Byron Wesley coming off the bench. A road sweep of the Washington schools would do the trick, but with that not likely to happen, they’ll need a win in the first round of the Pac-12 Tourney.

We’ve bragged about our pet pupils yesterday, and we’ll get to the folks in detention later, but for now, here’s the middle of the Pac from last week’s performances.

Washington – B

After getting run off the court on Wednesday night against Arizona, the Huskies rebounded nicely with a strong performance in knocking off Arizona State on Saturday. In recent weeks it has been as simple as equating made shots with wins for the Huskies. In seven games in February they’ve shot a better than 50% eFG three times and won all of those games. Of course, four times they’ve shot lower than 50% and lost all four of those.

Focus on: Scott Suggs. With C.J. Wilcox clearly hurting, the Huskies desperately needed Suggs – their only other proven scorer – to break out of his slump. And, against the Sun Devils, after scoring just four points in four of his previous five games, Suggs did just that. He provided some offensive punch right out of the gate on Saturday night, either scoring or assisting on 12 of the Huskies  first 18 points. With just three games remaining in the regular season of his final collegiate season, you can bet both he and Lorenzo Romar hope he can keep up that type of performance the rest of the way.

Looking ahead: The Huskies host Washington State on Sunday night as the Evergreen State gets to say goodbye to five really good seniors between the two squads in their final Apple Cup (basketball edition) game.

Once Branded A Glue Guy, Josh Huestis’ Recent Streak Proves He’s An All-Around Player (Ben Margot, AP)

Stanford – B-

The Cardinal went on the road and got a split for the week; that’s a good thing, right? It certainly is, but for Johnny Dawkins and company to move themselves into range for an at-large bid, they really needed to get a win Saturday at Oregon. Unfortunately for them, they shot the ball poorly, turned it over far too much and even got beat on the boards as the Ducks backed Stanford into a corner, where they need to win the Pac-12 Tournament lest they be relegated in trying to defend their NIT title.

Focus on: Josh Huestis. He has previously shown the ability to score both inside and out, but with talented scoring guards and emerging star Dwight Powell on the same roster, the expectation was that Huestis was locked into a “glue guy” role. His occasional outbursts of offense, an expectation that was being met through most of January, the junior from Great Falls regularly grabbed more rebounds than he scored points. But, over the last month, Huestis has undergone an offensive renaissance, scoring in double figures in nine straight games, registering seven double-doubles along the way, and averaging 14.6 points and 10.8 rebounds per game over that stretch. Somewhat unbelievably, Huestis is a legitimate first-team all-conference contender.

Looking ahead: The Cardinal host Colorado and Utah this week. There really isn’t a scenario whereby they earn an at-large bid to the NCAAs, so while neither of these games are must wins, they must build confidence and coherence if they hope to threaten to win the title in Vegas.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. With the chaos continuing in the Pac-12 and no team running away as the favorite, Arizona once again has another chance to control its fate and win a share of the crown. Three weeks ago, when Oregon lost to Stanford and Cal and Arizona swept the Washington schools, the Wildcats found themselves in a familiar position. They blew it then when they lost to the Bears, seemingly ending their chances at the time with Oregon and UCLA ahead of them in the standings. But now the Ducks and the Bruins have done the same, both losing to Cal in the past couple of weeks, setting up a three-way tie for first place. Despite the fact that Arizona owns no head-to-head tiebreakers as of now, a share of a conference title is still within reach.
2. UCLA took another step toward its ultimate goal with a win over USC on Sunday. The most recent match-up between these two teams couldn’t have been more opposite as USC had defeated UCLA in overtime at Pauley Pavilion, but the Bruins made it apparent on Sunday that this game was going to be very different from the opening tip. UCLA raced out to a 17-4 lead, led by 19 points at half, and never let the Trojans sniff success in the second half. Although the Bruins still have a great shot to win the Pac-12, that isn’t what matters in Westwood. Yes, it’d be nice to have a Pac-12 championship, but it won’t matter if they don’t make some serious noise in the NCAA Tournament with Ben Howland’s job is on the line.
3. The good news for Oregon is that they still are tied for first place in the Pac-12. The better news is the fact that star freshman Dominic Artis is close to returning from his foot injury and the Ducks only have one game this week, allowing him more time to recover. Even if Artis is unable to go on Thursday night against Oregon State, the Ducks should still be able to take care of the Beavers. And when Oregon travels to take on Colorado and Utah to close out the season on the road, Artis will likely be back, which will be crucial.
4. Barring an unexpected Pac-12 Tournament championship, Larry Krystkowiak and Utah know the season is close to an end; as a result, the head coach is planning on extending his playing rotation for the final four games of the season. Standout players Jason Washburn and Jordan Loveridge will most likely see less time while freshman Dakarai Tucker is in line to get more minutes. Tucker had eight points in the each of the past two games against Arizona and Colorado and has put forth a strong defensive effort in practice and will be rewarded.
5. After surprisingly winning seven of its past eight games in the Pac-12 with notable road wins over Arizona and Oregon, Cal is now another team in serious contention for the Pac-12 title, only one game out of first place. With two weeks left in conference play, there are still so many ways this race could pan out, but if Cal wants to finish at the top they’re going to need some help. As far as this week goes, the Bears need Arizona State and USC to beat UCLA and Arizona, respectively, and take care of their own business by beating Utah and Colorado in Berkeley. It won’t be easy though as Colorado needs every win it can get to secure a possible at-large bid, but if the Bears can get through this week unscathed, they’ll be one more step closer to an unexpected Pac-12 title.

With only three weeks remaining, Adam continues to edge out the rest of us. Last week was rough on all of us, thanks to Stanford choking away what we thought would be easy home wins against the LA schools. I was the only one to correctly pick California’s home win over the Bruins, but I was also the only one to miss Oregon State’s road upset of Washington State. That seems to be the trend in the past few weeks, as all the parity in the conference is taking away any opportunities to make a comeback. In our games of the week, Colorado ran by Arizona on Thursday, while Georgetown went on the road and knocked off Cincinnati. So now, we enter the home stretch. California’s visit to Oregon and Georgetown’s meeting with Syracuse headline the list as our games of the week.

The biggest differences in opinion this week come in California’s visit to Oregon State. Adam and I took the home Beavers for the upset, while Drew and Parker took California. I was the only one to take both road teams in our games of the week, opting for the Golden Bears to rally and upset the still Dominic Artis-less Ducks and for Georgetown to get another big win at the Carrier Dome. I also differed in a couple other games, taking the Beavers to defeat Stanford on Thursday and the Trojans to complete their sweep of UCLA on Sunday.

With the end of the semester in sight, some students are making big strides while others continue to underachieve. This week Professor Pac has a couple of A’s to hand out, while the rest of the conference is bunched together in the B’s and C’s this week. Check back later today for seven different C- performers.

Oregon – A

Still without Dominic Artis, the Ducks reaffirmed the fact that they belong among the teams at the top of the conference by going on the road and taking care of both Washington schools this week. It wasn’t always easy and it wasn’t always pretty, but with five games remaining on their schedule, including the next three at home, the Ducks not only have a one-game lead, but they also have wins over the two teams a game back of them, making it, in effect, a one-and-a-half game lead.

Focus on: Damyean Dotson. When the Ducks lost three games in a row, the easy explanation was that they missed Dominic Artis. While that is certainly true, it is also worth noting that Artis’ freshman backcourt mate hit a slide at the same time as well. In the first four games without Artis, a stretch that included those three losses, Dotson averaged 7.3 points per game and wasn’t even finding any good shots. In conference play, Dotson has only failed to put up 10 or more field goal attempts just five times, and four of those five occasions came in the first four games without Artis. But, over the course of the three-game winning streak, Dotson has regained his mojo, averaging 15 points per game and 13 field goal attempts per night. Certainly part of the reason for Dotson’s slide was the absence of Artis, but don’t forget the fact that Dotson may be just as important to Oregon’s long-term goals as Artis is.

Looking ahead: The Ducks host the Bay Area schools, beginning with the suddenly hot Cal Bears on Thursday night, but also including Stanford on Saturday. That game will be noteworthy because just a few weeks back, Oregon went into Stanford with a 7-0 conference record and got absolutely drilled, losing by 24 to the Cardinal. Oh, and the weekly Artis watch? Still no word as to his status for this weekend.

After Struggling In His First Games Without Dominic Artis, Damyean Dotson Has Regained His Form of Late (Photo by Rockne Andrew Roll)

California – A

All of a sudden, the Golden Bears, once a team that looked like a lock for a lower division finish, have won three in a row, and five of its last six, including wins over Oregon, Arizona, and UCLA. Read the rest of this entry »

Exactly 26 days from now, brackets for the NCAA Tournament, NIT, and CBI will be revealed on Selection Sunday. In this piece, we’ll put together where each Pac-12 team fits into the picture as of today. To see last week’s projections, click here.

*Conference Champ

Definitely Dancing: Despite their recent struggles, both Arizona and Oregon remain locks at this point. I have the Wildcats a tad lower on the S-curve than most prognosticators, but they get to go to either Salt Lake City or San Jose instead of being shipped back east. Nothing is very special about their first round opponent, Stony Brook. The Seawolves, who I project to win the America East, currently sit at 19-6 and have notable seven- and one-point losses in games at Maryland and Seton Hall, respectively. Oregon cannot do anything to play itself out of the field of 68 thanks to its road sweep of the Washington schools. The Ducks have a great shot at winning the regular season championship, as they are already a full game up on UCLA and don’t play a team currently in the upper third of the league from here on out. Being the lowest #5 seed on the board, Dana Altman’s squad gets Virginia, the top #12 seed, in their NCAA opener. The Wahoos have won seven of their last nine and are rising on mock brackets everywhere pretty quickly.

Read the rest of this entry »