Last week it was all about negativity, as we dwelled on the biggest disappointments in the Pac-12 this year. This week, with the holiday season in full swing, it’s all about happiness and light, as well discuss the year’s biggest surprises.

“Which team, player, or other entity, has been the biggest surprise thus far this year?”

Andrew Murawa: Everybody loves to see a kid succeed against the odds, and I’m certainly no different in that respect, which is why Stanford’s Andy Brown has been one of the highlights of the season for me. After three torn ACLs in his left knee over the course of three seasons, there was very little chance that Brown would ever make a significant contribution on the basketball court for the Cardinal. Through no fault of his own, I’d certainly written him off. But this season, he has been Johnny Dawkins’ most consistent contributor off the bench. He’s played in all but one game and averaged better than 20 minutes per night when out there, including better than 20 in each of the last six games. He’s shown a nice three-point stroke, a great ability to poke a ball lose every now and then and a hustle and savvy that any ball club could use. And, best of all, he’s shown no ill effects from his previous injuries out there. Watching the kind of season that Brown is having in what is technically his senior year (academically at least, he can probably play a couple more seasons for Dawkins if he so desires) is not only the biggest surprise in the conference, it is also exactly the kind of thing that keeps me coming back to college athletics.

Andy Brown’s Return From Three ACL Tears Has Been One Of the Pac-12’s Nicest Surprises (AP Photo)

Adam Butler: There have been some surprises this year to be certain. In answering this BQ I’m quick to hat tip the State of Oregon, Jordan Adams, and the Utes. Each of these entities has exceeded early expectations – if we even bothered to have any in Utah’s case – and should be commended for such. However, the biggest surprise thus far, to me, has been the progress of ASU’s Jordan Bachynski. The big man has nearly doubled his rebounding and scoring numbers from a season ago and, most impressively, has been swatting shots away at an alarming rate; 17.6% to be exact (4.6 per game), good for fourth in the nation. His triple double (13 points, 12 boards, 12 blocks) was the first in the conference since 2007 and the first ever at ASU. He’s an integral piece to the Sun Devils’ surprising 9-2 start. We were pretty aware of what Jahii Carson and Carrick Felix were going to bring to this team. We even had a clue what Evan Gordon could deliver. But really for this squad to improve on their 10-win 2011-12, they were going to need to see some improvement from the existing pieces of this roster. They’ve received such from Bachynski and Jonathan Gilling. While ASU hasn’t quite been challenged yet and flopped in their biggest test to date (DePaul), any time you’re getting this kind of production out of a seven-foot-two-inch man, things tend to go surprisingly well.

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1. Yesterday was Monday, meaning a pair of new polls were released to lift fans from their post-weekend doldrums. Arizona was of course the highlight for Pac-12 fans, coming in at number four in the AP and fifth in the coaches poll. The argument could be made that there were four Mountain West teams better than the top Pac-12 team at most points in 2011-12, so that shows you just how far the top-tier of our conference has come in a year. The Wildcats are one of just seven undefeated teams ranked in the Top 25. The only other team without a loss is Wyoming, who comes in at #29 in the AP and #30 in the coaches.
2. Washington State coach Ken Bone has reinstated sophomore guard Brett Kingma following a possession of marijuana arrest and subsequent suspension in late October. The Cougars could certainly use some assistance from Kingma, as DaVonte Lacy has been the only reliable scorer in the Coug backcourt. Kingma was a freshman at Oregon in the 2011-12 season, but transferred within the conference after playing just 9.8 MPG that season. He was arrested in the middle of preseason camp on possession of “several grams” of marijuana, as well as exhibiting the effects of consuming alcohol in a public place.
3. After taking a 10-day break for Finals, Utah will return to the court tonight to face SMU. Head coach Larry Krystowiak and the Utes focused on a few different items during the layoff, with an emphasis coming in taking care of the ball and rebounding. They’ve turned the ball over at a clip of 14.4 miscues per game, including 17 in their odd, previous meeting with the Mustangs. SMU dropped Utah by a score of 62-55 in that one, but Krystowiak and company will have a chance to avenge the loss in a conference play-like second game of a home-and-home.
4. UCLA got a nice surprise on Monday morning when former Bruin great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar spoke to the team during its shootaround. Coach Ben Howland asked the all-time scoring leader in the NBA to speak to the team after taping an interview for a local news program. The current Bruins exclaimed that it was an “eye-opening experience” and a clear reminder of the legacy the UCLA program holds. The Bruins, who have started the season a disappointing 7-3, host Long Beach State tonight.
5. It may seem silly to think about for a team ranked as high as Arizona is, but Pac-12 fans always seem to cringe nowadays when a trap game arrives on the schedule. The Wildcats are doing the best to avoid that situation, quickly getting back to business to prepare for tonight’s meeting with Oral Roberts. The game comes sandwiched in between last Saturday’s thriller against Florida and a trip to Honolulu for the Diamond Head Classic, where the Cats could face a pair of high-profile teams in Miami (FL) and San Diego State. But first up are the Golden Eagles, a team that won 27 games a year ago. As the article points out, ORU faces its own challenges preparing for the match-up, having to shake off both mental and physical rust that comes from not playing a game in nearly two weeks.

1. Following this first weekend where the college basketball didn’t pale in comparison to the college football schedule, we start our week not recounting some of the action on the court, but rather action on a picket line. On Saturday, The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (now there’s a phrase I never expected to type out for the Pac-12 Morning Five) declared a strike against the Pac-12 Network and set up picket lines at USC, Arizona State, Oregon State, Oregon and Washington for those days’ games. The IATSE complaint centers on the fact that the Pac-12 Network has, in some markets, used non-union crews, and that employees on those crews don’t receive the benefits that union employees receive, such as higher wages, benefits and other protections. The Pac-12 issued a statement in response saying that it “respects an individual’s right to decide whether to be represented by a union” and not a whole lot else. Coupled with the conference’s impasse with DirecTV over carriage of their network, this is another bump in the road for the fledgling network. But, I gotta admit, the Pac-12 Networks are really cool. Just for instance, on Saturday you could have turned on the Pac-12 at 11 AM for Cal State Northridge and Arizona State and watched basketball straight through until the USC/Minnesota game wrapped up around 9:30 PM. And, something similar is on tap for next week.
2. On to actual on-court action, brave basketball fans who showed up at Reliant Stadium for UCLA and Texas may have reason to go on strike against the sport after the two huge programs put on a horrendous display of basketball in front of a largely empty stadium. As Jeff Eisenberg of Yahoo! Sports writes, the game may have set the record for most empty seats at a basketball game. The game was played at the home of the NFL’s Houston Texans and was capable of fitting some 43,000 fans. Let’s just say that the announced attendance (which was apparently an imaginary figure) missed that mark by somewhere in the neighborhood of 40,000 people. Why this game was scheduled at that location, I’ll never be sure. There was certainly no chance in hell that, even if UCLA had been playing well, the Bruins were going to bring any significant number of fans to Houston. And Texas, well, you guys know you do have a perfectly good Erwin Center that, even with its 16,000-some capacity would likely not have been filled for this game. As for the game itself, well, let’s just say Texas missed two point-blank layups on breakaways and neither of those likely qualify as the low point in this game.
3. From one monstrosity to another, for those of you who maybe thought that Washington getting back the services of Scott Suggs and Shawn Kemp Jr. would help turn this team’s season around, consider Saturday night’s loss at home to Nevada the cold water to the face to dissuade you of that illusion. The Huskies have now lost three home games to increasingly bad competition and, while Lorenzo Romar isn’t about to let his team give up, this looks to be headed to a lost season that will put 2007-08’s 16-17 campaign to shame. There were some extenuating circumstances Saturday night, as Abdul Gaddy was abused regularly by Nevada’s Deonte Burton early in the game and picked up three early fouls on a night when Andrew Andrews was out with injury, leaving the Huskies without a true point guard for 10 minutes, but that’s mere explanation rather than excuse. The schedule eases up significantly between here and a December 29 date with Connecticut, but this group is far away from congealing into a quality basketball team.
4. After knocking off Boise State last week, Utah had a great chance on Saturday night to not only exceed last year’s win total, but also knock off in-state rival BYU to seal up a phenomenal week for the program. At the under-eight timeout, the Utes had a six-point lead, the Marriott Center was quiet and Utah looked to have the Cougars right where they wanted them. But then a pair of Matt Carlino threes and a Craig Cusick three as a chaser brought things back to reality. The Utes wound up scoring just one field goal in the game’s last 11 minutes, turned the ball over seven times and let a very winnable game slip away. But if you take a step back and look at the season as a whole, especially in contrast with last year, it is clear that progress is being made.
5. Around the college basketball world, we’re into the dreaded time known as Finals Week, where the number of watchable games dwindles to a trickle. But, in the state of Oregon, both Pac-12 schools have wrapped up their exams and are ready to focus on basketball. Oregon’s finals were last week and they celebrated their first day of winter break with a demolition of Idaho State. But, rather than pick up on a whirlwind of cross-country travel in search of games, the Ducks will hunker down for a week, try to clean up some of the mistakes that Dana Altman has seen and prepare for next Saturday’s game against Nebraska. Meanwhile, Oregon State is on slightly different schedule. Having wrapped up their finals, the Beavers crushed Grambling State on Saturday in a game that was drastically different than its first game back from finals last year. But up next for OSU, rather than spend a week practicing in Corvallis, they’ll head up north to face Portland State on Wednesday night.

Last Thursday, you may have remembered our Pac-12 Hoops Pick’Em that got underway in our M5. We’re back at it again this week, this time with a full post to go over the results from last week and to look ahead as well. Parker and I stole the show in week one, going a solid 11-2 to take a one-game advantage over Drew and Adam. I was the only one to miss Utah’s road win at Texas State on Friday night, but I came back to the field with Wyoming’s upset of Colorado. Parker and I took the lead thanks to San Diego State’s win over UCLA on Saturday at the Honda Center. So now, we enter week two. Colorado’s visit to Kansas and Illinois visiting Gonzaga headline the list as our games of the week.

The only difference between the two leaders this week comes in The Showcase at Houston, where I was the only one to take the home-state Longhorns. Drew was the only one to take the visiting Fighting Illini against the Zags, and he was also the only one to pick USC with a home upset over Minnesota. Three of the four of us took Fresno State getting a road win in Pullman, with Adam going with the safe pick in the Cougars. The final game of the week, featuring #21 UNLV visiting Berkeley, was split between the prognosticators.

1. Gonzaga’s last second win over Washington State on Wednesday night goes down as one of the best games of the young season so far, and while Ken Bone and the Cougars aren’t big on the concept of the moral victory against a bitter rival, there are some good things they can take away from that game. First and foremost, their stars stepped up in a big way. Brock Motum and DaVonte Lacy combined for five threes in a four-and-a-half minute stretch to bring the Cougs back from an 11-point deficit to tie the game and set up the final scramble. And if WSU has any plans to turn around a slow start to the year, it will need to be on the backs of those two. The other big thing is that, while this team will be without a traditional point guard the whole year, Bone seems to have cobbled together a workable solution. Mike Ladd seems to do most of the play-making in the halfcourt set, but guys like Royce Woolridge, Dexter Kernich-Drew and Lacy have all pitched in and assembled a good point-guard-by-committee group that is doing an excellent job limiting turnovers and getting WSU into their sets. It was bumpy at the start of the year, but the Gonzaga loss proved to me, at least, that the situation is workable.
2. Meanwhile, Utah, another team expected to finish near the bottom of the conference, was able to come up with its best performance of the year in blowing out Boise State. On a night when the Utes honored former head coach Rick Majerus prior to the game, Utah center Jason Washburn said “we felt like Coach Majerus was with us all night; he was right on the bench with us, smiling down.”  Washburn went 6-of-6 from the field to pace an incredibly hot shooting night for the Utes, in which they shot a ridiculous 78.8% eFG. Block U calls the win the best by the program in the last four years, and, although I could nitpick, it is being taken as a sign by the Ute faithful that Larry Krystkowiak has got this ship headed in the right direction.
3. We’ve talked a lot about Mark Lyons over the last few days, and Mike DeCourcy of the Sporting News has his own take on his transition to the point, which includes the unconvincing argument of “hey, they’re beating a lot of bad teams by a lot of points!” But, DeCourcy does make the point that Lyons is never really the sole ballhandler on the floor for Arizona and that Sean Miller is quite pleased with Lyons’ production. I would maybe go even one step further and say that, while Lyons is the closest thing to a point guard on the team, very rarely is he tasked with being the initiator of the halfcourt offense, a role that just as often falls to either Solomon Hill or Nick Johnson. Lyons may spend a bit more time with the ball in his hands this year than he did last year playing with Tu Holloway at Xavier, but really, Miller hasn’t exactly tried to rebuild Lyons from the ground up.
4. Even with UCLA’s struggles out of the gate, Shabazz Muhammad still thinks his team is going to make an impact in the Pac-12 this season, even if it has been relegated to sleeper status by their early losses. He told the Petros and Money show on Fox Radio on Wednesday how he feels about the rest of the season. But, the big takeaway from Muhammad’s comments (other than the overwhelming use of the word “really”) may be that Ben Howland has “become a players’ coach.” Muhammad ties that comment to the change that encourages the team to get out in transition more, and it is true that UCLA’s averaging about three more possessions per game this year than last, but certainly Howland is still trying to figure out the sweet spots on both ends of the floor for this team.
5. Another team that has earned the title “sleeper team” in the Pac-12 is Oregon, off to a 7-1 start behind the production of an all-freshman backcourt of Dominic Artis and Damyean Dotson. While senior leader E.J. Singler is quick to praise his younger players, Dana Altman, ever the coach, sees the need for better consistency and better shot selection out of the backcourt duo. Still, he sees them as key cogs in the long-term plans for the Ducks. And, an already deep and talented team expects to get even deeper and more talented, when freshman Arik Armstead is expected to join the team in January. Armstead, a defensive tackle for the Ducks football team, won’t join the team until after Oregon’s appearance in the Fiesta Bowl (January 3 against Kansas State) and it’ll take some time for him to get into basketball shape and learn the ins and outs of the teams’ sets, but he’s been spending a bit of time working with team managers. Just how much of an impact he’ll have is unknown, especially with a now deep Ducks big man rotation, but you can never have too much talent, can you?

Chris Johnson is an RTC columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

Tonight’s Lede. A Reminder Of College Basketball’s Lesser-Touted Rivalries. When you think college basketball rivalries, you think Duke-Carolina or Kentucky-Louisville. You think about infectiously enthusiastic student sections and fight songs and longstanding grievances. Wednesday night ran the gamut on college hoops rivalries, from the bloodletting knockout that took place on Florida State’s home floor, to the grossly underrated but cancelled BYU-Utah State clash in Provo, to Colorado’s nascent feud between the Buffaloes and Rams. Three different games, all of different styles and talent levels, each with its own unique outcome. Nothing comes close to the Commonwealth’s rivalry or the famed Tobacco Road clash, but Wednesday night provided a diverse selection of some of the nation’s lesser-known tussles. These games often get swept under the rug in the face of more storied fixtures between blueblood programs. I get that. Rivalries mean different things to different segments of the college basketball-watching public. Let this be a plea for greater and more careful analysis of the lesser known hatefests. Disillusioned by Wednesday night’s events though you may be, give these rivalry games a few minutes of your TV allotment. You won’t be disappointed.

Your Watercooler Moment. Florida’s Good and All, But What Happened To The Seminoles? 

The Seminoles are reeling after this latest blitzing in Tallahassee (Photo credit: Getty Images).

The key to unlocking Florida State’s typically suffocating defense is not difficult to discover. No one’s getting worked up about preparing for the Seminoles’ relentless pressure, or their ability to turn you over, or disrupt your offensive flow. That’s a safe conclusion to make following the Seminoles’ most embarrassing result yet in a long line of disappointing outcomes to open the season. Rival Florida handed Florida State its fourth home loss, and did so with a punctuating 25-point margin of defeat, just three days after losing at home to Mercer and eight days after Minnesota’s win at the Tucker Center. I could go on about how incredibly dominant Florida looked, how well the Gators defended, how the ability to sustain tonight’s complete effort over any extended context precludes but the slightest challenge from a Kentucky, Missouri or whoever else wants to emerge from the muck of mediocrity in the SEC to challenge the Gators for a league crown. I’m more concerned with Florida State, because the Seminoles are no longer the most perplexing team in the country. They’ve long retired that label. I’m starting to wonder whether Leonard Hamilton’s team simply isn’t what it was billed to be. Not only are the Seminoles not defending – after ranking first nationally in defensive efficiency in 2010 and 2011, the Seminoles have dropped to 80^th in that category – they’re not scoring efficiently enough (their 107.1 offensive rating ranks 54^th in the country) to offset their aberrant ball-stopping tendencies. The Seminoles need to figure things out sooner rather than later. They’ve squandered every prime non-conference opportunity, which means they’ll need to run through ACC play with minimal hiccups in order to secure an NCAA Tournament berth and continue their recent curve of success under Hamilton.

Video of the night. Many were quick to praise the Gators after their evisceration of the Seminoles in Tallahassee. Florida has every right to be excited — not only about Wednesday night’s comprehensive beatdown but also their place in the national landscape.

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1. Tonight, prior to its game against Boise State, Utah will pause to commemorate the life of former head coach Rick Majerus, who died on Saturday night of heart failure. The university will observe a moment of silence, then they’ll show a video in the Huntsman Center celebrating Majerus’ time in Utah and the team will wear black patches on their uniforms for the remainder of the season. Later in the year, they’ll raise a replica of the white sweater that Majerus wore during his time there. The athletic department had tried to work out a time to have a ceremony for Majerus last season, while he was still a head coach at Saint Louis, but the two parties could never find a suitable time. Lastly, while there have been a lot of great remembrances of the coaching legend in recent days, it goes without saying that Utah fans, where Majerus enjoyed his greatest success, had a good perspective on the man, and Block U in particular laid down another in a long line of touching tributes.
2. And speaking of the game against Boise State, that contest kicks off a big week for Utah, as they’ll also travel to face BYU on Saturday. Both games mark significant upgrades in terms of competition for the Utes, and they represent the clear high water mark of the non-conference schedule. Ken Pomeroy gives Utah a 17% chance of knocking off the Broncos and an 8% chance of winning in Provo, but more important to the program may not be the focus on earning any Ws this week, but playing up to their potential and showing improvement from last week’s split of a two-game road-trip to Texas to face SMU (a seven-point loss) and Texas State (a five-point win).
3. On Monday, we handed out our Pac-12 Player of the Week award to C.J. Wilcox of Washington, but the official POTW award went to Arizona State’s Carrick Felix, who averaged 21 points, nine boards, nearly five assists and a couple of blocks in a pair of wins for the Sun Devils. He was the first ASU player to earn the honor since Ty Abbott won it in March 2011. After a bumpy first couple of seasons in Tempe marked by great athleticism but poor shooting, Felix has dialed in his long-range jumper in a big way this season, hitting nearly two threes a game at a 44.4% clip. As Doug Haller reports, head coach Herb Sendek attributes Felix’s improvement to perseverance and “habits of excellence” as well as understanding his strengths and being comfortable with who he is on the basketball court. Throw in the fact that Felix, a senior now, is surrounded by the most talent he’s seen in his time at ASU and there’s a good chance this run at the start of the year is not just a fluke, but the new normal.
4. Washington has been without the services of Scott Suggs since before Thanksgiving, and they’ve been without Shawn Kemp Jr. for the entire year. But, both are nearing their returns, and if they can get through practices on Thursday and Friday without any adverse affects (a big if), they will be ready to play on Saturday against Nevada. Kemp tore a patellar tendon in his right knee back in October, and even if he is available for Saturday’s game, it will likely be for limited minutes. Suggs, who has been struggling with plantar fasciitis, is a better bet to play on Saturday, but head coach Lorenzo Romar warns that Suggs’ injury is one that could linger throughout the season.
5. Finally, Scott Gleeson of the USA Today asked the question yesterday, is the Mountain West better than the Pac-12? Gleeson came up with the right answer, which is, “of course!” And he could have gone a step further with, “and it has been for at least three years now.” But despite three MW teams in the Top 25 compared to just one for the Pac-12 and a current 4-2 advantage on the season, we’ll get a clearer answer to the question this week as we’ll see five different match-ups between the two conferences. We already mentioned the Utah/Boise State game tonight, but there are a pair of other contests between the conferences tonight, as Colorado State visits Colorado and USC visits New Mexico. Then, over the weekend, we’ll see a couple more games, with Nevada traveling to Washington on Saturday and UNLV visiting California. And, there will be at least three other match-ups (and potentially a San Diego State/Arizona Christmas present in the championship game of the Diamond Head Classic) between the conferences prior to the start of 2013, giving a large enough sample to declare a winner in the unofficial Pac-12/Mountain West Challenge. My guess on the final tally? The Pac-12 finishes strong and pulls out a 9-6 record in the long run, with Colorado getting back on track tonight against Colorado State and California scoring a key win over UNLV on Sunday.

While this past week may not have returned the types of results that should cause anybody to generate newfound confidence in the Pac-12’s ability to have multiple teams play a big part in the national picture, we’ve still found some jewels around the conference to recognize for their efforts over the past seven days.

Team of the Week – Arizona

It was admittedly not a sparkling week for the Pac-12. And as such, we wind up handing out our highest honor to an Arizona team whose biggest accomplishment was going into Lubbock and knocking off a Texas Tech team that is on the short list for this year’s “Worst Major Conference Team” award. Still, it goes down as a week in which the Wildcats played two games against two teams they were supposed to kill… and did. Wins over Northern Arizona and the Red Raiders this week were by an average of 35.5 points per game. And while Sean Miller’s club has yet to play anybody of any great significance, at least the ‘Cats deserve credit for their overall lack of drama thus far.

C.J. Wilcox Handled The Scoring Load For Washington This Week As The Huskies Got Back On Track With Consecutive Wins

Player of the Week – C.J. Wilcox, Washington

After a pair of losses to quality teams, the Huskies needed to bounce back in a big way, and Wilcox helped make sure that happened this week by averaging 24 points, 3.5 boards and a couple assists per game as UW knocked off a tough Saint Louis team midweek before inching past Cal State Fullerton last night. Against CSUF, it was Wilcox who provided the final two-point margin, knocking down a pair of free throws in the waning moments of the game to complete the Huskies’ successful comeback from a 14-point halftime deficit.

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Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

The stylistic permissiveness of college basketball is one of its best qualities. Unlike the professional game, talent does not always trump tactical wisdom. Athleticism and depth advantages are often negated by disciplined defense and judicious offense. Contrary to what last year’s Kentucky might lead you to believe, you don’t always need the very best players to win. What you need is simple: a comprehensive knowledge of offensive and defensive principles; a brazen disregard for the formalities of coaching etiquette, and an undying thirst to live, breathe and absorb every last bit of college basketball information into your memory. Just ask Rick Majerus.

Few coaches impacted the college game like Majerus did (Photo credit: Getty Images).

When I heard that Majerus, 64, had passed away after a long and well-documented struggle with heart problems – problems that caused him to take a leave absence from St. Louis prior to this season and announce his resignation from the Billiken program weeks after the word – I grieved the loss of not only one of the most entertaining sideline bosses of my sports-watching childhood, but of the greatest technical wizard I have ever seen coach a college basketball game.

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