Week 7 Pac 10 Hoops Wrap: The Desert Debacle

Fig Jam

So, I was pretty excited about this weekend in Pac 10 hoops because I was fairly confident that UW was going to get a couple of wins and I was also pretty sure that the Arizona schools were going to get dinged up a little bit with the LA schools in town, creating a cluster in the middle of the conference with a bunch of teams mired together with 5 and 6 losses.  I was wrong.  Not about UW, they beat the ever loving shit out of Oregon and handled Oregon State as well, but about the LA schools, who had themselves a tough time down in the desert.  It’s officially panic mode time for USC.

Biggest Winner(s):  Arizona Schools

Arizona.  Sometimes, I hate being right.  All season long I’ve been saying stuff like, “Arizona has the talent,” and “If the Wildcats can figure things out, they will be dangerous.”  All this was in the context of a really bad start to the Pac 10 season for Zona, and it was basically just a way for me to cover myself on the off chance that they had a miraculous comeback, but now it has come to fruition.   They have realized how talented they are, have figured things out, and are now officially really dangerous.  Winners of seven in a row the Wildcats cruised to victories over USC and UCLA this week.   With Hill, Budinger, and Wise leading them,  the Wildcats can legitimately beat any team in the country on any given night. 

Plus it appears that Arizona offers some classes that are held in the pool, as illustrated here by UA alum Amanda Beard.  That is awesome.  Big winners.

Arizona State.  Finishing the off the season sweep of UCLA this weekend, the Sun Devils basically punched their ticket to the NCAA tournament.  They sit in second place in the Pac 10 and get Arizona at home next week before heading to Washington to take on UW and WSU in 2 weeks.  Their win on Sunday over USC came against a Trojan team that was in desperation mode and  pushed USC to 6 losses in the conference. 

The Sun Devils still rely heavily on James Hardin to make things happen for them, but with improved play from role players such as Ty Abbot, Derek Glasser, and Jemelle McMillian (who combined for 38 points against USC), ASU has proved that they can beat anyone in the conference. Realistically however, they need their role players to continue to improve if they want to get anywhere in March.  Teams are going to sell out to take away Hardin and Pendergraph.  If Glasser, McMillian and Abbott can provide 25-35 points a night collectively, the Sun Devils should be in most games until the end.

Biggest Loser(s): LA Schools

UCLA.  Remeber how sweet last week was Bruins fans?  Remember how much fun it was clocking the Trojans?  How much you enjoyed taking Notre Dame out behind the woodshed (in a historically lopsided loss for the Irish)?  Well, that’s all gone now.  Welcome to life on the other side of things.  This past week for UCLA genuinely surprised me.  With the way they played against USC and Notre Dame I assumed that Howland had his team firing on all cylinders for the stretch run in the conference.  I figured they would go down to Arizona and at worst get a split.  Maybe losing a game in Tucson if Arizona played lights out.  It never crossed my mind that they would go and lose to ASU and then get run out of the gym by Arizona.  But that’s what happened. 

UCLA’s lack of a genuine interior presence is turning out to be a big problem.  Arizona’s Jordan Hill had 22 points and 13 rebounds, and ASU’s Jeff Pendergraph and Rihard Kuksiks (who is that?) combined for 28 points and 13 rebounds against UCLA.  The Wildcats outrebounded the Bruins 29-24 and the Sun Devils won the battle on the boards as well, 24-18.  UCLA has actually been outrebounded in all 4 of its conference losses this season.  Howland must love that.  

The bigger problem for UCLA is that it is unclear to me who their “go to” guy is.  The obvious answer is Darren Collison because he’s the best player on the team and the point guard. The issue with that is it’s tough to ask a guy to bring the ball up the court, get the offense set up and started, and then figure out a way to be the guy who has the ball in his hands when it’s time to shoot.  UCLA is looking for an awful lot from Collison asking him to do all that.  Josh Shipp seems like he has the talent to be the guy for UCLA, but for some reason he dissapears for stretches and he has not stepped up to accept that role on the team.  Jrue Holiday and Drew Gooden are just freshmen.  So I don’t quite know who the Bruins are supposed to turn to when the going gets tough.  When things are going well and the offense is firing on all cylinders, UCLA is devastating (see generally: Notre Dame game).  But if an opponent is able to throw a wrench in UCLA’s plans and get them a little out of sorts, pandemonium kind of ensues.  Add that to the trouble they are having on the defensive interior, and UCLA has a few issues to work out. 

The Bruins are really talented and so are able to stay in most games with Collison and Shipp out there shooting the lights out, but I think these Bruins need to learn how to take a punch a little better before they are going to be considered a real danger come March.  As it stands, if you can disrupt their rhythm, you can make them appear to be awfully average, which is not something any UCLA fan is going to accept.

Bigger than Biggest Losers:  Oregon

Ho-ly shit.  Oregon is so bad it’s boring.  I kind of thought that after what happened to UW in football this past season that I would enjoy watching the Huskies come out and destroy the Ducks, but it wasn’t even that great.  The Oregon players didn’t care at all.  In the first half, in which the Huskies outscored the Ducks 49-25, the Oregon players were completely dis-interested in the whole affair.  They let UW guards Isaiah Thomas and Justin Dentmon stroll into the lane whenever they wanted to, didn’t really battle for rebounds, and generally just appeared bored with the whole scene.  Even UW’s student section seemed to take pity on them, witholding such chants as “Pac 10 doormats,” and the like. 

In the second half of the game, Oregon’s Tajuan Porter caught fire and scored 27 points, hitting an array of circus style 3 pointers.  As a team Oregon scored 59 points in the second half as the Huskies appeared to lose interest in playing any kind of defense.  Despite both of those stats I just threw at you, would you believe that Oregon STILL LOST THE GAME BY 19 POINTS!  For, while the Huskies may not have wanted to play much Defense in the second 20 minutes, they certainly didn’t mind walking down the court, making a few passes, and ultimately getting into the lane for a bucket or a trip to the free throw line.  The Dawgs themselves scored 54 points in the second frame.  In all, 4 Husky players scored 20 or more points in the game.  As a team, UW scored 103. 

Putting it simply, Oregon was not interested in playing either of its games against the Washington schools this weekend.  That much was clear by the effort they put forth.  They got creamed at WSU and then came over to Seattle to receive another beatdown.  Nobody on Oregon’s team seemed the slightest bit surprised by what was happening, or seemed to care.  The Oregon bench sat quietly for most of the game with their heads down.   Now, as a Husky fan there are few things in life I enjoy as much as killing Oregon in athletics, but I have to admit that the fact that the Ducks themselves didn’t care about the game kind of made the victory a little hollow.   Turns out, what makes a rivalry game fun is the intensity and desire by both teams not to lose to a hated opponent.  That just wasn’t there this weekend for Oregon.  Ernie Kent’s team had already quit on the season before it got to Seattle, so UW’s thrashing didn’t really seem to resonate with the coaches, players, or Duck fans that showed up at Bank of America Arena on Saturday.

Biggest Surprise:  The continuing notion that Tim Floyd is a good college coach

Everytime I watch a USC game, the TV announcers devote some time to talking about what a great coach Tim Floyd is.  This baffles me.  A few weeks ago an announcer said something to effect that Floyd was a “Either 5″ coach, meaning he could beat you with his team and then turn around and coach the opposing team in the same game and get a victory for them.   He could coach ‘either 5′ and still come out with a win.  I don’t get this.   It seems to me that Floyd is underachieving at USC in a rather epic manner. He has a long, athletic team that can’t get itself together.  Last season, he had OJ Mayo, potentially the NBA rookie of the year, and the Trojans still didn’t do that much.

It’s true that USC has had injury problems this season, and that they aren’t that deep, but I just look at the top of that team from a talent perspective and can’t figure out how they are .500 in conference play.  The Trojans have 2 legit NBA prospects on their team in Demar Derozan and Taj Gibson (2nd rounder, but still will get drafted), and 2 guys who are probably good enough to hang around the NBA discussion in Dwight Lewis and Daniel Hackett (both may end up in the D-League or overseas, but both have a future after college in basketball).   And yet somehow, they are right on the bubble for the NCAA tournament.  They are 6-6 in conference and did not pick up a big win in nonconference play to build their resume.   

Now, in looking at USC schedule its obvious that they tend to beat lesser opponents.  But they sure don’t step up and beat the good teams very often.  Their best two wins this season are against Arizona State (at USC) and against California  (again, at home for the Trojans).  If they can get UW this weekend, then they will have a 3rd “good win” but once again it will have come in LA.  My point is, that really well coached teams know how to get a win against a tough opponent.  They also steal a few games on the road (see: Cal at UW this season).  Floyd’s USC team isn’t doing that.  With 4 extremely talented players on the roster, USC has basically beat the teams that aren’t as good as them, and then won 2 nice games at home. 

And then there’s just the human himself.  The yelling, scowling, stomping, disheveled mass of sarcastic unhappiness that is Tim Floyd.  The man just comes off very poorly on the sidelines.  You want to watch a coach who is an absolute pro at working the officials, go check out Mike Montgomery.  Montgomery is smooth with his criticism, makes his points count, and manages to ride the officials from the opening whistle until the final buzzer without coming off as a jerk.  Floyd, on the other hand, is the anti-Montgomery.  Almost from the moment the game starts he is annoying.  He yells and huffs and puffs and jumps up and down and basically looks like a circus act for reasons that are hard to understand.  He is  pissed about everything.  It is unfathomable to him that anyone on his team would commit a foul, or a turnover, or somehow do something that doesn’t turn out great for his team.  He takes issue with everything.  I actually feel sorry for the official who has to run past him on every possession (and my position on Pac 10 officials is clear). 

On Sunday against ASU, Floyd went absolutely ballistic when the officials made a bad call against the Trojans late in the game.  He raced around the court, bumped into an official, pointed menacingly, and refused to leave after he had been ejected.  It was delightful to watch (unless you are a USC fan, then I think it would be embarassing).  But honestly, that display isn’t what triggered this lengthy rant.  Floyd was right in that instance because the charging call against Hackett was absurd.  Getting himself T’ed up twice and ejected wasn’t devastating because it was pretty clear that the Trojans were already going to lose.  It just seemed like his snapping point.  If that was Floyd’s only transgression then I think I’d be out of line taking issue with Floyd’s antics.  But it’s not.  That debacle was just the grand finale in what has been a season of camera shots showing Floyd on the sidelines acting like a clown.   All well and good if you are Bobby Knight and your coaching credentials are infallible.  But for Floyd, whose teams don’t seem to be winning through coaching, it is a tiresome act.  Seems to me he could spend some more time thinking about how to get better results out of a team with 2 NBA players and 2 extremely good college guys playing on it. 

Player of the Week:  Nic Wise, Arizona

This column has gotten out of control.  Let’s just point out that Wise averaged 26.5 points a game against USC and UCLA (both wins for Zona) and leave it at that.

Standings