Week 8 Pac 10 Wrap: Dubs Edition

Fig Jam

Hard to focus on Pac 10 basketball right now with the Lobestaal mania that has swept… well basically just this site and other blogs where Husky and Cougar fans like to fight about stuff.  But I’ll do my best to break down what happened in the world of hoops this past week.

Big Winner(s): UW and ASU 

Washington:  The Huskies are big winners in week 8 simply because of the fact that they got through the LA trip (with a little help from their friends/mortal enemies) in sole possession of first place in the conference.  Granted it’s only a 1/2 game lead because ASU has played one less game than UW, but nonetheless, to escape  that road trip with a split and to have UCLA and Cal both suffer a bad losses to WSU and OSU was about as good as UW could have hoped for. 

I suppose you could also peg UW as a big winner this week for the manner in which it beat USC.  The Trojans were fighting for their NCAA tournament lives and desperately needed a resume building win against a ranked opponent.  UW beat USC however, and sent the Trojans into meltdown mode after the game.  More impressive is that the Huskies won despite minimal output from guards Justin Dentmon and Isaiah Thomas.  The emergence of Quincy Pondexter for UW continues to make the Huskies a team that can beat you in any number of ways.  Inside UW has Jon Brockman (and on occasion MBA), outside Dentmon and Thomas have been virtually unstoppable,  and now QPon is providing incredible play at the 3 spot.  His contribution has really created an incredibly balanced team.

Final note on UW:  good teams win games in which they don’t necessarily play their best, but still find a way to get it done.   The Huskies have done that several times this season and completed their conference road trips without having been swept by anyone.  Overall, the dawgs were 6-3 on the road against Pac 10 opponents.  Going into the season, basically any coach in the conference (maybe even Ben Howland) would take that record if it was offered.

ASU:  Another squad that benefitted from UCLA and Cal’s losses, ASU stepped up and won a huge game against the red hot Arizona Wildcats on Sunday.  The Sun Devils continue to get contributions from their supporting players who have helped reduce the strain on James Harden to carry the team.  With Glasser and Abbott shooting better, Pendergraft stepping up in the block, and the entire team doing a better job on defense, Harden gets a little more room to operate and can be that much more effective at creating scoring opportunities for himself and others out on the floor (he is an incredibly unselfish player).  

With the win, ASU finds itself only a 1/2 game back of UW for first place in the conference, with a huge game looming on Thursday as the Sun Devils head to Seattle.  Even though it’s a tough road game, ASU still controls it’s own destiny in the conference and can come out of week 9 in a position to win an outright conference championship (regular season).  It will be tough, but ASU has played great basketball since losing to UW in Tempe a few weeks ago.  Since that loss, the Sun Devils have rattled off 5 straight victories and all but guaranteed themselves a spot in the NCAA tournament in March.

Big Loser(s): UCLA and USC

UCLA:  After travelling to Pauley Pavillion on Thursday and watching UCLA beat Washington, I had a few observations about this Bruins team. 

1.  They really are in trouble with their interior players. 

2.  Although the Bruins handled the Huskies fairly easily in the game, a majority of UCLA’s points seem to come from solid perimeter shooting.  Sitting next to a UCLA fan, I struck up a conversation and at one point he observed, “if we keep shooting like this, there’s just no way we lose.”  As simple as that sounds, he was right.  UCLA won that game by making perimeter buckets and when a team is hot from the outside, they aren’t likely to lose.  I conceded the point at the time and he ended up being right.  The only concern, which we went on to discuss, was what happens if UCLA isn’t shooting great from outside.  The answer appears to be that they lose.  I’m not sure how great this Bruin team is at coming up with “scrappy” victories. 

3.  Pauley Pavillion is pretty cool, even though it’s antiquated.  They literally have NCAA championship banners lining the rafters.  Unreal.

Allright, well, back to why UCLA is a big loser this week.  Basically because they lost to WSU after they beat UW.  Following thursday’s victory over the Huskies, UCLA was absolutely in a position to win out in conference play, with a worst case scenario being that ASU would also win out and win the tie-breaker for the regular season champion.  Had that happened, UCLA would have found themselves with a nice seed in the NCAA tournament and had a great deal of momentum heading into March.  Instead, UCLA let Taylor Rochestie come into Pauley and hand the Bruins a really bad loss.  A loss that drops UCLA into a tie for third place in the conference and a loss that reduces the Bruins chances of a conference title.  It is mind boggling that after the terrible Arizona trip that UCLA had, that they would let a well coached but undermanned Cougar team come into Pauley and get a win.  Now the Bruins have lost 3 of 4 and are in danger of falling out of the rankings altogether if they suffer any more slip ups down the stretch.  Not a good spot to be in this close to Tourney time.

USC:  While the Bruins were busy losing to Washington State on Saturday, the Trojans were suffering an epic meltdown against the Huskies.  First, losing an ugly game 60-51, and then having guards Dwight Lewis and Daniel Hackett get into a physical altercation in a hallway in the Galen center.  There has been a lot made of this so I won’t waste a lot of time talking about how bad it is to have 2 teammates actually fighting one another, but the end result from the weekend was 6th place in the Pac 10 conference with a 7-7 record.  That’s not going to get it done. 

The Trojans now must go 4-0 in their remaining games to really put themselves safely into the NCAA tourney discussion.  11-7 would probably get it done because it would mean that USC (who currently sits with an overall record of 16-10) would get to the 20 win barrier.   It would also mean that USC would have swept California, which figures to be the other Pac 10 team sitting squarely on the bubble come selection sunday. 

The bottom line is that USC’s only good wins this season are against ASU, Arizona, and Cal. They have zero nonconference wins that are meaningful and thus they must rely on their Pac 10 performance to justify their inclusion in the big dance.  Sitting at 7-7 with games against the NorCal schools and the Oregon schools means that USC will have an opportunity to get a few more W’s, but they can’t afford to lose one more game. 

Biggest Surprise: WSU’s win at Pauley Pavillion

WSU is not as talented as UCLA.  I don’t think anyone would argue that.  Also, WSU is not really in any post season tournament discussions at the moment.  On saturday when they arrived at UCLA, the Cougs were 5-9 in conference play.  Add to that the fact that UCLA had just snapped at 2 game losing skid by beating UW on Thursday and reclaimed a share of the Pac 10 conference lead and most people would conclude that the Bruins would just run over the Cougars.  Not so.

The Cougars were led by Taylor Rochestie who blew up for 33 points, but they also got solid outings from Caleb Forrest (12 points), Aron Baynes (13 points) and Klay Thompson (15 points).  Overall, however, it was a surprise to me that UCLA allowed WSU to come in and just will themselves to a victory.  The Bruins were more talented, had more on the line, and were the home team in that game.  They shouldn’t have lost.  Hats off to the Cougars for going into Pauley and taking one from the vaunted Bruins.

Player of the Week: Taylor Rochestie, WSU

33 points in the big win over UCLA, including 10-10 from the free throw line.  Those free throws were pretty important considering the Cougs won the game by 1 point.   Rochestie also had 16 points in WSU’s loss to USC, but the obvious reason for the award is the ridiculous performance against UCLA. 

Standings: