3MW’s All Conference Team:
Player of the Year: Payton Pritchard, Sr., Oregon
Coach of the Year: Mick Cronin, UCLA
Co-Newcomer of the Year: Zeke Nnaji, Fr., Arizona / Onyeka Okongwu, Fr., USC
Co-Freshman of the Year: Zeke Nnaji, Fr., Arizona / Onyeka Okongwu, Fr., USC
Season Storylines:
Wild, Wild, Westwood: The Mad Mick experiment was on the verge of going haywire in mid-January. The Bruins stumbled out of the Pac-12 starting gates to a 1-3 record, a continuation of a nightmarish non-conference performance – I haven’t checked the archives, but I wonder how many times John Wooden lost at home to Hofstra and Cal State Fullerton…
Cronin finally found the right messaging to tap into his team’s unappreciated vault of potential, headlined by 5-star point guard prodigy Tyger Campbell, and a talented trio of forwards: Chris Smith, Cody Riley and Jalen Hill.Frontrunners Falter: Back in September, only a Great West bound meteor from outer space could’ve prevented Arizona, Colorado and Washington from slipping outside the top-4 in the Pac-12. Well, sure enough, armageddon struck Seattle in the form of point guard Quade Green’s academic ineligibility ruling, sending the Huskies into a nosedive for two straight months. Colorado and Arizona each encountered turbulence of their own every time they hit the road, unable to replicate the comfort and confidence of playing at home. The Buffs and Wildcats lost a combined 11 conference road games this year - let this serve as a friendly reminder that in the Pac-12, there’s simply no place like home.
Injury Interruptions: By New Year’s Day, Utah’s resume was bedazzled with marquee wins over Minnesota, Nevada, BYU and Kentucky. Meanwhile, Stanford entered Pac-12 play with only two redline marks on its resume – a one-point loss to Butler and a loss to Kansas – prompting preseason prognosticators to reassess their initial evaluations of the Cardinal and the Utes. It didn’t take long for the injury curse to strike, as Utah and Stanford each hobbled through conference play hampered by reoccurring injuries to key cogs. Heading into the Pac-12 tournament, Stanford is finally starting to heal, but the Utes are still snake-bitten as Rylan Jones remains sidelined with a concussion.
Basement Flooding: The water is rising quickly from the bowels of the Pac-12 standings, a predictable ascension for both Washington State and California after each school made a colossal coaching upgrade last summer. Kyle Smith and Mark Fox generated immediate returns at their respective destinations and set each program back on track toward a long-term resurrection. Between Smith’s ‘Data Raid’ and Fox’s [physical style tagline TBD], the Cougars and Bears have finally restored an identity to their respective basketball programs.
Tournament Preview
This is your standard 12-team bracket format, with the top-4 seeds receiving critical first round byes. Before Oregon’s unstoppable run last season, a top-4 seed had won the tournament for eight years in a row. Winning four games in four days is a tall task, so bet against the top-4 at your own peril.
Tournament Predictions
Stanford is a dangerous assassin lurking outside the top-4, but I’m flying with the Ducks to cut down the nets in Vegas:
(8) Oregon State over (9) Utah
(12) Washington over (5) Arizona
(7) Stanford over (10) California
(6) Colorado over (11) Washington State
(1) Oregon over (8) Oregon State
(12) Washington over (4) USC
(7) Stanford over (2) UCLA
(6) Colorado over (3) Arizona State
(1) Oregon over (12) Washington
(7) Stanford over (6) Colorado
(1) Oregon over (7) Stanford