Arizona freshman Lauri Markkanen was named the Oscar Robertson National Player of the Week today after helping the Wildcats sweep USC and UCLA in Los Angeles last weekend.
The award is determined by a representative of the United States Basketball Writers Association, usually by weighing conference players of the week from around the nation. Markkanen earned the Pac-12 Player of the Week award Monday.
Washington State coach Ernie Kent is well aware of what his Cougars will have to deal with on Thursday against the Finnish 7-footer during the WSU-UA game on Thursday at McKale.
"He's a lottery pick," Kent said at his news conference today in Pullman. "He’s got guard skills, can shoot it and put it on the floor. He's a matchup nightmare, and I think with their full roster back now it will give them even more confidence. That’s the scary part."
That "full roster," of course, refers to Allonzo Trier's return. The timing of getting that in late January may turn out to be a good thing for the Wildcats, the way UA coach Sean Miller described it again during his news conference Monday:
"We have, I almost feel, a shot of energy at a time when not a lot of other teams can feel that way," Miller said. "We’ve been at this for a while. You’re about ready to head into the second half of conference play here soon. The calendar is turning to February. You as as coach guard against complacency. You worry about practices not being as crisp or sharp as they once were.
"In our case it’s almost as if we have a new life. We have a different team. Obviously, there’s more competition now than ever. We have to make that to our advantage and hopefully continue to grow and improve here over the next few weeks."
While the bracket scientists have deciphered the formula pretty well by now, the NCAA will add some CFP-style transparency by releasing what it has as the top 16 NCAA Tournament seeds as of Feb. 11 -- the top four in every region -- at 10:30 a.m. on that date.
That'll be a week after the Wildcats play at Oregon. As of now, UA is slotted as a No. 2 seed by ESPN (Midwest) and CBS (West).
