Since what eventually became the Pac-12 began recording rebounds in 1959-60, only eight players have led the conference in both scoring and rebounding over an entire season.
With two games to go, Azuolas Tubelis is line to become the ninth.
Arizona’s standout junior forward has a commanding lead in scoring — at 19.6 points, he’s still almost two average points per game over Washington’s Keion Brooks — and his biggest threat to the rebounding title is his own teammate, Oumar Ballo, who averages just 0.3 rebounds less per game than Tubelis’ 9.1.
But none of that is a guarantee that Tubelis will be named the conference’s Player of the Year after the Pac-12’s regular season concludes this weekend.
Of the four players who led in scoring and rebounding since the conference began naming a Player of the Year, only two have won POY honors: Oregon State’s A.C. Green in 1983-84 and ASU’s Ike Diogu in 2004-05.
Lester Conner of first place OSU was named Player of the Year in 1981-82 over Cal’s Mark McNamara, who led in scoring and rebounding. In 2005-06, Brandon Roy of second-place Washington beat out Cal’s Leon Powe, even though Powe also led in scoring and rebounding en route to the Bears’ third-place finish.
UCLA guard Jaime Jaquez Jr. dunks against Oregon on Saturday, Feb. 11.
More important, as this season winds down, Tubelis has hit a partly foul-influenced slump at the same time that Jaquez has been on an upswing while leading the Bruins to the Pac-12 championship.
Having averaged 22.2 points over his past five games, Jaquez was UCLA’s nominee for this week’s Pac-12 Player of the Week after averaging 20.0 points, 6.5 rebounds and shooting 58.6% in the Bruins’ title-clinching sweep at Utah and Colorado over the weekend.
Jaquez was beaten out for the weekly award by ASU’s Desmond Cambridge, who created a buzz over the weekend when he hit a game-winning 60-footer at the buzzer to give the Sun Devils an 89-88 win over Arizona.
But while media who regularly cover the league vote for the weekly awards, it is the league’s 12 head coaches who select the major season awards and all-conference teams.
History has shown that, if the race is close, coaches most often go with the best player on the best team, and even more so if that player is a senior. Jaquez is a senior and the Bruins have a three-game lead in the conference race with the chance to possibly win the league by four games if they beat Arizona on Saturday at Pauley Pavilion.
Tommy Lloyd was critical of Azuolas Tubelis' defensive efforts in No. 7 Arizona's 89-88 loss to Arizona State on Saturday at McKale Center.
While Tubelis leads Jaquez in most major statistical categories, Jaquez is also known for better defensive credentials.
Jaquez is expected to make his third straight appearance on the Pac-12’s all-defensive team this season, but Tubelis’ defense was shaky enough that UA coach Tommy Lloyd substituted him out four times in the final four minutes Saturday for defensive purposes.
“I thought defensively he was bad,” Lloyd said after Saturday’s game. “He just didn’t play great defense and that’s kind of disappointing.”
Tubelis has an ideal final chance to re-ignite his credentials. After playing at another expected NCAA Tournament team in USC on Thursday, where the Trojans now have top-shelf big men in Joshua Morgan and Vincent Iwuchukwu, Tubelis will get to take on Jaquez face-to-face in a Saturday evening showdown at Pauley Pavilion.
But Jaquez and the Bruins will be waiting for that moment, too.
“This feels really good. I’m getting excited,” Jaquez said on a postgame radio interview after UCLA clinched the title with its 60-56 win over Colorado on Sunday. “We’ve got two more games at home. The journey is not over. We’re not stopping here. We’re not satisfied. We’ve got a lot more that we want to do.”
UCLA guard Jaime Jaquez Jr., comes from behind to track down Arizona forward Azuolas Tubelis in the second half of the Wildcats’ win over the Bruins at McKale Center on Jan. 21. While Tubelis appeared to be the runaway winner for the Pac-12’s Player of the Year race early on, Jaquez has appeared to track him down in this sense too, creating a one-two race with one weekend of regular-season play to go.
Rim shots
• Arizona dropped one spot to No. 8 in the Associated Press Top 25 on Monday but is now projected as the Midwest’s No. 3 seed in NCAA Tournament projections by both ESPN and CBS. In the computer rankings, UA is No. 9 in Torvik and Sagarin and No. 11 in Kenpom and the NET.
• UCLA remained No. 4 in the AP poll but is now projected as the West Region’s No. 2 seed by CBS. In the NCAA’s official early bracket reveal on Feb. 18, both UA and UCLA were No. 2 seeds but the Wildcats were placed in the West (which feeds into Sweet 16 games at Las Vegas) and the Bruins in the East (New York).
• While Cambridge was named the Pac-12’s Player of the Week in part for his last-second heroics at McKale Center, UCLA’s Amari Bailey picked up the conference’s Freshman of the Week award after averaging 9.0 points and 2.0 rebounds in the Bruins’ road sweep.
