Arizona Wildcats, USC Trojans sitting atop Pac-12 despite federal investigation

The federal investigation into college basketball may be shaking up things behind the scenes all over the country, but it hasn’t affected the Pac-12 race so far.

At the halfway mark of conference play, Arizona and USC — the two teams predicted to finish 1-2, and the two teams implicated by the feds — are, well, 1-2.

Arizona sits atop the conference at 8-1 heading into a game Wednesday at Washington State, while the Trojans are 8-2, having played 10 games already because they have not yet faced rival UCLA.

Both UA and USC have won six straight games after some early season bumps.

“Both of those teams are just loaded with talent,” WSU coach Ernie Kent said Tuesday. “They both had to go through some external things obviously, and I think they’ve kind of righted themselves as they’ve come through the season and here they are. They’re the two most talented teams, they’re the two best teams and I think that’s why they’re rising to the top again.”

The Trojans lost one of their best players, sophomore guard De’Anthony Melton, for the season when the school investigated his connection to the federal investigation. Federal prosecutors alleged that a family friend of Melton’s accepted $5,000 in bribes in exchange for directing Melton to use agents Christian Dawkins and Munish Sood for professional representation.

Arizona sat out Keanu Pinder for an unspecified NCAA violation, and it is unclear if that was a result of the independent investigation UA has commissioned, but the Wildcats have sat out no other players.

The Wildcats, have, however, been without sophomore wing Rawle Alkins for 12 games so far this season with a broken foot that cost him nine games and lingering foot soreness that cost him another three games, including UA’s 74-73 win over Utah on Saturday.

UA coach Sean Miller has been optimistic Alkins will return Wednesday at Washington State but, even with his team alone in first place at the turn of conference play, he was still looking for better things on both sides of the ball.

“We have to continue to really improve as a team,” Miller said this week. “We foul way too much, and I think we’re looking in ways to do (handle) that better and not foul. Fouling kills your defense.

“And our 3-point defense, just giving up 3s, is something we did really well against Utah and we want to be able to continue to do that. Because if you’re a team that fouls and gives up 3-point shots, our defense isn’t really built to turn you over. You’re going to have those games where you don’t defend very well and we’ve had quite a few of those.”

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Arizona ranks only eighth in opponent 3-point percentage during Pac-12 games at 36.3, having given up 12 for 26 3s at Utah on Jan. 4 and 15 of 32 (46.9 percent) combined in two games against Colorado. Their percentage arguably looks better than it is, too, since it includes the fact that UA held woeful Cal to 1-of-13 shooting from behind the arc.

Miller will get another chance to see if his 3-point D is improving right away this week: Washington State leads the Pac-12 in 3-pointers made (11.1) during conference games and hits them at a 37.7 percent rate.

Offensively, Arizona is still the Pac-12’s second-most efficient team, averaging 113.2 points per 100 possessions in league games. But Miller said the Wildcats still need to improve while seeing all sorts of zone defenses, with teams trying to do something – anything — to slow down Deandre Ayton.

Having Alkins out, Miller said, makes it easier for them to try those tricks.

“Teams are loading up against our big guys and trying to do different things against Allonzo” Trier, Miller said. “And (it’s about) developing our bench, continuing to get more quality minutes. Against Utah, Brandon Randolph did a quality job, hit a couple shots, did a good job, Dylan Smith stepped up quite a bit, and the more we can get value from those guys, I also think that’ll be a big part of our second half of the season here.”

But the Wildcats will have to find improvement while the schedule turns slightly out of their favor in the second half: UA must play five of its final nine games away from home, and three of its four home games are against teams in the upper half of the standings: USC, UCLA and Stanford.

In addition, while there aren’t too many surprises behind UA and USC in the league race so far, the Wildcats will face one of them on Saturday in Washington. The Huskies beat USC in Los Angeles and also own a win over Kansas in Kansas City, Missouri.

“Going to ’SC and winning? That’s really hard to do,” Miller said. “Beat Kansas in Kansas City? Almost impossible to do. (They also) won at Colorado, so they’ve gone on the road and won big games. This is a big homestand for them. If you look at their zone defense and the talent they have both games, this week for us will be hard.”

So might next week. Because when Arizona returns home next week, then it will have a big homestand, too, with games against UCLA and USC.

As did Kent, Miller said it’s no surprise to see the Trojans near the top at this point.

“We knew before the year they were going to have a heck of a team based on the success they had last year and their returning players, and UCLA is really good,” Miller said. “We have a number of teams who have a lot to play for in the next month or so. It’ll be really be interesting to see how it all shapes up.”