Several hours before Pac-12 conference play began last Thursday, Arizona coach Sean Miller threw out a prediction that is already looking pretty good.
“It should be a lot of fun,” he said.
Well, maybe not fun for him, any of the league’s other 11 coaches, nor upset-intolerant fans of any one team. But potentially for everyone else.
After just one weekend, nobody in the Pac-12 has more than one win. Arizona and Stanford are the only undefeated teams left, having played and beaten their respective geographic rivals in their only games of the weekend, while unpredictability ruled the conference’s other eight games.
Colorado beat fourth-ranked Oregon… then lost to Oregon State. At home.
After leaving Boulder, the Ducks then barely escaped Utah with a five-point win after Shakur Juiston and Chandler Lawson scored late, taking the pressure off standout point guard Payton Pritchard and his cotton-stuffed bloody nose.
“You could say it was a gritty win,” Oregon guard Will Richardson said after the game. “We had to fight them off. It tells us how hard we’ve got to work to get to where we want to be at.”
In other games, Washington lost to struggling UCLA at home … then blew out potential league challenger USC.
Washington State lost to USC … then upset UCLA, prompting a giddy postgame locker-room scene in which new coach Kyle Smith’s shirt was unbuttoned and wet by the time he arrived at the postgame news conference.
“I brought my 6-year-old son in the locker room and he did not know what to do,” Smith said, according to the Spokane Spokesman-Review. “He was scared to death. But it was a fun time in there.”
Meanwhile, Utah hardly behaved like the team that Kenpom estimates has the third-lowest experience level of Division I’s 353 teams. The Utes beat Oregon State and the Beavers’ veteran core of Tres Tinkle, Ethan Thompson and Kylor Kelley, while barely losing to Oregon two days later.
“The only way you gain experience is to go through experiences like this,” Utah coach Larry Krystkowiak said after the Oregon loss, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. “It takes smarts and all those types of things, and this is a process.”
But maybe all that is isn’t a huge surprise after the Pac-12 conference moved through nonconference play with its best collective winning percentage (73.9%) in five years, with even lowly regarded teams at Cal and WSU making some improvement under new coaches and most everyone else recording signature wins.
“I really believe that the Pac-12 is a strong conference,” Miller said. “We’ve had a very good nonconference season, got plenty of teams that I’m sure have their visions and goals set on March Madness, and those goals are very realistic.”
CBS’ updated bracket projection Monday had six Pac-12 teams earning NCAA Tournament berths, and the NCAA’s NET ratings suggested as much.
The Pac-12 has six teams in the NET’s Top 50, with OSU (56) not far outside after beating Colorado. Three of them are in the NET’s Top 20 — UA (14), Oregon (15) and Stanford (16) — while the AP Top 25 poll includes Oregon (9), UA (24) and Colorado (25).
In CBS’ bracket projections, UA was given a 9 seed, Oregon 4, Stanford 6, and Colorado 7 while USC and Washington were both given 10s.
When the dust settled over the weekend, Colorado’s McKinley Wright was given the Pac-12’s Player of the Week award after averaging 17.5 points, 9.0 assists and 6.0 rebounds in two games.
Wright had 21 points, eight assists and five rebounds in Colorado’s 74-65 win over Oregon and had his third career double-double against OSU with 14 points and 10 assists.
Washington’s Isaiah Stewart, meanwhile, picked up his third straight Pac-12 Freshman of the Week award after averaging 21 points and 10.5 rebounds in the Huskies’ loss to UCLA and win over USC.
UA nominated forward Zeke Nnaji for both awards after the freshman forward had 17 points on 7-for-11 shooting and 11 rebounds in the Wildcats’ win over ASU.
