CougCenter

OPEN PAC-10 TOURNAMENT THREAD: Session 2, Quarterfinals

2010-03-12T01:45:10Z

Here's part two. Like I said earlier, OSU is my upset special. I'll probably end up looking stupid, but what else is new.

Thursday, March 11 - Quarterfinals
#2 Arizona State vs. #7 Stanford, 6 p.m.
#3 Washington vs. #6 Oregon State, 8:30 p.m.

OPEN PAC-10 TOURNAMENT THREAD: Session 1, Quarterfinals

2010-03-11T19:45:09Z

I don't know about you, but there's actually something sort of freeing in knowing that this season is actually over now (unless the athletic department decides it wants to buy its way into the CBI, which ~~I find highly unlikely~~ seems to be a possibility -- h/t crimson and gray). I've been so wrapped up in the Cougs, that I haven't been able to fully appreciate the drama going on around the country. Now I can.

In case you all actually want to still talk basketball -- and I most definitely do, although I'm not sure how much I'll be able to chat -- here's a thread for the two afternoon games. We'll have another thread up this evening for what figures to be the two most important games of the day.

If I was to predict today's winners, I'd actually take the chalk. However, if I was looking for one team to lay a complete egg and screw itself in giving up an upset, I honestly would pick Washington. Yes, I know they've absolutely killed that 1-3-1 all year, but something tells me Craig Robinson will have a wrinkle up his sleeve, and these Huskies have been known to overlook an opponent or two this season.

Thursday, March 11 - Quarterfinals
#4 Arizona vs. #5 UCLA, Noon
#1 Cal vs. #8 Oregon, 2:30 p.m.
#2 Arizona State vs. #7 Stanford, 6 p.m.
#3 Washington vs. #6 Oregon State, 8:30 p.m.

It's over. Thanks for a great career, Nik.

2010-03-11T07:48:58Z

Player of the Game: Capers. 16 and 6.

Unsung Hero: Motum. 14 and 5.

Stat of the Game: something something free throws.

One last stomach punch, for the road.

This too shall pass...

OPEN GAME THREAD 2: WSU vs. Oregon

2010-03-11T05:14:27Z

Try not to crush it with pictures this time.

Dancing Football Edit: Except for this one:

via omfgames.archonic.com

OPEN GAME THREAD: WSU vs. Oregon (The play-in version)

2010-03-11T03:30:14Z

The Time: 8:10 PST

The Place: The Staples Center in Los Angeles, CA

The Coverage: FSN National. I even have it in HD! Sadly, I will have to stay up to midnight to watch it in full, and east coasters until 1 am.

KenPom says: No. 116 WSU 70 No. 125 Oregon 69 (52% confidence, 67 possessions)

Key to the Game

The most important thing the Cougs must do tonight is score more points than the Ducks. They failed to do this on Saturday.

Yay for playing teams twice in a row!

Cougs Move November 20th Cal home football game

2010-03-11T02:01:27Z

Cougs Move November 20th Cal home football game

Moved to November 6th. This is good in quite a few ways, no Thanksgiving game, and it splits up the 3 game road trip which is good as well. And that way, Dad's day can be in October.

SB Nation's Pac-10 Tournament preview (written by yours truly)

2010-03-10T20:30:15Z

Just a heads up: This is your last chance to vote for the SB Nation all-Pac-10 awards. Voting will close in the next couple of hours.

I'm sad to report that there is no CougCenter podcast to pass along to you today -- something had to give in my ridiculously busy life, and that was it. I was up past midnight last night as it was with my various projects (including, you know, my job).

However, I'm hoping that passing this along more than makes up for it.

First off, do yourself a favor and take a gander at the SB Nation Pac-10 Tournament preview, written by me.

There are a couple of reasons why I want you to do that. First off, you might learn something. But since I'm aware that you might not, since a lot of you are pretty darn smart and knowledgeable, you should go over there anyway just to see the cool stuff we're doing as a network.

The preview is actually the lead story for what's called a "StoryStream." I'll be continuously updating the stream with posts as the tournament advances, meaning it'll be your one-stop shop for everything related to the conference tournament, including tidbits, game recaps, video, etc.

Updates are shown chronologically, with the most recent ones at the top. (You can also toggle it to show the oldest posts first, because hey, we're like Burger King -- have it your way.) Additionally, you can help me out by clicking the "submit your post" button on the stream to pass tips my way if you find things that you think could be included on the stream.

The best feature, I think, is this: If you use an RSS reader, you can subscribe to the stream here. The feed will deliver each update I post directly to your reader over the next four days. Pretty cool.

And if you dig it, take a look around the SBNation.com site -- I think you'll especially appreciate the college basketball page.

If you're going to lose sleep over the lack of a CougCenter podcast and really jonesing for audio, how about checking out our 18 And Life podcasts this week? We broke it up into two parts: The first tackles the all-conference teams, the second tackles the conference tournament preview -- with an assist from your favorite Cougar beat writer. Each one is about 45 minutes. If you like what you hear, you can find subscription options at our main site. We'll actually be doing short podcasts each night this week debriefing the day's action.

By the way, I do talk quite a bit in Part 1 about why I selected who I selected for my all-conference awards, if you're interested in that.

Part 1: All-Conference Awards

Part 2: Conference Tournament Preview with Vince Grippi

Last thing. Do yourself a favor and read this and this. Entertaining.

STALWICK: Lay off Bone

2010-03-10T19:49:07Z

STALWICK: Lay off Bone

I don't always agree with everything Howie writes, but those of you that have been around here this season know where I stand on this topic.

There's only one way he could have made this column stronger: By pointing out that Tony Bennett obviously must also have forgotten how to coach, since his team that started 14-6 and 5-2 in the ACC has now lost nine straight.

Cougar Women Get Recognized for D

2010-03-10T05:42:38Z

Cougar Women Get Recognized for D

Unfortunately, not much respect for June Daugherty's squad on the All-Conference team. However, KiKi Moore was named to the All-Freshman team and the All-Defensive team. Joining her on the All-Defense squad is Carly Noyes.

It's looking like the Cougar women are starting to rebuild the program the same way the men did - defense first.

The CougCenter 2009-10 All-Conference Team

2010-03-10T03:47:33Z

More photos » Paul Sakuma - AP

Your player of the year... much to the chagrin of Lorenzo Romar, Mike Montgomery and Pac-10 player of the week award fans.

Browse more photos »

We've had our initial reaction. You've had your chance to comment.

Now, we throw down the gauntlet. Nuss, Craig and I make our choices known for the 2009-2010 Pac-10 All-Conference team. You will notice some stark differences between our selections and those of the conference coaches. We don't care about points per game, for example. Anyone - even our beloved Klay - can jack up 20 shots a game and score a lot of points. How efficiently someone scores matters more. Also: how efficiently a player rebounds, assists and/or steals the ball. No wussy old-school stats here (well, at least not most of the time). Tempo-free stats are the standard. Also - defense matters. Silly idea, I know.

We also did our best to make the teams look like actual teams. Meaning that, in theory, one of these teams could be thrown out on the court and actually function as a unit - not just consisting of four or five point guards out there at the same time.

It goes without saying the selections for this year were extremely difficult. Sometimes I wondered if there actually were 15 good players in this conference. The most disagreement among the three of us, naturally, came on the third team where there just aren't any clear-cut choices. You hit players 12 through 15 and already feel like you're scraping the bottom of the barrel. In some ways, you are. This conference is just that short on elite players.

I had to become overly, painfully aware of the kenpom.com profiles for all ten teams in the conference. The result was my ballot turned out quite a lot like Nuss'. Great minds study Ken Pomeroy, apparently. Craig's picks were fairly similar, but I feel he valued defense more than the rest of us. In some ways I wish I had done that - after all, score prevention is just as important as scoring - but there just aren't many good defensive metrics available to us. The eye test becomes the key - and that's how a zone defender ends up being named defensive POY by the coaches. Don't worry, Seth Tarver didn't make our defensive team.

I'll post the winners here. Read on for the explanations:

Individual awards: (* indicates unanimous selection)

Player of the Year - Landry Fields, Stanford
Coach of the Year - Herb Sendek, ASU
Defensive Player of the Year - Nikola Vucevic, USC
Most Improved Player - Nikola Koprivica, WSU*
Freshman of the Year - Derrick Williams, Arizona

All-Pac-10: First Team

G - Jerome Randle, Cal*
G - Patrick Christopher, Cal
G/F - Landry Fields, Stanford*
F - Quincy Pondexter, Washington*
F/C - Derrick Williams, Arizona

Second Team

G - Ty Abbott, ASU
G - Isaiah Thomas, Washington
G/F - Theo Robertson, Cal
F - Jamal Boykin, Cal
F/C - Nikola Vucevic, USC

Third Team

G - Nic Wise, Arizona
G - Derek Glasser, ASU
G/F - Jeremy Green, Stanford
F - Nikola Koprivica, WSU
F/C - DeAngelo Casto, WSU

Freshman Team

G - Reggie Moore, WSU*
G - Trent Lockett, ASU*
G/F - Tyler Honeycutt, UCLA*
F - Reeves Nelson, UCLA*
F/C - Derrick Williams, Arizona*

Defensive Team

G - Venoy Overton, Washington*
G - Jorge Gutierrez, Cal*
G - Patrick Christopher, Cal
F/C - Nikola Vucevic, USC*
F/C - DeAngelo Casto, WSU*

Player of the Year - Landry Fields, Stanford

No, we aren't intentionally trying to irk Husky fans. Craig's vote even went to Pondexter, while Nuss and I preferred Fields. This wasn't an easy call. Randle is a great player, but he won POY on the virtue of being the best player on the best team. The reality is, by most standards, Pondexter and Fields were simply better. Q-Pon has a disgusting 123.2 offensive efficiency rating right now - 50th best in the nation. He is the conference's marquee point-scoring threat. He rebounds well. He's a good player. Just not better than Fields.

Lorenzo Romar's argument - at least on a soundbyte on KJR - was that Pondexter deserved to win by being conference player of the week a record five times. I don't like this argument - remember, POW generally goes to the player who's team had the best week, or went off for 30-40 against somebody (hello, Klay vs. San Diego). It's often wrong, and based on waaay too small a sample size. Better arguments for Pondexter involve the fact he's just a phenomenal scorer and rebounder - much better than Randle, with less help around him.

However, by DR%, Fields is a better defensive rebounder than Q-Pon. Fields posts an offensive rating of 110.6 despite jacking up 31.3% of Stanford's shots while on the floor. He scores a lot of points, and does it without forcing shots. He has an assist rate of 19.8 with only a 13.3 turnover rate. He's a better distributor than Pondexter, He draws fouls at a slightly higher rate, and he's better at stealing the ball. Pondexter scores efficiently; Fields does it all. Furthermore, he is Stanford. He is, at least in my opinion, the only reason (other than Mike Littlewood) Washington State sits in last place. Fields' Stanford team is very short on overall talent and just wouldn't be much of anything without Fields (and to a lesser extent, Jeremy Green). Fields is the best player in the conference.

Coach of the Year - Herb Sendek, ASU

Phew. That POY explanation was long-winded. Sendek is pretty straightforward. He lost James Harden and Jeff Pendergraph, and somehow still threw together what should be a tournament team. Nuss dissented, with a vote for Mike Montgomery. My feeling is that - despite Cal's injuries and winning a conference that's anot ctually as horrible as most think - Cal underachieved with four stellar seniors. If Cal makes a run deep into the tournament, I may regret my vote.

Defensive Player of the Year - Nikola Vucevic, USC

Seth Tarver is very much a system defender, and therefore we just can't say he's the best. Vucevic was a consistent force for a USC team that didn't do much else but play phenomenal defense.

Most Improved Player - Nikola Koprivica, WSU*

I don't think the coaches took into account just how awful a three-point shooter Koprivica was prior to this season. Also, he remains an underrated defender, and probably will until he makes it big in the Euroleague.

Freshman of the Year - Derrick Williams, Arizona

Unfortunately for Reggie, Williams made this an easy decision with his play in the second half of the conference season.

All-Pac-10: First Team

G - Jerome Randle, Cal*
G - Patrick Christopher, Cal
G/F - Landry Fields, Stanford*
F - Quincy Pondexter, Washington*
F/C - Derrick Williams, Arizona

No real surprises here, minus Derrick Williams. I think Nuss and I thought we were being super creative and original by awarding Williams with a first team selection. But we weren't - people know him by now. He wasn't dominant against WSU, mind you (thanks, Casto!), but take a look at this. He scores efficiently. Rebounds well offensively and defensively. Doesn't turn the ball over. He's the 12th best player in the nation at getting to the line. I hate the fact Arizona continues to find NBA prospects like this, even in a down year.

Second Team

G - Ty Abbott, ASU
G - Isaiah Thomas, Washington
G/F - Theo Robertson, Cal
F - Jamal Boykin, Cal
F/C - Nikola Vucevic, USC

Vucevic gets the nod thanks in large part to defense (although I had Casto on my ballot). Ty Abbott ticks me off because he was seriously considering WSU at one point in recruiting. IT is fairly obvious, as is Robertson. Boykin was very solid under the radar for Cal. 29th nationally in offensive rating - which is higher than Pondexter. He just isn't as good at some of the other stuff.

Third Team

G - Nic Wise, Arizona
G - Derek Glasser, ASU
G/F - Jeremy Green, Stanford
F - Nikola Koprivica, WSU
F/C - DeAngelo Casto, WSU

Did you know Reggie Moore averaged more PPG than Wise in conference play? Kind of shocking. Wise is still better, but it's a surprise Nic didn't elevate his game to first team status. I think we all thought he was a sure thing - and a POY contender - when the year started. Glasser, to me, was the most underrated player in the conference awards. Great passer, and still a good offensive player. Taylor Rochestie 2K10 (with more help). Jeremy Green is Stanford's Klay Thompson - scores a lot, but not efficiently. I had both on my third team ballot. Nikola Koprivica is WSU's best offensive player by several metrics. He sits alongside DeAngelo Casto, by far our best player during the second half of the conference slate.

Freshman Team

G - Reggie Moore, WSU*
G - Trent Lockett, ASU*
G/F - Tyler Honeycutt, UCLA*
F - Reeves Nelson, UCLA*
F/C - Derrick Williams, Arizona*

We all agreed on every position, and agreed 100% with the coaches. Four are no-brainers. Trent Lockett takes a little more thought, but frankly there's no one else we could find to take his spot. Husky fans are now beating their heads on a table thinking about Abdul Gaddy. I almost put X on my team, ahead of both Gaddy and Lockett. Who's your five-star recruit now?

Defensive Team

G - Venoy Overton, Washington*
G - Jorge Gutierrez, Cal*
G - Patrick Christopher, Cal
F/C - Nikola Vucevic, USC*
F/C - DeAngelo Casto, WSU*

Again, fairly obvious. Seth Tarver is notably absent - I was the only one agreeing with the coaches, but ultimately even I was talked into Christopher. If you remember the job he did on Klay in the latter part of the second Cal game, you'll probably come to the same conclusion (hat tip to Nuss for reminding me). Overton/Gutierrez/Vucevic/Casto are no-brainers. All of them return next season. which is a little scary.

Bracketology 101: Washington last four in; ASU first four out

2010-03-09T22:31:46Z

Bracketology 101: Washington last four in; ASU first four out

Just some light reading for you today from one of the more accurate projection sites out there. You can also check out our own Bubble Watch stream at the SB Nation mothership, where Chris Dobbertean has UW and ASU both as part of his first four out.

Revisiting the preseason predictions

2010-03-09T20:00:37Z

Paul Sakuma - AP

Both the media and I underestimated the effect the experience of guys like Derek Glasser would have on the Sun Devils' performance in conference.

View full size photo »

The funny thing about most people's predictions is that they tend to fade off into obscurity, never to be heard from again. (Try finding Joe Lunardi's past final bracket projections -- you can't do it. And there's a reason why.)

Not us. We'll go ahead a parade our dirty laundry for all to see. Here are my preseason predictions alongside the media poll, with just how right (or wrong) we were:

Actual Finish	Media Rank	Me	Actual vs. Media	Actual vs. Me
1. California	1	1	EVEN	EVEN
2. Arizona State	7	6	PLUS-5	PLUS-4
3. Washington	2	2	MINUS-1	MINUS-1
4. Arizona	4	4	EVEN	EVEN
t5.USC	9	9	PLUS-4	PLUS-4
t5. Oregon State	5	5	EVEN	EVEN
t5. UCLA	3	3	MINUS-2	MINUS-2
t-8. Stanford	10	10	PLUS-2	PLUS-2
t-8. Oregon	6	8	MINUS-2	EVEN
10. WSU	8	7	MINUS-2	MINUS-3

In the end, I was just a little more accurate than the media, missing by a grand total of 16 spots while the media missed by 18 spots total. To be honest, that's actually pretty good on both fronts, especially considering how wild we thought this race was going to be. For all of the unpredictable results along the way, teams ended up more or less where we thought they would be.

I'll leave you with the comments I wrote for each team before the season with my thoughts now that the regular season has ended.

California

Then: "No brainer here. Least amount of question marks, and might just have the two best players in the conference. Sounds like a winning recipe."

Now: NAILED IT! I think their feat was made more impressive by the way they fought through injuries.

Arizona State

Then: "Seems about right to me after losing Harden, although I could see them going higher."

Now: Although I didn't pick them to go higher and thus missed their finish by a mile, I'm glad I hedged my bet a little. I wasn't sure how their experience would play out, mostly because I wasn't sure about the strength of the rest of the conference. I certainly didn't see a second place finish coming, though.

Washington

Then: "Again, seems like a no brainer. Lots of returning talent -- with some new talent -- but just enough question marks to keep them out of the top."

Now: They weren't as good this year as I thought they would be, honestly. I vastly underestimated the losses of Dentmon and Brockman, and overestimated Gaddy's readiness.

Arizona

Then: "As expected, a large drop off after the top three. I'll bet they wouldn't be ranked this high if Kevin O'Neill -- and not Sean Miller -- was still coaching there."

Now: NAILED IT! Kudos to Miller for getting that team to finish strong after its second-half swoon.

USC

Then: "Welcome to the fruits of Tim Floyd's labor. The Trojans will be a pain if they buy into O'Neill, but after seeing how well the Wildcats bought into him, he sure seems like a coach who needs his own guys."

Now: Well, clearly I underestimated their ability to buy into O'Neill. And they were a pain.

Oregon State

Then: "As you see, the media pretty clearly sees this as a four-tier conference, with Arizona and OSU being in the second tier."

Now: NAILED IT! Obviously, there weren't four tiers. You can make an argument there was only one tier -- maybe two. Pretty interesting that for all their problems, the Beavers finished exactly as predicted.

UCLA

Then: "Those first place votes? [The Bruins received five from the media.] Those are votes for Howland -- not the Bruins. Because I don't know how else anyone could project these guys as the first place team."

Now: Kind of the same thing as OSU. While 8-10 is far below UCLA standards, this has to be considered a bit of a success, given where this team started. But the guys who picked them first in the league still look as dumb as they did then.

Stanford

Then: "Welcome to our world, Cardinal fans. Welcome to our world."

Now: That comment was in reference to the state of our football program. That Johnny Dawkins was able to somehow coax seven wins out of that squad is nothing less than a minor miracle. He gets some major, major props in my book.

Oregon

Then: "This one actually shocks me a bit. The gap from OSU to Oregon is about the same as from Oregon to ASU. Does the media know something I don't know about a team that was 2-16 in conference last year? Did Kent suddenly learn to coach?"

Now: NAILED IT! I guess the media doesn't look all that silly, given that the Ducks finished just one game out of fifth. But if you take away the win the Ducks should have never had, this was the last place team in the conference, so I think they still look silly.

Washington State

Then: "Still trying to figure out how so many members of the media are so certain Oregon is going to be better than the Cougs. Maybe they think we're underestimating the loss of Tony Bennett?"

Now: I still almost can't believe these guys ended up in the cellar. It really is remarkable, considering they were 4-5 at the halfway mark (5-4 if you want to count the Oregon win) with more home games than road games in the second half. But the media was closer than I was, so I guess that gets them some bonus points or something.

This is not a joke: Klay Thompson named all-Pac-10 first team

2010-03-08T19:42:34Z

More photos » George Nikitin - AP

Your Pac-10 Player of the Year.

Browse more photos »

The Pac-10 just released its all-conference awards, and in what calls into question the validity of the entire process, Klay Thompson was named to the conference's first team.

Look, I love Klay. I'm very happy for him to get this award, because I'm happy anytime a Cougar wins something, considering how often it seems like we get overlooked. But there is no way on God's green earth that Klay Thompson deserved to be on the first team (or even second team, for that matter) of this conference after his performance over the last 18 games, which is what I thought the criteria was. Sorry.

EDIT: Some of you might be wondering why this is true when a guy averaged nearly 20 points per game. First off, he didn't average that in Pac-10 play, which is supposed to be the criteria for these teams -- he averaged 16.1. Second, raw stats don't tell the whole story. He took more shots than everyone in the conference but Landry Fields, yet could only muster 16 points per game?

That's why his tempo-neutral stats tell the better story. He had the 32nd best effective field goal percentage and 51st overall offensive rating. FIFTY-FIRST! Klay was great at times, but in Pac-10 play -- when you take into account just how many shots he took -- he was probably the least efficient scorer in the conference. There aren't many guys in this league who wouldn't score 16 or more points per game if they took nearly 15 shots a game.

I'm not trying to hate on the guy. I love him. I'm glad he's ours. He's going to challenge for conference player of the year next year. But he didn't deserve to be on that team this year.

However, if we want to talk about people who were correctly recognized, let's talk about DeAngelo Casto making the all-defensive team. Congratulations to him, although I think he should have been on the all-conference second team ahead of Calvin Haynes.

Also, congratulations to Reggie Moore for rightfully being selected to the all-freshman team, although that was kind of a no-brainer.

While we're criticizing the coaches, by the way, how about their choice of a zone defense player (OSU's Seth Tarver) as their defensive player of the year? I know he racked up a ton of steals, but c'mon ... that's like giving the Heisman to a Texas Tech quarterback because he threw 50 touchdowns. Silly.

Complete results after the jump. We'll have our CougCenter all-conference awards in the next couple of days. I can virtually guarantee we will differ significantly in some spots.

PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Jerome Randle, California
FRESHMAN OF THE YEAR: Derrick Williams, Arizona
DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Seth Tarver, Oregon State
MOST IMPROVED PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Nikola Vucevic, USC
COACH OF THE YEAR: Herb Sendek, Arizona State

FIRST TEAM

Name	Pos.	Year	Hometown
Ty Abbott, ASU	G	Jr.	Phoenix, ARIZ
Patrick Christopher, CAL	G	Sr.	Compton, Calif.
Landry Fields, STAN	G/F	Sr.	Long Beach, Calif.
Quincy Pondexter, WASH	F	Sr.	Fresno, Calif.
Jerome Randle, CAL	G	Sr.	Chicago, Ill.
Michael Roll, UCLA	G	Sr.	Aliso Viejo, Calif.
Isaiah Thomas, WASH	G	So.	Tacoma, Wash.
Klay Thompson, WSU	G	So.	Ladera Ranch, Calif.
Derrick Williams, ARIZ	F	Fr.	La Mirada, Calif.

Second Team

Name	Pos.	Year	Hometown
Jamal Boykin, CAL	F	Sr.	Los Angeles, Calif
Jeremy Green, STAN	G	So.	Austin, Texas
Calvin Haynes, OSU	G	Jr.	Reseda, Calif.
Theo Robertson, CAL	F	Sr.	Pittsburg, Calif.
Nikola Vecevic, USC	F	So.	Bar, Montenegro

Honorable Mention (receiving at least three votes): DeAngelo Casto (WSU, So., F), Derek Glasser (ASU, Sr., G), Dwight Lewis (USC, Sr., G), Roeland Schaftenaar (OSU, Sr., F/C), Seth Tarver (OSU, Sr., G/F).

Pac-10 All-Freshmen Team

Name	Pos.	Ht.	Hometown
Tyler Honeycutt, UCLA	F	6-9	Los Angeles, Calif
Trent Lockett, ASU	G	6-4	Minnetonka, Minn.
Reggie Moore, WSU	G	6-2	Seattle, Wash.
Reeves Nelson, UCLA	F	6-8	Modesto, Calif.
Derrick Williams, ARIZ	F	6-8	La Mirada, Calif.

Honorable Mention (receiving at least three votes): E.J. Singler (ORE, G/F).

Pac-10 All-Defensive Team

Name	Pos.	Year	Hometown
DeAngelo Cato, WSU	F	So.	Spokane, Wash.
Jorge Gutierrez, CAL	G	So.	Chihuahua, Mexico
Justin Holiday, WASH	G	Jr.	Chatsworth, Calif.
Venoy Overton, WASH	G	Jr.	Seattle, Wash.
Seth Tarver, OSU	G/F	Sr.	Portland, Ore.

Honorable Mention (receiving at least three votes): Eric Boateng (ASU, Sr., C), Patrick Christopher (CAL, Sr., G), Marcus Johnson (USC, Sr., F), Nikola Vucevic (USC, So., F).

Pac-10 refs do it again

2010-03-08T01:17:29Z

Pac-10 refs do it again

"With USC leading, 69-66, Nikola Vucevic was called for fouling Arizona's Kyle Fogg on a desperation three-point shot with 0.2 seconds left in the second half. Fogg made all three free throws, sending the game to overtime.

USC Coach Kevin O'Neill was livid when the call was made. "Everyone saw what went on out there," he said. "Everybody knows. They can go home and celebrate all they want. Everybody saw what went on."

Said Vucevic: "I didn't touch anything. I just went up with my hand in the air so he couldn't see the basket."

The Trojans went on to lose in - you guessed it - two overtimes. It's hard for any team to come back from an emotional letdown like that.

The time has come for the Pac-10 to take a serious look in the mirror about how they officiate the final seconds of a basketball game. As much as we'd like to pretend the game is the exact same in the final 30 seconds as it is in the first 30, the fact is that it's not. A foul needs to be blatant to be called and common sense needs to come into play.

Fans attend games because they like to see the players decide the outcome, not the officials. This should be common sense. There should be accountability. But there is none.

Athletics is big business, and just like we want success from coaches and administrators, we should want it from officials. They have a difficult job, but it would be easier if their leadership put in place guidelines to help them avoid situations like this.

That's why I think the Pac-10 officiating leadership needs to address this. That, or there needs to be a change in leadership.

Oregon 74, Washington State 66

2010-03-07T18:40:08Z

Oregon "sweeps" the Cougars, and we're headed for the play-in game.

Meanwhile, I think Vince Grippi needs a bonus for still having the ability to write stuff about this team. Cue the sad charts:

NCAA Basketball

College Basketball Stats

Player of the Game: DeAngelo Casto. No one on this team is coming to close to what Casto's doing right now. 16 points on 5 of 8 shooting, 10 rebounds, 2 blocks.

Unsung Hero: Nikola Koprivica. Again. 10 points on 2 of 6 shooting (2 of 5 from three), 7 rebounds, 2 assists.

Play of the Game: Without the benefit of seeing the game, I'm going with the Capers rebound-dunk in the first half.

It was over when... 36% three-point shooter Tajuan Porter made 2 of 3 threes in the second half. Of course.

Stat of the Game: I don't really care enough to research this.

"They’ve beat us twice. (So) we’re looking forward to going down to LA and seeing what we can do....

2010-03-07T07:19:17Z

"They’ve beat us twice. (So) we’re looking forward to going down to LA and seeing what we can do."

That will happen Wednesday, when the ninth-seeded Cougars will face No. 8 Oregon in their first Pac-10 tourney game for the fourth time in five years, with the winner moving on to play top-seeded Cal on Thursday.

Play-in game, here we come!

GameThread: Washington State at Oregon

2010-03-07T01:07:20Z

More photos » Rick Bowmer - AP

May not see this face again for a long time. Or possibly next week.

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Cal beats Stanford, so the Cougs can earn the #7 seed in the Pac-10 tourney with a win (eighth place overall).

If the Cougs lose, they are the worst team in the conference, but not really (because we already beat Oregon once). And whichever school finishes last has strange distinction of having the most wins of any last place team in conference history. So there's that.

I hate Oregon. Let's finish this regular season off right.

Rock the Vote

2010-03-06T02:26:35Z

OK, so I stole that headline from someone else. I'm just shameless today.

If you're like me and you need to get your mind off of our team, here's your opportunity. Last year, the trio of authors put together our inaugural Pac-10 all-conference awards. And as we work on this year's edition, a thought hit me.

Perhaps you all would like a voice, too!

So, here's your chance. After the jump is a form you can fill out to submit your votes. It's pretty lengthy, but you have to fill the whole thing out for your vote to be counted.

We'll post this around at the various Pac-10 SB Nation sites, too, and try to make this an SB Nation-wide vote. I have no idea how it will go, but we're going to give it a shot.

Just a few points of clarification.

We're asking for your home blog because it might be interesting to see how certain fan bases vote.
We're asking for your SB Nation user name because it will hopefully help keep us from getting spammed. Don't worry, we won't share how you voted, unless ...
If you leave a comment and we use it on the results post, we'll attribute it to your user name. If you don't want that to happen, don't leave any comments.
Base your selections on performance in conference, not the whole year.
This is an all-conference team, therefore, you are asked to select players who would actually comprise a basketball team. None of this wishy-washy, best five or 10 players regardless of position crap the actual conference does.

That's about it. We'll post the results next week.

Why I just can't care about this team anymore

2010-03-05T22:54:05Z

More photos » Rick Bowmer - AP

With scenes such as this repeating themselves game after game, is it any wonder I just can't do it anymore?

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There are things that are both great and terrible about managing and writing for a popular website.

On the great end, it's awesome to be able to share great experiences with other fans as passionate as I am about my favorite team. Also fun is the ability to make an observation in my head, write it down for the world to see, and have others find it thought provoking. It's pretty cool.

Then, there's the terrible end. You know, the part of the spectrum where whatever emotional thought that's running through my head ends up flowing to my fingers, through the keyboard, and onto the site. I like to try and maintain this even-keel persona around here, but I'm just as susceptible to emotional fits as anyone else. I just think sometimes I'm a little bit more disciplined about screaming at my television in my house without exposing it to the world.

Last night was not one of those nights where I was able to do that.

I have reached my breaking point, and it's not pretty when a patient, hopeful person loses all patience and hope.

Because Grady, Craig and I have all tried so insanely hard to be the guys who keep a level head and try to coax reason out of everyone who participates in the site, I feel like I owe people a little bit of an explanation.

Think about all that Cougar athletics has subjected us to since August. First, the football team suffers through a second historically miserable season, winning just one game that nobody outside of the 20,000 or so people in Pullman that day saw. Every other game that was available for the general population to see -- save maybe for the USC game -- was an absolute massacre.

But basketball season was on the horizon, and with it, came hope.

It started off pleasantly enough, and although they did lose their two toughest games, there was reason to believe that this young squad was going to be able to figure out a way to get better as the season went along. I mean, they weren't even playing their best ball and they were figuring out ways to win. The conference season looked pretty good, as they started off 4-3, and would have been 5-2 if not for you-know-what.

Visions of at least the NIT danced in our heads.

How long ago that now seems. The Cougs have since lost eight of 10 -- more than half of those by double digits -- descending into the cellar of the Pac-10. If we are to lose to Oregon tomorrow, we will have the dubious distinction of fielding the worst teams in the conference in the two major revenue sports. Anyone who says that it's not that big of a deal because volleyball, soccer and baseball are all good is a liar. The two sports that matter most are football and men's basketball, and right now, we're the worst at both.

THE WORST. AT BOTH.

Granted, the basketball team hasn't reached the depths that the football team has, but this team has been soul sucking in its own unique way. I actually lowered my expectations for the remainder of the season significantly about two weeks ago, and decided to focus on the positives and hold onto those.

But that is damn hard to do when your team, playing for postseason positioning, commits 15 turnovers in one half of basketball. And that's the rub for me. It's not so much that this team is losing; it's that a team filled with freshmen and sophomores seems to be getting worse as the season moves along and not better.

Don't believe me? Check these bad boys out (sorry for the accidental series pop ups on the photos):

In the first graph, you can see that our offense, coached by an offensive focused coach, has performed worse the second time around against six of eight opponents. And while the second graph shows that our defense has actually improved in most cases the second time around, our overall efficiency margin (offensive efficiency minus defensive efficiency) has been worse against five of eight opponents.

I understand this is a rudimentary way of looking at it, but if you're not bothered by the fact that there's not a way to measurably demonstrate that this team is improving, you must have had very, very low expectations for this team. I didn't have the highest expectations, but I think it was reasonable to expect that a team filled with first- and second-year players would improve as the season moved along. That they haven't -- and in fact my have regressed -- is nothing short of depressing to me.

When you put the football season and basketball season together, and then take into account that Grady, Craig and I have been here day after day, week after week, month after month telling you all to keep your chins up, fight the good fight, and keep the faith ... well, I hope you can see why I might have an emotional release and why I might feel a little beaten down at this point.

Some of you took exception with my comment that I hoped they lost the next two games. I understand why you do. But I really do want this season to end as soon as possible. This team needs to improve in a lot of areas, and it's not going to happen over the next week. Could they beat Oregon? Sure. Could they win a game or two in the Pac-10 Tournament? No doubt -- the ability's there.

Would any of that change the way I feel about this season? Not a chance.

A run to the conference championship game would do it. But you'll have to forgive me if I set the early odds of that happening at about 100-1, since it's probably going to take three wins -- including one against Cal -- for that to occur.

There is literally nothing that could happen tomorrow that would make me look forward to the Pac-10 Tournament, which is probably the greatest travesty of all Cougar sports this year.

They've killed my ability to care.

It took seven months, a 1-11 football team and a basketball team failing to exceed whatever minimal expectations we all had ... but it's finally happened.

So, that's what I mean about this site being awesome and terrible at the same time. Those of you who gave up on this season long ago have faded off into obscurity. My emotions and my feelings? They're on display for all to see as I try to come up with interesting things to say about these teams we all love so much. And I've just flat run out. I literally have nothing more to add to this travesty of a year of Cougar sports.

When I say I'm ready for this season to be over, it's the honest-to-goodness truth. And I hope you all can understand that. I don't think it makes me less of a Coug; I just think it makes me human. I've been banging my head against a wall for seven months now, and I don't really care to do it anymore. There's a tiny little part of me that holds out hope that they'll give me something to be excited about in the conference tournament, but I'm sure not counting on it. If it happens, great. If it doesn't ... well, I didn't expect any more than that, anyway.

I suppose somewhere, Don James is smirking. And I don't even have the desire to smack it off his face.

Someday soon -- as we head into baseball season, or spring practices, or whatever -- I will.

But not right now. Sorry.

Welcome to the real Jeff Nusser. (Fitting, huh?)

Inquiring minds want to know

2010-03-05T21:27:08Z

Hey, Pac-10! Me again.

You remember Mike Littlewood, right? The ref that essentially stole a victory from WSU by misinterpreting a well-intentioned rule in the first Washington State/Oregon matchup this season? The one you're going to defend to the death, despite the fact 95% of Coug fans would be happy with just a simple apology at this point?

So... if he's a great, competent official, he would be OK to run out there for another Coug game, right? I mean, we're reasonable folks, so if the call was 100% correct we wouldn't hold a grudge. Certainly if he's a quality Pac-10/WAC official he can officiate anytime or anywhere. And yet somehow... he hasn't!

However, Mike Littlewood has been elsewhere. In fact, he was in Moscow recently. Officiating an Idaho/Nevada game that Nevada won - by a point - on a controversial and-one with time expiring. Don Verlin, your thoughts on Littlewood and the rest of his crew?

Seriously, give it up. All we want - on the eve of the rematch - is an apology and admission that Littlewood made a bad call. He's human. We'll get over it. We don't want him to lose his job, although he should apply a little more of the common sense doctrine to his late-game officiating. But lying about the original call and hiding behind your own incompetence is aggravating.

Why should we have to continue to put up with this?