Pac-12 Tournament Starts Today: Preview, Picks, Storylines
The Pac-12 has been a fairly large disaster this year. It started with Arizona and USC being named in the FBI documents. Then you had Arizona struggle out of the gates. You had the UCLA incident in China. At the same time you had Arizona State beat Xavier and Kansas and look like a top-5 team in the country. Then, conference play started. Arizona got healthy and figured shit out. USC started to get back to what everyone thought of them. Oh, and Arizona State ended up in the 8/9 game, because of course. Here’s this year’s bracket:
Odds: For those that like some sweat. These are the odds via Oddsshark:
Bubble Teams that need a win: I could pretty much say every team not named Arizona, but we’ll go a little more in depth here. USC needs to win just one game and it should feel okay. I think they are still on the right side of the bubble (despite the loss to UCLA) and a win over Washington should at least keep them in Dayton. Speaking of Washington, they have wins over Kansas, Arizona and Arizona State. If they beat USC and Utah to get to the Pac-12 title game, there could be some intrigue there, but I think they need to win the Pac-12 Tournament to get in. Arizona State needs to beat Colorado. A win there should keep them in the 8-10 seed range. A loss and you’re talking about a team with 11 Pac-12 losses. The wins over Kansas and Xavier won’t be enough. They’d be out with a loss. I think Utah has a chance to get in if they get to the Pac-12 finals. It would be a revenge win over USC and a win over Oregon. UCLA likely needs to Stanford and they should be in the first four in Dayton at the minimum. The underlying theme here is most of these teams need to win at least two games.
Value Team to Take: I don’t really trust any of these teams, but I guess Utah at 6/1 would be my pick? I don’t see Arizona State getting past Arizona the way its playing right now. Utah has a couple guys in David Collette and Justin Bibbins that can get hot and beat USC to get to the title game. From there you hope for an upset in the top half of the bracket or spread Arizona out and make Ayton guard on the wing. Throw in the fact a couple of wins should get Utah to the NCAA Tournament and you could see them coming in locked in.
Players to Watch: You know obviously Deandre Ayton, Allonzo Trier, Aaron Holiday and the likes. We’ll be taking a look at some of the other guys across the league that perhaps the casual fan doesn’t know much about yet.
Reid Travis (Standford) – Reid Travis is an absolute star, who finally stayed healthy this year. He has good size at 6’8″ and can step out a bit to play that stretch four position that so many teams love to play. He’s also a double-double machine, averaging 19.6 points and over 8 rebounds per game. He went for 23 and 10 against Arizona recently before following it up with a 24 and 14 game against Arizona State. He’s someone good enough that could make Stanford competitive in this thing.
Rawle Alkins (Arizona) – Alkins missed the first half of the year due to a foot injury and that was a major story that sort of got glossed over. Thanks, a lot football. However, Alkins is the third options in Arizona’s offense with Ayton and Trier being the first two options. He also provides arguably Arizona’s best wing defense. If he can slightly improve his shooting (38% from three) this tournament, Arizona should run away with this.
Jaylen Nowell (Washington) – The freshman at Washington is leading the team in scoring at 16 per game. He hasn’t shot the ball extremely well, just 33% from the 3-point line, but he’s shown up in the biggest game of the seasons. He had 14 against Providence, 21 against Virginia Tech, 17 at Kansas, 16 at USC and 14 against Arizona. He’s not going to be scared to attack in this thing or be hesitant as a freshman. If Washington wants to advance it will be Nowell’s scoring that does it.
Romello White (Arizona State) – White is really the only true big that Arizona State likes to play. De’Quon Lake plays just about 17 minutes per game, so a lot falls on White. The 6’8″ freshman did hit a bit of a freshman wall down the stretch including going scoreless against Oregon. He needs to gather rebounds, score in the paint and provide a threat in that sense. He doesn’t need to consistently score 15 a game but being a threat opens up the floor for Evans, Justice and Holder.
Jordan McLaughlin (USC) – McLaughlin is the steady hand for USC. While guys like Boatwright (pre-injury) and Metu garner talk about NBA players and headlines, McLaughlin is the one that USC turns to when it needs a bucket. The point guard is averaging 12.5 points and 7.5 assists per game. He does an excellent job of probing the lane and looking for the open man while also knowing when to pick his spot to score. Go back and watch the end of the Vanderbilt game to see how he knows when to take over.
Storylines to Watch
1. Does Arizona come out pissed off?
I’m very here for Arizona coming out and just blowing everyone away in the Pac-12 and NCAA Tournaments only to give the greatest fuck you speech after accepting the trophy. They’ve dealt with the FBI probe, injuries, an ESPN report that may or may not be true, a suspension to Allonzo Trier for trace elements of a PED from a year ago. It’s been a mess. But, Arizona is here as the No. 1 seed and if they can just start getting spots they’ll be a favorite to get to the Final Four. The thing with Arizona is they’ll always have the best player and likely the best two players on the court.
2. Will it be chalk or wide open?
I’ve gone back and forth on this. You have a strong top team in Arizona. Then there’s a tier of question marks and then a tier of just bad teams. That could make for a wide open tournament. If Arizona State catches Arizona, would anyone be surprised to see an 8/3 finals? Or on the flip side, Oregon could get hot with Troy Brown continuing to live up to potential and make a run to the title game. Then there’s just the fact we could see all 4 top seeds in the semifinals and a finals of Arizona over USC.
3. Can Arizona State get back to the line
Arizona State wasn’t just great in the nonconference because of 3-point shooting, but they got to the free throw line. They were one of the best teams in the country at drawing fouls and a large part of that was due to Evans and Holder driving and drawing handchecks. They’ve slipped in the conference. They aren’t attacking as much anymore, instead settling for jumpers. If Arizona State can get back to the attack mode, you can see them look more like the team that beat Kansas and Xavier.
Predictions
First Round: No. 9 Arizona State over No. 8 Colorado, No. 5 Colorado over No. 12 Cal, No. 7 Washington over No. 10 Oregon State, No. 6 Oregon over No. 11 Washington State
Quarterfinals: No. 1 Arizona over No. 9 Arizona State, No. 4 UCLA over No. 5 Stanford, No. 2 USC over No. 7 Washington, No. 6 Oregon over No. 3 Utah
Semifinals: No. 1 Arizona over No. 4 UCLA, No. 2 USC over No. 6 Oregon
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Finals: No. 1 Arizona over No. 2 USC
MVP: Deandre Ayton (Arizona)
All-Tournament Team: Deandre Ayton (Arizona), Allonzo Trier (Arizona), Troy Brown (Oregon), Aaron Holiday (UCLA), Chime Metu (USC)
Why Arizona?: Simply put they are the best team in this event. I do think you see them come out with an edge and really try to make a case with everything going on. As I mentioned they have the two best players on the court almost the entire time too. I’m curious to see how they defend. If you see them starting to get stops it can lead to blowouts in this event. The key for them will be to win and get rest at the same time. I think you see Ayton get a bunch of touches as no big in this league can defend him. I know it’s chalk, but sometimes chalk wins. I’m trusting Ayton here.