Mike Montgomery’s team completed a home sweep of the Washington schools with a 16-point win over Washington State on Saturday. Two nights earlier, the Bears were even more impressive, never allowing UW in the game in a 12-point victory featured on ESPN’s “Duke plays UNC for the first time” Week. That win avenged a 15-point loss in Seattle, a Jan. 16 game that wasn’t even that close.

Now 9-4 in conference and 17-8 overall, the Bears are on their way to a Pac-10 regular-season title and a 20-win season despite playing one of the dozen toughest schedules in the nation. Cal’s problem in getting into the NCAA Tournament is partly its own fault. The Bears have yet to beat a likely NCAA Tournament team, going 0-4 against Syracuse, Ohio State, New Mexico and Kansas outside of conference. And, since the Pac-10 is down this season, Cal’s nine wins against eight different league members may fail to sway the Selection Committee.

Nonetheless, Cal is certainly an NCAA Tournament-quality team thanks entirely to its terrific offense. Montgomery boasts a team that can shoot from three, two and the free-throw line. The key man in Cal’s ability to beat opponents from anywhere on the floor is Jerome Randle. The senior belongs in the discussion of point guards who combine a heavy workload with terrific efficiency. Villanova’s Scottie Reynolds, Kansas State’s Jacob Pullen, Michigan State’s Kalin Lucas, Illinois’ Demetri McCamey and Ohio State’s Evan Turner are some of the other names on the short list, but at 5-foot-10, Randle is at least a couple of inches shorter than all of them. Randle has a chance to finish the season as a 90-percent free-throw shooter, 50-percent 2-point shooter and 40-percent 3-point shooter — he’s currently at 91.9, 50.6 and 41.4.

Another senior, 6-foot-5 Patrick Christopher, is Randle’s partner in crime. He’s not as effective a deep shooter (32.8), but he can score inside and does so without turning the ball over. He’s also the Cal player most likely to pick up a steal, which is notable since the Bears don’t get many.

The rest of the team is filled with players who blend in and hit shots. Of the Cal players who play at least 30 percent of the time, only Omondi Amoke and Markhuri Sanders-Frison shoot worse than 50 percent eFG. Amoke is out there because he’s the team’s best rebounder, and Sanders-Frison gets run simply because a six-man rotation isn’t deep enough — though only six players played more than four minutes in the win over Washington State.

By making shots, taking care of the ball and allowing Amoke to patrol the offensive glass, Cal has put together one of the nation’s best offenses, one good enough to score 93 points in 74 possessions against Washington on Thursday in a game ostensibly between the Pac-10’s two best teams. Even with Amoke barely setting foot on the floor, Cal still managed to grab three in every eight misses, and the Bears didn’t miss much. Randle scored 33 points while playing 39 minutes, and his 76.3 eFG on 19 field-goal attempts was a big part of Cal’s team 56.7 eFG.

I’ve focused almost entirely on the offense so far, because the defense isn’t very good. Despite its four top players in minutes and points being seniors, Cal has shown that experience does not necessarily translate to good defense. Cal hardly forces an turnovers — third fewest in the Pac-10 — and struggles to defend on twos, in part because the Bears lack a shot-blocker.

Cal ranks 66th of the 73 major-confernce teams in blocked-shots rate, which has translated into opponents making 48 percent of its twos, 185th best in the nation. Seven-footer Max Zhang leads the team in blocks with 31, but he’s only played 99 minutes across 13 conference games (he has 13 blocks in those games). Jamal Boykin is second on the team with nine blocks.

Without the offensively-limited Zhang on the floor, Cal is often left with the choice to allow its opponents to make 2-pointers or to prevent them by fouling. Against Washington, Cal chose to foul — the Huskies made 26-of-30 free throws. Against WSU, Cal rarely fouled — only nine Cougars free-throw attempts — but allowed WSU to shoot 57.1 percent on 2-pointers.

The Bears’ lack of interior defense combined with an inability to pressure on the perimeter is likely to be devastating to the Bears once it runs up against a team that can score inside in the NCAA Tournament. The defensive problems are most of why Cal has been unable to put together a winning streak longer than three games all season. That could change next weekend, though, as the Bears will ride a three-game winning streak into Corvallis on Thursday.

Cal will follow the trip to both Oregon schools by hosting two tricky games against Arizona and Arizona State before heading to Maples for a season-ending showdown with Stanford. If the Bears win 4-of-5, they’re surely in the field no matter what happens at the Staples Center, home of the Pac-10 Tournament. Anything short of that and Cal cannot be sure of its fate without a couple of wins there. And, if the Bears can get to at least 12-6 — which would require a 3-2 finish — they are likely to win their first Pac-10 title since Pete Newell was the coach 50 years ago. And they’re won’t be a “Weak League” asterisk in the media guide.

Huskies’ more than slim chance: Cal’s victim on Thursday has quietly put together a stretch that puts UW in position to make the field as well. The Huskies’ loss to Cal is their only one since a woeful roadtrip to SoCal in January.

Those five wins in six games — with home matchups against USC and UCLA next weekend — mean Lorenzo Romar’s team has a real shot at an at-large bid. A 4-1 finish and a couple of wins at the Pac-10 Tournament is likely to put Washington in the field. Should Washington finish 4-1, the Huskies would collect at least two more road wins to add to UW’s woeful season total of one, which came at Stanford on Saturday.

The transformation in Seattle has come on defense, as Washington is 11-0 in its last 11 games when holding opponents to less than a point per possession. Until Stanford’s .912 PPP on Saturday, though, the other 10 had all come at home. Playing defense on the road is progress — albeit a bit late in the game — and that progress could save the Pac-10 the ultimate embarrassment of being a one-bid conference.

Take a look at the Pac-10 standings and you’ll see a lot of the same numbers — twos and threes mainly. Despite every team having played either five or six games, only Arizona State has a zero, one, four, five or six next to either its wins or losses. Herb Sendek’s Sun Devils are 4-2 in conference after sweeping the Oregon schools this weekend, and they sit atop the Pac-10. A single game separates second and 10th.

In some seasons, this would be a cause for rejoicing. “Look how competitive the Pac-10 is! Anyone can beat anyone on a given night!” And in some seasons, that train of thought might have held water. This season, though, parity is a result of a league full of poor, inconsistent teams delivering high variance in their performances from game to game.

Take Oregon and Oregon State. In the span of 11 days from Dec. 31 to Jan. 10, the following results played out. Oregon swept Washington and Washington State on the road while Oregon State was swept by the Washington squads. Four days later, on Jan. 6, Oregon State hosted first-year Division I program Seattle and lost 99-48, one of the most embarrassing results of the season for any team. Four days later, Oregon State made the trip to Eugene to play Oregon, and what would you guess happened? Exactly, Oregon State won by seven.

The last paragraph included a lot of good and bad, but the non-conference play from the Pac-10 was almost entirely bad. The Pac-10’s 63 percent winning percentage in non-conference games is way off its fellow major conferences:

1. Big 12 – 81.9
2. ACC – 81.1
3. Big East – 80.0
4. SEC – 72.8
5. Big Ten – 71.6
6. Missouri Valley – 68.9
7. Mountain West – 67.5
8. Pac-10 – 63.0
9. Atlantic 10 – 62.0
10. WAC – 60.2

The Pac-10 did play a very strong non-conference schedule — rated second best — but the results were poor nonetheless. The league lost nine of 12 in the Big 12/Pac-10 Hardwood Series, including a loss by Washington at Texas Tech, a home loss by USC against Nebraska, a home loss by Arizona State against Baylor, a 37-point loss by Oregon to Missouri, and a 17-point loss by Arizona to Oklahoma. The Big 12 is good, but those results — along with several others — are just embarrassments.

The poor non-conference play means that the Pac-10 will struggle to get more than two bids to the NCAA Tournament. It certainly doesn’t help the league that Southern Cal, owner of perhaps the league’s most impressive win of the season — a 22-point victory over Tennessee — is not eligible for the NCAA Tournament because of self-imposed probation. Indeed, at 32nd in this early stage of the BTI, Southern Cal has the best ranking in the league.

Without Kevin O’Neill’s Trojans in the mix, that leaves perhaps four teams with legitimate at-large chances. California (36th in BTI), Washington (47th), Arizona State (50th) and Arizona (63rd) all have chances to play their way into the NCAA Tournament, though I’d be surprised if more than two of them have secured bids by the start of the Pac-10 Tournament, in which USC will not participate. The problem is the inconsistency. Arizona State looked terrific in sweeping the Oregon squads on the road this weekend, but the Sun Devils were swept in an earlier trip to Los Angeles. Similarly, Washington appeared dominant in squashing Stanford and Cal this weekend but looked helpless in a pair of 17-point losses the weekend before in Arizona. It’ll take more to convince me that these two teams have turned the corner.

Cal has been an enigma, struggling with injuries this season, and the results have underwhelmed. Cal’s performance in Seattle on Saturday showed that it hadn’t really come very far from the ugly result against Syracuse in New York in November. The offense is terrific, but the defense is very poor. Pomeroy sees Cal as a lot like Villanova in terms of being very strong offensively but mediocre defensively, but I wonder if Cal isn’t more like Notre Dame — very good offensively but terrible defensively. Villanova is on its way to a high NCAA Tournament seed, while Notre Dame is staring at the bubble. The latter smells more like Cal this year, despite the high expectations preseason. The Bears host Oregon and Oregon State this weekend in what figures to be the easiest chance for a sweep this season.

Arizona has split games in each of its three weekends in conference, losing the first game and winning the second. Having already experienced six six losses out of conference, the Wildcats will need to do much better than get splits to keep its NCAA Tournament streak alive.

The unspoken heart of the Pac-10’s struggles has been UCLA’s freefall. After three straight Final Fours and a 26-win season last year, UCLA looks one of the worst major-conference teams this year. Ben Howland’s much-acclaimed 2008 class has been a complete bust as sophomores with Jrue Holliday in the NBA and Drew Gordon off to New Mexico as a transfer. UCLA’s performance in a 67-46 loss at home to USC on Saturday is an indication that things are indeed not getting better despite wins over Arizona State and Cal earlier in conference play. It’s hard to imagine a coach as good as Howland and a program as strong as UCLA staying down for long, but thoughts of a run in the Pac-10 this season are built on folly.

It would have been difficult for a league like the Pac-10 to withstand such losses for two straight years. That the conference did quite well last season despite the 2008 NBA Draft looking more like the announcement of the Pac-10 All-Conference Team was a real accomplishment, but the poor performance in the 2009 NCAA Tournament was followed by another set of losses to the draft, and the handwriting was on the wall for 2009-10.

The Pac-10 will be back soon, and the league is probably better than its awful play out of conference, but it could see itself nearing some ignominious marks in March, challenging last year’s weak SEC for a record combination of few bids and poor seeds. Pac-10 fans will have to find solace in the parity that should give them plenty of close if not well-played conference matchups for the next eight weeks.

Stanford started the season with a difficult roadtrip to San Diego on Friday, where the Cardinal lost, 77-64. After returning home with a 70-53 win over Cal Poly, Dawkins’ men lost, 83-81, to perennial Summit League contender Oral Roberts. Considering what Stanford lost, this start was not unexpected, but Cardinal fans had hoped for better, even in a transitional season.

To understand the slow start, let’s gain some perspective. The Cardinal was built to win last season. Even after Robin and Brook Lopez went pro in the wake of Stanford’s Sweet 16 run and Trent Johnson’s departure to LSU, Stanford still returned three starters plus emerging Landry Fields. A 10-0 start against a mediocre non-conference disintegrated thanks to a 6-12 Pac-10 record. This was a team with fringe NCAA Tournament talent that wasn’t in the discussion in March.

From that team, guards Anthony Goods and Mitch Johnson graduated as did forward Lawrence Hill and reserve guard Kenny Brown. Big forward Josh Owens was supposed to return alongside Fields, but he remains out with an undisclosed medical condition. Owens hasn’t been cleared for practice, and it’s unclear whether he will play at all this season.

That left Fields, sharp-shooter Jeremy Green, end-of-the-rotation shooter Drew Shiller and little-used guard Jarrett Mann as the four players around which Dawkins would build this year. That’s not a solid foundation for a successful season.

To the returners, Dawkins has added Andrew Zimmermann, a transfer first from Santa Clara and then Foothill College (Calif.). He played sparingly at Santa Clara two seasons ago and brings some rebounding with his 6-foot-9 frame if not much else. Zimmerman and Jack Trotter, a 6-foot-9 sophomore barely used last year, are the starters in the frontcourt. Not surprisingly, Stanford has been exploited around the rim.

The one stat most indicative of how well a team is doing around the basket is 2-point percentage. If a team is shooting well from inside, it’s probably getting efficient offensive production from its frontcourt. If a team is defending the 2-pointer, that’s usually thanks to stern defense by the frontcourt around the rim.

So far this season, Stanford is shooting just 46.9 percent on 2-pointers, while its opponents are converting at a 54.0-percent rate. In the two losses, opponents made 59.1 of all 2-point attempts (the national average is 48 percent). The weak play inside is a major and perhaps unsolvable issue for Dawkins, especially considering that the strength of opposing frontcourts will only improve in Pac-10 play.

The difference in eFG between Stanford and its opponents is entirely attributable to the gap in 2-point percentage and then some. Even though neither Stanford nor its opponents have done much on the offensive glass, the opposition still has the advantage there. Without Owens, Stanford has lost the primary advantage of the typical major-conference team over the typical mid-major team – a frontcourt with athleticism and length.

The poor start has taken the focus off of Fields’ tremendous start. The senior leads the Cardinal in field goals and free throws made and attempted as well as offensive and defensive rebounding, blocks and steals. He’s done it all and done it efficiently, committing just four turnovers — to six assists — while maintaining a 51.9 eFG. Fields’ usage rate is off the charts at 35.2 percent. For comparison’s sake, only Davidson’s Stephen Curry, Central Florida’s Jermaine Taylor and Tennessee-Martin’s Lester Hudson had higher usage rates last season.

Fields is in desperate need of help. The only other player who has a usage rate higher than Shiller’s 18.4 percent is Green with 26.3 (remember, the average is 20 percent). But Green, who has recently recovered from an ankle injury, has been very inefficient with those possessions, making just 4-of-15 2-pointers (26.7 percent) to contribute to a damaging 41.4 eFG. Mann (17.6 usage) and Trotter (8.9 usage) have been efficient in their limited opportunities to shoot and could probably benefit Stanford from being more active. By doing so, they’d take some of the load off of Green, who can’t handle what he has, and Fields, who will have a difficult time sustaining efficiency with that high usage as the competition improves.

Still, one is left with the feeling that there just aren’t enough answers at either end of the floor. Dawkins has Fields, who has star potential and has been forced into a position where he can’t help but make an All-Pac-10 Team. He also has the sophomore Green, a solid shooter overburdened by a lack of teammates to help out. And, finally, there’s the sophomore Mann, who has been a dependable pass-first point guard so far. Ideally, with a sharp-shooter and a pass-first point guard, Stanford would have one high-volume scorer beside Fields in the frontcourt. Owens won’t be that, even should he return, but Trotter and Zimmermann are merely taking up space right now.

Dawkins really needed to bring in impact players for this season with four seniors on last year’s team, but, as a new coach, Dawkins was unable to gain traction with the 2009 class. That will change next season with five recruits already signed, including 4-star center Dwight Powell and 4-star small forward Anthony Brown. Of course, while next winter’s arrivals and a potential Pac-10 title in football may bring solace to the hearts of Stanford fans, they don’t do anything for the senior Fields, who appears to have a Sisyphusian endeavor ahead.

Kevin Love, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, Russell Westbrook, Lorenzo Mata-Real, Josh Shipp, Darren Collison, Jrue Holliday, Alfred Aboya. That is a lot of talent to replace — five first-round picks — and UCLA looks a bit short right now. Against the Titans on Monday night, only seven players played more than a single minute.

Three of those seven were from Ben Howland’s heralded 2009 recruiting class — Malcolm Lee, Drew Gordon and Jerime Anderson. This was the class that was supposed to limit the dropoff once the Collison-Shipp-Mbah a Moute-Aboya class had departed. The first problem was that the class’ best player, Holliday, went pro after a year. That wasn’t an unexpected development, but suddenly Collison didn’t have a fit heir apparent. Anderson saw limited action last year, and it was not always at the point. When he did play, he turned the ball over too much.

Second, J’Mison Morgan, the No. 3 center in the 2008 class according to Scout, has had almost no impact so far. After playing often and ineptly in early-season games last year, he was a DNP for nine of UCLA’s last 12 games. This year, after playing 12 minutes in a narrow exhibition win over Concordia, Morgan did not play against Fullerton. Of course, Morgan isn’t alone as a slow developer among the top centers from that class.

The No. 1 center in the 2008 class, B.J. Mullens, played well enough at Ohio State to go 24th in the NBA Draft after one season, but most in Columbus were disappointed by his often disinterested performances and the mere 20 minutes he played per game. No. 2 Rashanti Harris is still waiting to become eligible at Georgia State. No. 4 Ty Walker played in just 11 games at Wake Forest last season and is averaging seven minutes per game for the Deacons so far this season. Michael Dunigan at Oregon, Kenny Kadji at Florida, Henry Sims at Georgetown, Jeff Withey at Arizona — none of these guys has made much of an impact so far. That’s the nature of many big men, but it’s certainly hurting UCLA right now.

While it’s definitely too early to say UCLA whiffed on the 2008 class, right now those players are not good enough to offset the losses UCLA has suffered. Players like Michael Roll, James Keefe and Nicola Dragovic came to UCLA were varying levels of fanfare, but they’ve shown the ability to be solid roll players, effective when not asked to carry a large burden. Against CSF, Dragovic and Roll combined to shoot 29 times, and UCLA’s offensive efficiencies suffered (to be fair, Roll was one of the few effective players for UCLA on offense with a 50.0 eFG on 15 attempts to go with five assists and no turnovers).

UCLA has a team of players not good enough or not yet ready to take on a scoring load. The defense looks fine. It held the Titans to 0.81 PPP and forced turnovers on 22.5 percent of possession. UCLA also did well on the boards, especially on the defensive glass where Dragovic grabbed 13 and Keefe eight. But even a defense that good was unable to overcome 5-for-29 shooting from deep (17.2 percent) and a 33.9 eFG.

There are reasons to pick optimism from the mire of this loss. First, the Bruins have had to deal with a myriad of injuries in the preseason, which has hindered a new team’s ability to congeal. Tyler Honeycutt, one of the nation’s top freshman small forwards, is out for a month, and he would certainly deepen Howland’s rotation. This is a team whose offense should improve with each successive game, and the defense is already solid.

Second, this was a particularly poor shooting performance, even with a team this young and flawed. For all his limitations, Dragovic was a 38 percent 3-point shooter on 150 attempts last year. On Monday, he went 1-for-9. Lee has ability going to the rim, but instead he attempted eight threes, making just one. Lee hit on 57 percent of his twos last year but made just 6-of-15 (40 percent) on Monday. Anderson, though not a good shooter, went 1-for-11. A minimal improvement in any of those shooting numbers, and UCLA wins this game, and it becomes merely a close call — like Kentucky’s win over Miami (Ohio) — rather than the lead on SportsCenter for 24 hours.

Third, the Pac-10 isn’t very good this year. In fact, it’s looking more and more like the Pac-10 is the worst of the major conferences. That means, unlike in recent years, UCLA will not need to be quite as good to win conference games. Matchups with Washington State, Stanford and USC don’t look as daunting as in recent seasons. UCLA is clearly a step behind Cal and Washington, but the Bruins should still be able to play with the rest of the league. Arizona State looks strongest of the rest of the Pac-10 so far, but the Sun Devils have yet to face a quality opponent. On the other hand, neither has UCLA.

Team of the week: Oregon. After a terrible season last year, Ernie Kent took the next step toward moving on with a 3-0 weekend to start 2009-10. The Ducks were dominant, especially on defense where they forced turnovers on 28 percent of opponents’ possession and dominated the defensive glass. Defense hasn’t been a strength for Oregon in the Kent Era, so we’ll see if this continues once the competition improves. Tajuan Porter hit 5-of-10 3-pointers in the last two wins.

Worst performance: Oregon State. In what might have been the stinker of the week, the Beavers lost by 24 to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. The Islanders are the second choice in the Southland West and have a recent NCAA Tournament appearance, so they’re not a bad team. Still, this was a performance to make folks around the nation to a double-take.

That’s not a typo — 0.63 points per possession. When it’s hard to distinguish the eFG (36.6) from the turnover rate (36.4), something is very, very wrong. There’s not even time to get to the 15 missed free throws. Oregon State’s improvement during last season was due primarily to its ability to make 2-pointers. Roeland Schaftenaar and Seth Tarver were particularly adept. Those two combined to go 4-for-8 on Friday night, but the rest of the Beavers were just 5-for-18 (27.8). No matter what anyone shot, though, failing to even attempt a shot on more than a third of all possessions is going to lead to a loss almost every time.

We know Coach Robinson can get a team to improve over the course of a season, but need he set the bar so low?

Upcoming: There aren’t that many highlights to this week’s schedule. Stanford looks to get back over .500 when it hosts a solid Oral Roberts team on Wednesday. On Thursday and Friday, one of the Pac-10’s best, Cal, takes center stage. The Bears were decent but not overwhelming in two wins early last week, and they’ll have to be better against Syracuse on Thursday. UNC or Ohio State will await Mike Montgomery’s team on Friday. Finally, Oregon has a tricky trip to Portland on Saturday night.

Here is the average national rank (lower is better) in each of the four factors. All data provided by Ken Pomeroy

As expected, the higher seeds have dominant offenses and are much better at shooting the ball and grabbing any shots they miss. On the defensive end, they allow a lower percentage of made buckets and send their opponents to the free-throw line far less. These numbers are unadjusted for strength of schedule, so the higher seeds will be even stronger than they appear — this only adds to the intimidation when a small school-coach takes a look at what he is up against. A look at those three, shiny bolded numbers do reflect a chink in the armor though. The lower-seeded teams tended to be strong at defending the 3-ball and were a little better at taking care of the ball, but the number that sticks out like a sore thumb is how many turnovers they force. Not only are the underdogs strong at forcing turnovers, the favorites are actually below average at making their opponents waste possessions.


So, now that we know the profile of the teams before the game, here is how the four factors looked post-mortem.

Once again, the higher seeds pounded the boards and got to the charity stripe a few more times, as expected. Of course, the underdogs did shoot better than expected, but in a 40-minute sample size, these lower-seeded teams will need to hit some threes to stay with the big boys. What was very interesting though is that in eight of the nine cases, the lower seeded team had significantly fewer turnovers. The one team that didn’t was Siena, who drew Vanderbilt to a standstill in turnovers but shot more than 20 percent better in routing the Commodores. Simply put, even good teams are going to find it difficult to compete when they are giving up 10-20 percent more shots a game. Of course, offensive rebounding does the same thing by extending a possession, but what drives basketball coaches mad is sloppy, careless turnovers. One final, important note is that the games featured fewer possessions than both teams normally average, which shortens the game and increases the likelihood of an upset.


OK. So now we know the profile of what goes in to a major bracket-buster. Which higher seeds are masking some weaknesses, and are they matched up with a little team that knows how to take advantage? Here are a few for thought, with national ranks in turnovers committed/turnovers forces in parentheses.


Critical Alert


No. 13 Cleveland State (97/13) vs. No. 4 Wake Forest (200/137): The Deacons combine very poor ball-handling skills with mediocre pressure on the defensive end, relying on their superior height and athleticism to provide their strong defense. Unfortunately for them, they are going up against a dangerous Cleveland State team that will straight-up hound you on the defensive end. Combined with above-average carefulness on the offensive end and a very slow pace that Wake isn’t used to playing, and I think you could see the Vikings really give it a go. Cleveland State already beat Syracuse on the road earlier this year by causing double the turnovers than it gave up (oh, and of course a miraculous buzzer-beater).


No. 13 Portland State (134/98) vs. No. 4 Xavier (253/264): Yes, Xavier had a great run in the tournament last year, but please note: skilled point Drew Lavender and sure-handed big Josh Duncan are no longer on this year’s team. The 2008-09 Musketeers are horrible on both ends of the court in this aspect, and it’s threatening to derail their season. Portland State already has a big road win over Gonzaga this year and seems to be just strong enough to make Xavier really have to prove it deserves to advance.


No. 14 North Dakota State (14/279) vs. No. 3 Kansas (240/239): Plus — Kansas are the defending national champs. Minus — the Jayhawks are the only team to appear on this list of upsets twice. Plus — Bill Self got the monkey off his back in terms of taking the next step last season. Minus — the 2007-08 version of the Jayhawks was actually a pretty good ball=handling team, but the 2008-09 version smells awfully similar (and actually worse if you can believe it) than the 2004-05 and 2005-06 versions who clocked in at (141/232) and (220/42) respectively. The Bison are within driving distance of the Minneapolis location, and they shoot lights out — do you think it’s a good idea to give them extra possessions?


Probably Safe But You Never Know


No. 14 Stephen F. Austin (38/105) vs. No. 3 Syracuse (176/256): While the turnover discrepancy here is quite large, SFA is a notch below ND State and Cleveland State, while Syracuse is a notch above Xavier. Still, with the record six-OT game still fresh in their minds — or sore on their legs — who can be sure if Syracuse’s players aren’t set for a near-repeat of 2005’s Big East Tourney victory followed by NCAA Tournament letdown.


No. 15 Morgan State (120/50) vs. No. 2 Oklahoma (114/304): A huge upset win would likely require a combination of many extra shots and hitting a large percentage of threes, because there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Morgan State is going to score in the paint against the Sooners.


No. 15 Robert Morris (280/25) vs. No. 2 Michigan State (207/166): A huge longshot, but Robert Morris should be able to force a good amount of turnovers and the Spartans’ non-pressure style may be just what the Colonials need to limit theirs.


So there you have it, a complete breakdown of the most at-risk high seeds in this year’s tournament. Now I’m fully prepared for the chalk to rack up the victories and to have egg on my face this weekend, but, if there are a few earth-shattering upsets, you know where you heard it first.

Without a truly elite team and without any terrible teams — excepting Oregon, which is unlikely to make it to Thursday and which has actually won two straight — the Pac-10 should be among the most competitive conference tournaments this week.

• Pac-10 Bracket »

Take it slow: With the exception of the Big Ten, no major conference takes its time as much as the Pac-10. Arizona State, Washington State and Oregon State are among the five slowest-paced major-conference teams in the nation. UCLA has quickened its pace to the point where it is actually in the top half of the conference in tempo, despite Ben Howland’s reputation for being, well, deliberate. Still, six of the 10 Pac-10 teams are significantly better on offense than defense, meaning there might be a lot of highly efficient games played in the 50s and 60s. Washington State’s overtime win against Arizona State in Pullman was the slowest-paced major-conference game this season. Too bad those two could only meet in the finals.

Bubble watch: Two Pac-10 teams have a chance to turn their NCAA Tournament fates from negative to positive with strong performances in the conference tournament. Arizona plays Arizona State in an intriguing 4-5 matchup. The Wildcats lost both regular-season meetings, but both were within single digits and Arizona lost by just two in Tempe on Feb. 22. In that game, ASU had a 67.8 eFG, something Herb Sendek’s team is unlikely to duplicate. That game will be at 3 p.m. ET on Thursday and a win should clinch Zona’s bid.

USC is the other team that can make the NCAA field with a deep run in the tourney, and the Trojans will be playing in its hometown, as the Staples Center is hosting the event. USC opens up with Cal, a team the Trojans defeated by 11 at the Galen Center and lost to in overtime in Berkeley. USC really hurt the Bears on the boards in both games — Cal’s ability to check Taj Gibson on the glass will be key — but the first was highly defensive and the second highly offensive. USC’s 59.4 eFG in the loss at Cal was its second best shooting performance of the Pac-10 schedule. That game is at 9 p.m. on Thursday. Even if USC defeats Cal, the Trojans are likely to need a second win to make the field. USC lost twice to UCLA — its semifinal opponent should both teams win in the quarters. The game at USC was close, but the one at UCLA was not. USC’s offense had its second worst offensive performance of the season — the worst was at Washington — in the trip to Pauley.

Cougar alert: Washington State is playing great basketball. In fact, if the Cougars had managed to defeat Washington on Saturday, they would have been in the bubble discussion. But Tony Bennett’s team lost that game after consecutive wins at UCLA and at home to Arizona and Arizona State. WSU is a team of extremes — very slow pace, no offensive rebounding, all defensive rebounding, no free throws, no forced turnovers, great interior field-goal defense. This has caused some weird results — including the 51-49 overtime win against ASU that saw just 52 possessions and the uber-efficient 82-81, 65-possession win at UCLA, the Bruins’ only home loss of the season (EDIT: UCLA also lost to Arizona State at Pauley). WSU has Oregon in the first round on Wednesday and then UCLA again before potential matchups with any of the three teams Washington State did not defeat in conference play — Cal/USC (in the semis) or Washington (in the final).

Handicapping the field: Washington and UCLA enter as co-favorites. UCLA gets the slight nod because of the hometown factor. The draw slightly favors Washington. Stanford or Oregon State likely followed by Arizona State — three teams Washington swept — is an easier road to the final than Washington State and then either USC or Cal. It’s a large step down to the next four teams — Arizona State, USC, Cal and Washington State. I’d put the teams in that order, since the Bears get USC and UCLA in their hometowns just to make the final and run into Washington or ASU. The Bears did hand Washington two of its four conference losses, which is something to note should Mike Montgomery’s team makes it to Saturday. As far as upsets to look out for, this won’t be a tournament with many heavy favorites in a given game, but I’d give Stanford a decent shot of taking out Washington in the quarters if the Cardinal gets by Oregon State. UW did sweep Stanford, but the two wins came by a total of just eight points, including a dramatic win in Seattle on a Jon Brockman put-back.

Since everyone’s played everyone else once each, it’s fair to compare the teams’ efficiencies and draw sweeping conclusions based on them:

Offense wins championships: Contrary to popular myth, the UCLA Bruins are contenders for the Pac-10 title because of their offense not their defense. Ben Howland’s team is a terrific shooting club from inside and out, led by Darren Collison and Josh Shipp from the outside and Collison, freshman Jrue Holliday and Alfred Aboya inside. That’s right — the nation’s best point guard is deadly from inside (58.1 percent on twos) and outside (39.3 percent on threes). He also is a top assist man, never turns it over and gets a bunch of steals. Maybe people are just bored with how good he is and how clinical his teams have been for four seasons — or maybe they’re too worried about his NBA prospects to concern themselves with his collegiate dominance.

The other Pac-10 team that appears to have a (conference) championship pedigree is Washington. You’ll have a tough time convincing Seth Davis or a conventional college basketball analyst that Lorenzo Romar’s Huskies actually play defense a bit better than UCLA, and that it’s Washington’s offense that is just a touch worse, but it’s true. The Huskies continue to kill it on the glass, especially the offensive glass behind Jon Brockman, Quincy Pondexter and Matthew Bryan-Amaning. The Huskies, though, have been rebounding well ever since Brockman and Pondexter got to Seattle, so the big difference is in the backcourt where Isaiah Thomas has been willing to eat up a ton of possessions with enough efficiency to keep Washington near the top of the conference in offense.

What the Pac-10 may lack in Final Four contenders it makes up for in conference title potentials. USC and perhaps Arizona State are probably good enough to challenge Washington and UCLA should one of them slip.

Trojans coming on strong: The best defense in Los Angeles and probably in the Pac-10 belongs to Tim Floyd and USC. Only Cal held Washington to a lower offensive efficiency than USC did, and the Trojans are allowing just .956 points per possession in their current three-game winning streak. On offense, USC has scored at least 1.07 points per possession in the last five games for which Dwight Lewis has been healthy. USC has lost to Seton Hall and Oregon State this season, but the Trojans figure to have many more impressive victories than bad losses between now and the end of March.

Junior forward Taj Gibson is the biggest reason why the defense is good with his terrific defensive rebounding and shot-blocking. Marcus Johnson’s mid-year addition as a transfer from UConn has also helped the defense, as he is the most likely Trojan to grab a steal. If DeMar Derozan can ever become the player that he was touted to be, USC may have a chance to snag the league title.

Enough with the Evergreen State!: That’s probably what Herb Sendek is thinking after seeing his Sun Devils’ run at a Pac-10 title derailed this weekend with a home sweep at the hands of the Washington schools. His record against the Huskies and Cougars now stands at 1-10, and it really is the defense that’s to blame for those last two losses. Washington State’s offense is the worst of any non-Oregon Pac-10 team, and yet the Cougars still managed 1.12 points per possession. Two days later, the Huskies — a more formidable offense surely, managed 1.23 points per possession. The conference average this season is 1.05.

Arizona State appeared to be the odds-on favorite to challenge UCLA for the Pac-10 title after ASU went into Westwood and won two weeks ago, but something happened between that signature win and the start of February.

Along with allowing both Washington opponents to run roughshod on the ASU defense, the Sun Devils’ offense — previously the picture of efficiency — suddenly can’t shoot straight. The offense is now looking short of options. James Harden is still getting it done but is not getting much help. Derek Glasser and Rihards Kuksiks are not shooting well and scoring almost never, and Jeff Pendergraph is not so much a post threat as he is a garbage man who can finish on the break and score on second chances and the other opportunities Harden creates. Unless Sendek can find more consistent options to complement his star, ASU may leave its NCAA Tournament qualification down to the final weeks of February rather than spending those weeks competing for a conference title.

Things fall apart: The Cal Bears were one of the nation’s surprises after a 4-0 start in conference that got Mike Montgomery’s team to 15-2 overall. It’s the Bears’ defense that has collapsed since. Cal’s best defensive performances in its 1-4 stretch over its last five games were allowing 1.07 points per possession in a win over Oregon and the recent 11-point loss to USC. The Bears’ opponents are shooting lights-out, and the opposition is also getting to the line at alarming rates. People talk about how well this team shoots — as have I — but it was the defense that led the way in a sweep of the Washington teams on the road, and it’s the defense that will determine whether the Bears can avoid going from 15-2 to out of the NCAA field.

Starting to come together: To watch Arizona in its first seven conference games was to see a team short on depth, one that lacked an identity and that was headed for a poor season. Then, just as Cal and ASU saw its seasons derailed over the weekend, Arizona got its season back on track. Against Washington, the offense was dominant; against Washington State, the defense stepped up. Chase Budinger’s recent emergence from a slump gives the Wildcats the three-headed offensive monster Russ Pennell hoped he’d have from the start of conference play. At least he’s back now and with it the Wildcats’ chances of sneaking into the NCAA Tournament once again.

A tail of two seasons: Craig Robinson and Barack Obama are brothers-in-law. You may have heard that. You may have also heard that Oregon State has won three straight conference games a season after winning none. The in-season turnaround is phenomenal to behold. Yes, USC had a head-scratching overtime loss in Corvallis on the conference season’s first weekend, but the Beavers still had a -.29 differential in a 1-5 start, scoring .89 points per possession and allowing 1.18. In the last three games — wins over Cal, Stanford and Oregon — OSU is +.12, scoring 1.12 points per possession and allowing 1.00. That’s a .41-point per possession turnaround, which is pretty much inconceivable even from year to year, let alone within a single month. We’ll learn how real it is as teams adjust to Robinson’s Princeton offense the second time around.

Speaking of slow paces: Washington State doesn’t run a Princeton or Princeton-modified offense, but that doesn’t stop the Cougs from taking things slow. The last time Tony Bennett’s Cougars played a game that had more than 65 possessions and didn’t go into overtime was when they were Dick Bennett’s Cougars on Jan. 7, 2006. With the slow pace and WSU’s terrific defense, only once have either the Cougars or their opponent scored even 70 points in a Pac-10 game — WSU’s 74-62 win at Oregon. The Cougars’ defense is good enough to make the NCAA Tournament right now, but the offense needs to be better or WSU will end up several games short. Freshman Klay Thompson may be the future, but his inability to get to the free-throw line or to get any offensive rebounds has made all those possessions he uses a drain on the offense.

It started so well: To look at the conference standings three weeks into the season was to see Stanford, Cal and Arizona State up; Washington State, Arizona and Oregon State down. A few weeks later and all those teams have met in the middle of the conference. Three one-point losses in his team’s last seven games may have Johnny Dawkins feeling snakebit, but the Cardinal’s weak defense should be getting most of his attention. Oregon State, USC and UCLA ran roughshod all over Stanford, each shooting at least 55.6 eFG (UCLA shot 70 percent, Oregon State shot 67 percent), and none of them turned it over much. Stanford has been giving up high shooting percentages all season, but winning is unsustainable with opponents shooting that well, and the Cardinal will need to force many more turnovers to make up for even its usually poor field-goal defense.

Another Oregon state university is winless: The Ducks are a deserved 0-9 in conference. They’ve only come within seven points of a conference opponent once, and that was this weekend in a three-point loss to Oregon State. Ernie Kent’s team has the conference’s worst offense and worst defense in league play, and while a winless season to match the state rival in Corvallis’ 2007-08 is unlikely, a ninth-place finish is equally so. The defense was pretty bad last year as well, but Tajuan Porter has been unable to take the scoring load left by Malik Hairston and be efficient. And neither Michael Dunigan nor Joevan Catron has been much help either. The offense should be a bit better in the second half of conference play, but that just means Oregon will go 3-15 rather than 1-17. Should Kent be worried about his job? That seems a bit harsh with such a young team, but college basketball is an unyielding business.

Handicapping the rest of the season: If I had to put odds on the Pac-10 title right now, I’d put UCLA at 40 percent, Washington at 30 percent, USC at 20 percent and the field — mainly ASU — at 10 percent. All four of those teams figure to make the NCAA Tournament, and I’d guess Arizona and Cal fight for a fifth bid. Their rematch in Tucson on Mar. 5 may be the tiebreaker. The Pac-10 doesn’t figure to produce any Final Four teams — and maybe not even an Elite Eight club — but it could feature a three- or four-team race for the title and a lot of fun — albeit slow-paced — matchups.