Mark and Chris break down the race for the last Pac-12 conference basketball championship. They also preview USC's upcoming road trip to the Oregon schools.
The Dunk City Podcast is the podcast of record for the USC basketball community. You can find all episodes at DunkCityPod.com, USCBasketball.com or on Apple Music, Spotify and Amazon. Contact us at USCBasketball.com@gmail.com.
Mark and Chris break down the race for the last Pac-12 conference basketball championship. They also preview USC's upcoming road trip to the Oregon schools.
The Dunk City Podcast is the podcast of record for the USC basketball community. You can find all episodes at DunkCityPod.com, USCBasketball.com or on Apple Music, Spotify and Amazon. Contact us at USCBasketball.com@gmail.com.
Welcome to the Dunk City podcast. Change direction by backstabbing. Here's the final round of life Elmhansen For the Olysse and the show. It is on the Trojan Tundra. Usc is on to the sweet 16. Happy holidays, everybody from the Dunk City podcast brought to you by usabaskablecom. Chris Houston, here with Mark Backstam, we are heading into Pac-12 conference play here. On Thursday night USC takes on Oregon up in Eugene and then we'll play the Oregon State Beavers on Saturday. So what we're going to do is we are going to break down just our thoughts on how the Pac-12 conference play is shaping up. Let me just say that again, on how a conference play will be shaping up this year. So we're going to do a quick rundown of how we think the teams will finish and we'll do a little preview of the Oregon State Games. And of course, we will have a new feature which we alluded to in our last episode, called Mark's Mean Minute. So, mark, how's it going? Hope you had a great holiday. What's going on in your head right now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, my holiday, I guess, was fine to be generous and in an interstitial time I'll just keep it at that. You know, once I was past my holiday I really dug into some metrics here and I found some interesting stuff in terms of where the Pac-12 teams have come from and landed so far through the non-conference season. I kind of surprised myself with what I found, so I'm hoping that maybe you can kind of fill in some blanks on what I'm seeing and tell me if I'm right or wrong, or Sure thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know one thing we can say just from the start is that the Pac-12 is in the middle of the day. The Pac-12 is 86 and 45 in the non-conference, almost a 66% winning percentage. Not the strongest strength of schedule overall, but some pretty good matchups between the various teams. Arizona played a ton of great teams. Usc had a pretty solid schedule as well. How do you see? I mean, I think we can all look at the preseason and I think there's got to be one favorite from everybody right now. I think at the beginning of the year maybe Arizona would not have been that necessarily unanimous favorite, but right now I think there's no one who can touch them. What do you think?
Speaker 2:Okay. Well, this is where I'm going to differ from the narratives. Right away I'm actually showing the team that had the best out of conference performance is Colorado. Believe it or not, I've got as a team. Their BPO 100 is 55.5, which is a little better than Arizona's 55.0. Before I dig in too much more, I just want to mention that I've got these all sketched out in the column.
Speaker 2:I know that sometimes if you're driving or exercising or doing yard work in December and listening to the pod, you're just hearing numbers. It might be a little hard to keep track. But if you want to actually take a look at these, just check out the column on this and you'll get the numbers. It might be a little easier to remember and follow along. Raw efficiency on the offensive side Colorado is a little bit here, arizona. Here's where it gets even more interesting. They've faced a tougher schedule in terms of opponents defensive BPO by about two points. When we normalize for that, I get to a BPO 100 plus a score of 100. If you're familiar with, like ERA plus, where 100 is just average, colorado's BPO 100 plus on offense is 115. In Arizona's is only 1.9.
Speaker 2:First of all, this was discouraging because I just don't like tad boil and we'll have time to talk about that next month when we preview Colorado. I think that they might have a featured spot in Mark's mean minute. But if I look on the offensive efficiency by player they actually have, they've got three guys in the top 12, kj Simpson, tristan, which you know you could kind of see the pieces for him last season. Tristan De Silva, who's just had your typical kind of you know talented Pac-12 player arc you could see that coming as well. And the third one is Javon Hadley, not familiar with him. I don't remember if he played for them last year, but that's three in the top 12. That's the most of any team. So they've, you know, the players really back up, kind of what that team metric is telling me. You surprised by this. Does this make sense to you? Are you as bummed by as I am that tad boil is going to have a good team, maybe this season?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not surprised that Colorado is doing well or that they will are projected to do well in the conference. They have a lot of good pieces coming back. Kj Simpson is back. He was pretty good last year for them, although I do think he is a bit of a volume score. He's very ball dominant, shoots a lot and not the most efficient guy. And, of course, de Silva is, like you said, a really solid Pac-12 player. You know, very experienced. He's going to get you. He's going to, for the most part, get you 12 to 12 to 18 points every night, very consistent player. They also have another intriguing player named Cody Williams, who is a really highly rated freshman, very athletic. He's not doing a whole lot right now I don't think he's even starting, but, like you mentioned, and Javan Hadley, who was there last year, he's a senior. It's going to be interesting to see if they can carry that over into conference play, because a lot of things you do Out of conference doesn't necessarily hold up in conference.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the. The one thing you brought up that that really stuck out to me too is is you bring up Keon Brooks. He was nowhere near the top 12. He was, I think, 18th in Buscar. He's just not nearly as efficient. I'm gonna push back a little bit on on the KJ Simpson narrative and, and how dare you make me defend a tad boil Player or team? But you know he's shooting 62.4 percent from two. Forty eight point nine percent from free and ninety percent from the line. He's basically, he's basically exceeding about peak boogie for the entire non-conference now.
Speaker 1:He's, for no doubt he's having a good, for he's having a good season. No doubt I'm just in general, this has been what the knock on him was. Last year he he averaged 14 shots a game and he shot 40% from the field and he shot 38% the previous year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think my fears are being realized. That I, when I saw him last year, I thought, yeah, this guy's gonna be a good player and he's. He's better than I kind of had had feared or expected. I guess is where I'm going with that, yeah so he's definitely look.
Speaker 1:You're right, he's definitely doing what what boogie had been doing up until recently. He is having a fantastic season. But let's see, let's see what happens when he's in conference play and he's playing against teams that have played him before and you know, know his tendencies. I'm just we'll see if it holds up. I'm a bit skeptical that it will hold up, because if it does hold up, then you know You're looking at a player of the year candidate in the conference.
Speaker 2:Very fair and actually actually who I have as as right now is as my projected player of the year.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you have Colorado, so your prediction is that Colorado is going to win the conference.
Speaker 2:No, I just we're talking about offense right now. Oh so you know Arizona I've got is the second best offense. No real surprise there, except for maybe that they're not the top. Then we've got a. You know an interesting group of teams that all have about the same BPO 100 plus in Utah, washington State and Stanford. You know two of these.
Speaker 2:I can say, okay, good coaches, that you kind of expect a, you know, to rebound after kind of down to shears in Utah and Washington State. The Stanford thing is just out of nowhere. They seem to be really treading water under Haas for quite some time and Maybe, again to your point, maybe this, this regresses a lot during the conference play. But you know their BPO 100 of plus of 106 is, you know it's, it's it's it's closer to Arizona than Arizona is to Colorado, which is interesting. I Didn't get, I didn't see that coming from from Stanford, utah and Washington State. You kind of get the feeling with those coaches that if they have a down this year it's just a rebuild. But you know any reactions from that that group of three teams.
Speaker 1:I feel like Washington State has consistently has been a kind of like Underrated team offensively and that they've they've always sort of outdone their their expectations on offense, at least not always, but at least in recent years. So I'm not surprised to see them up there Utah I'm not too surprised because they've got a good system there and I think they they know what they're doing. And yeah, stanford, I'm definitely surprised at that. But again, I think that what I'm really interested in is is how the how the non-conference is going to blend in with With the conference. Because if you, if you look at going back to Colorado, you look at what Colorado is doing, what some of their players are doing, you know, is if KJ Simpson shoots 52% from 2 and 48% from 3 and 90% from from free throw for the rest of the year, then he's gonna be an all-american. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:So, or.
Speaker 1:But if he's not going to then then then he's probably going to have a bit of a drop-off and so, yeah, I think these are interesting stats, but I'm really curious to see you know how much of it can hold up in conflicts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and and to dig in a little deeper, kind of I think, more and more extreme Adversion of KJ Simpson is this name sounded familiar and I had to look him up Michael Jones of Stanford. He's actually third in the conference in Buscar. It's gonna be PO of sixty three point four. Do you remember him? He's that kid that transferred from Davidson and you would. I remember looking him last season I thought, okay, he might be, okay, you know, maybe a starter, maybe not, but he definitely didn't strike me as somebody that was, like, you know, gonna be a possible all-pack 12 player. But here he is, he's, he's, he's got, he's the third most productive player Offensively in the pack 12. So I'm thinking that maybe your thoughts would be Whatever you say about KJ Simpson, maybe apply at times 10 to Michael Jones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say so. You know it just, it's just because. But because how much, how many minutes is he playing for them?
Speaker 2:Well, Buscar is a cumulative stat and I'm playing 31. He's playing 31 minutes a game right 10 games. Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean that's, that's a good revelation there. I mean I'm really curious to see how that's gonna project out and and maybe that really bodes well for Stanford, because I don't think a lot of people were counting on on Stanford, you know, to be in that In that area. Obviously he's a good three-point shooter and they've got a trio of good three-point shooters on the squad, so actually they got four. You know, not only Brandon Angel is shooting 42% and Benny Gehler is shooting 41.4% and Jones is shooting 35. You also got Andre Stojakovich is also shooting 36%. It's gonna be an interesting, you know. It's interesting to see how that trend will continue in conference space. Okay, so we're still going through offenses, right?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Okay, continue.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you know to your point about, about, you know, having good systems in place. You talk to guys in the top 12 offensively um Rolly Worcester and Gabe Madsen. I think they also had Brendan Carlson injured last season. He's actually on the perimeter. He's not really as as efficient as I thought, but that's kind of a good position to be and we've got two in the top 12 and you know, when I think Utah, you know, the guy I fear first of all is is Carlson, because he's kind of a do everything big guy, yeah, and man, that that's a good position to be. In. That Worcester always struck me as a, you know, maybe just an outside shooter and that's it, but he's just. He's been so productive. He's only taken 19 three pointers this year, which is a little surprising. He's been very, very, very productive with 68 assists, which looks like it might actually lead the conference at this point. He doesn't turn the ball over. Yeah that's.
Speaker 2:That's leading to a lot of his production.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think. I think if you're in a situation like Utah Is, where your best player is maybe not playing as well as he usually is and you're still playing well, overall You're in good shape because once Carlson rounds into shape, you know I'm sure he will be shooting better Down the road.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, and look in a little bit They've they faced one of the easier defensive Schedules. I think they've actually faced the worst group of off or defenses so far. So that's you know, even though we're normalizing the team, but these, these individual stats are getting the benefit without being normalized too. So that's probably Tweaking that up a little bit too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right. So Colorado, arizona, utah, washington State, stanford, which brings us to the next group of offenses.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we've got a group here right around one. Well, there's, there's a couple here Oregon and Washington. Little surprise that. It that organs that is this low, although they do have two big men out, but they're. They're still. Don't want to ruin the preview, they still do have Efficiency across the board. Just a lot of guys, just metrically. They look at me, looked at me a lot like Auburn. He said, as he holds his breath Washington the same, these two teams, boy they they. Just from a team level. They have the exact same BPO 100. They faced almost the same exact Strength of opponent. You know, no individual players really stand out too much on either team. Neither of those teams has a player. If I look down, even in the top 15 or so, you have to go down to. Apologies, I don't remember this guy from last year, paul Mulcahy for Washington. Do you remember him?
Speaker 1:I don't think he played. He was at Rutgers last year. He came over transfer from Rutgers, so I don't know much about him. I do know Keon Brooks is, you know, basically probably the the most elite scorer, right up there at the most elite scores in the conference. And then you have Braxton Mia, who's a really good kind of Explosive, big inside who can, who seems like it. You know, he seems like every shot he takes is is a dunk. If he stays out of foul trouble he only gets, he gets. He doesn't get a lot of minutes because he's constantly in foul trouble. He's a really aggressive guy but he's given USC a lot of fits.
Speaker 1:And, of course, severe wheeler, who came over as a transfer from Kentucky. He's already Showing some dividends. He's leading the leading the conference and assists Average a seven. He's averaging seven assists per game, which is which is really good for For college. But and then they also have Frank Kepnang, who's a transfer from Oregon and didn't play much last year, I think, due to injury, but he's back and so they've got a couple big guys, pretty good point guard and a good score. So they're they seem like they are definitely a more, more of a threat as a team this year than they were last year and they beat Gonzaga. So, wow, very impressive, very impressive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, and then just another step down and then you get to our Trojans, who you know. Interestingly, in the last couple podcasts We've kind of lamented that the problems have been on defense. But really are, you know, when we're stacking up to to the competition in offense, it's really where we've we're. We're shy a little bit is on offense. Our BPL 100 plus is just 100.9, so just yeah barely above an average D1 team.
Speaker 2:We have played a above average schedule of opposing defenses but really, you know, no surprise to any of us, it's that are our fans in particular. Listen to this, this podcast. Boogie Alice is, let me see here, sixth in the conference in Buscar and then we have to go a long way down to get to the number two guy, who is Isaiah Collier, and I can't even count that high ad hoc, but it looks like 45th. Okay. So One man show on offense so far and right. You know I don't want to spoil the column, but if you look in the column I've got some ideas on how what we need to do to really boost up the offensive production. Yeah, because that that is really where we are coming up short so far in relation to our our conference peers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and and again. These are all the. These are great Numbers to really gauge how really how the out of conference has gone right and Everyone is playing different teams, everyone is playing at different times. So so it's not a perfect apples to apples comparison like we're gonna get in conference, but it is definitely sort of a great way to look at how the teams have gone so far. And the question I have for you is how, how do you account for when you're trying to project going forward, how do you account for the differences and schedules In the past you know, so far in the out of conference and then and then moving forward into league play whenever was playing each other?
Speaker 2:yeah, well, two sides to that coin. The first thing is I do normalized based on the strength of opponent. That's why I take the raw BPO 100 divided by the Average opponents defensive BPO to give that BPO 100 plus. So in theory that normalizes for the strength of opponent. Now the one thing that doesn't have the other side of that coin is is really styles and matchups.
Speaker 2:Yeah and there's. Just, you're not gonna have that. So, yeah, you know if, if, for example, you know if, if, if, ongoing the the turnovers just to take a very specific example that we're all Familiar with the if the turnovers. Just, you know we're continuing to be a problem for Collier. Just these metrics wouldn't, wouldn't be able to capture going forward. Okay, which teams really turn you over?
Speaker 2:Yeah versus which ones? Just sit back and and and let you just kind of take the outside shots, more or less. So that's what we're missing here, and so these are limited, but it is a good gauge about the level of play that we've seen versus opponent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, interesting, all right. So we've got a, we've gone down to USC. Now we're at Sort of the lower third of the conference as far as offense. And what do you see there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I Wouldn't see any real big surprises in this group. Probably not a lot worth talking about. Cal, ucla, oregon State and Arizona State. Cal, actually, surprisingly, is the best of that group by by four BPL 100 plus points. Yeah, interesting, they've got one guy in the top 12. I'm not completely familiar with him. Jalen Cohn Is he a transfer. Do you familiar?
Speaker 1:with his work. I'm not familiar with his work at all.
Speaker 2:Okay, you're not alone, I'll just say that.
Speaker 1:but he's probably a transfer, I'm pretty sure yeah.
Speaker 2:I think most of people on that on that roster are. Is that a fair bet? A lot of them, yeah. Yeah, which says a lot about the three teams behind them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, jalen Cohn. He's averaging 16 points a game, so he's Looks to be well. You know, the funny thing is they have a couple guys who are who are scoring pretty well. They have Jalen Tyson, who's averaging 19.4, and Fardaus on mark, who's averaging almost 17. So, but, like you said, he is the most efficient of the group.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that's the problem. He is the most efficient, but his BP 100 is just 52.9. When that's your most efficient offensive player, you're gonna have some problems.
Speaker 2:Yeah and yet the team right behind them UCLA my gosh, bpo, 100 plus of 94 One of my Bruin buddies just I hadn't really been keeping up with them. I saw they lost to Northridge and he said, yeah, that wasn't even one of their worst games. They're just, they're horrible on offense. And my gosh, they're right. I've seen them play a little bit. I'm guessing that, based on the change in personnel, that we under the miss underestimated the amount of heavy lifting that Jaime Hockez was doing for them last year on offense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thought this was. I thought this was totally kind of a foreseeable. I think that could have happened, given the way that Cronin has structured their roster. He basically decided to go all in on the Euros, right. So he brought in a bunch of Euros for the team and then he mixed those with some guys that were already on the roster pretty much, and what you have is this drop off and experience level from last year when you had all these guys who played together for so long at UCLA, and because of the COVID year, a lot of these guys got an extra year.
Speaker 1:So it was a very rare circumstance and this is the group that Cronin inherited and so rather than he hasn't really been recruiting at the level UCLA has been used to. So what he did was he went all in on getting this group of very skilled Euros. But, just like anything, even though they're skilled, they're still freshmen, and even more so they're freshmen who are 5,000 miles from home and adjusting to just being in a different environment, different culture, and I would have to think that this is a tougher task. It's tougher thing to do to acclimate these types of freshmen than to acclimate other types of freshmen, the normal types that are from the US, and so it was a gamble. If it worked out great, then UCLA has all these really skilled players who are, you know, a lot of them are a couple of them excuse me, a couple of them are projected as NBA players and if it went well and maybe at some point the light will go on for some of these guys, but right now it looks like a really rough, rough go for UCLA.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a couple of just observations, because I do remember seeing them a lot last year and talking about UCLA buddies a lot about them. My first exposure to Adam Bono last year I forget which game it was, but I was just really impressed. I thought, man, this guy's just really really good. My buddies are saying, no, you're just, you caught him on a good day. And now they're just saying, yeah, last year he's not even as good as like he was in his bad, in his bad moments last year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I'm going to defend him a little bit because, Bono, when you're playing with a lot of guys, he was a freshman last year and he was very good defensively last year.
Speaker 1:He's a very talented kid, but when you're playing with a lot of good players around you, you're going to look better. When you're playing with guys who are, you know, not the best players or they're still getting their feet wet, you're not going to look as good, and so you know, even with that, he's still putting up some decent numbers. But I just think that he's maybe getting a lot of unfair criticism in that regard, because you look at Adeymaara, who is the big seven three center, he's averaging less than five points a game. Burki Buyug Tunsel, from Turkey five points a game. John V Vidae is averaging 2.7 points a game. Lana Fabluio excuse the pronunciations is averaging 1.6 points.
Speaker 1:These are like the guys that they brought in hoping that they would just come in and key the team and they just haven't been able to do it, and certainly was something that was foreseeable. I mean they have some good players. I mean Bono is a good player and Dylan Andrews, I think, is a good player and Sebastian Mack is a true freshman, has come in and he's leading the team in scoring. But that may be just kind of emblematic. The fact that Sebastian Mack is leading your team in scoring is probably not what you want. You wanted coming in. So, yeah, this is definitely a group that I thought I didn't think they would be this bad, but I thought that it was a really kind of a risky gamble on Cronin's part and that all the people who were talking about how great Cronin was at UCLA were ignoring the fact that it certainly helped to have those guys that he did for so long playing together in so many games.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a few reactions, I guess. First of all, pretty clearly, whoever was supposed to pick up the slack for Hawkeyes and Williams on making life easier for bigs like Bono, it's just not been there. You could have kind of seen that coming, basically, when, when? When you say they went to their bench last year, it was. It was just not the same. To put it simply, yeah.
Speaker 2:So Dylan Andrews is their is their most productive player, 24th in BPO, which is, which is, or Buscar, which is rough. He's BPO was actually below Jalen Cones. So you know what I said about Cowan. Basically, when you're when you're most productive player, is that an efficient well. Applied even more so to to UCLA. Sebastian Mack is their leading scorer, but his BPO is is 45.9, which is really troublesome. You know you want to talk about a guy that that I don't know. If I'd call him a volume, well, I guess it would be a volume score. Just takes a huge volume of shots to get him those points, I guess. Yeah, take away there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I imagine it's a case of like someone has to shoot, someone has to score and he's probably like well, I might as well do it, because no one else is doing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and just last point on UCLA. I actually like Micronin but I don't. I understand. He's not everybody's cup of tea and I'm kind of wondering if he's had to go the European route, because a lot of kids just say, yeah, I'm not interested in playing that kind of ball. Is that a, you think, a fair assessment?
Speaker 1:Well, I think USC has kind of kicked their butt in local recruiting in recent years and I think they're not getting the same level of players nationally because UCLA was always pull some two or three guys Our would always be in on you know a couple guys on the East Coast, new York, and you know just wherever these big East Coast powerhouses that were at UCLA was always in on various players like that. So it hasn't been happening in recent years. I say Collier visited UCLA, he visited USC and he chose USC. So UCLA is just not and I think I think maybe they're looking at the success that Tommy Lloyd has in Arizona, that Gonzaga has and trying to get these great euros. And they did a great job as far as recruiting the guys and however, however it is, they landed them but they got them.
Speaker 1:And but it's even with Gonzaga and Arizona. A lot of these bigs, especially the bigs who are from from Europe, take time to develop a bit. I mean to Bayless was pretty good as a freshman, but some of these other guys at Gonzaga and in Arizona have taken a little bit of time, you know, to come into their own. So it's just, I'm not really surprised and now UCLA is a bit behind on high school recruiting and they have to decide whether they're going to go the Euro route again next year or if they're going to. You know, redouble their efforts on the domestic recruiting front.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Also. I just don't think anybody's going to confuse the Arizona offensive system with UCLA. It's just my two cents on that one.
Speaker 1:No, exactly you know, I mean that's the thing. I think Cronin's good coach, but I think there was way too much like credit given to him for for how, for how they performed the last couple of years. Because, and also you know, the Bruins were picked to win the Pac 12 three years in a row, or at least two years in a row, and the his first year there they finished third or second and they weren't supposed to. So the next year they were picked to finish first but then they finished third behind USC. And then last year they were picked to finish first and they actually did finish first and a lot of the credit was accrued to Cronin and he was just put into a great situation I'm not saying he's not a good coach, but any decent coach where you where you land in a situation where you've got Hakes, you've got Singleton, you've got Tiger Campbell, you've got Jalen Clark, kind of set, you know, set the tables been set for you and these guys had already been starters and they just you just won't see in this day and age all those guys playing three straight years like they did, and he benefited from that. But then you're going to have the hangover as a result of when those guys go and I think it was pretty.
Speaker 1:You know it may not have been inevitable, but it was probably exacerbated by the route they chose to try to try to reload by going to Europe, because it's a risky situation, because it could potentially blow up in your face but at the same time season's on over a long way to go, just like with USC. Things can turn around there. Things can turn around in a negative way for some teams that are doing well now. So we will see when conference play starts. Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very fair. Two more teams on offense yeah, yeah, not a lot, not worth spending a lot of time on this. Oregon State second, from the bottom, they actually have two pretty productive players. If you look in the column you can see some numbers on that, on just how productive these two players are and just how how bereft I guess to be nice the rest of the roster is offensively, yeah. And Arizona State I really don't want to. I don't know if you've seen Arizona State usually in one of those last you know 8 pm ESPN Pac-12 games. You know you've put in your time and you know that they are just woeful on offense. It's just, I just call it the Lord of the Flies offense.
Speaker 1:I don't know if they practice on offense at all. And then the way they play overall, it's like you just have to take a shower afterwards because it's just, it's just a lot of muds being flung when the Sun Devils play. It's not, you know, going playing at Intempi every year and the scene to the level to which Hurley's antics are allowed and the level to which Arizona State is allowed to completely manhandle their opponents, it's always just a frustrating experience for me.
Speaker 2:Do we want to get into that? Because if we talk about the defensive side of the ball, let's use that to transition over to defense. And so guess this yes.
Speaker 1:Just real quick before we we've now we've covered the offensive teams, or the teams in the conference who are been the best offensively in the non-conference. Now let's look at the teams that have been the best defensively in the conference so far.
Speaker 2:Yep. So speaking of in a non-criminal way I guess you'd say manhandling people in Tempe. Number one, arizona State, BPO 100 defensively of under 43, that is stifling and they've played a pretty decent offensive schedule. So you know, similar to the BPO 100 plus concept. If I basically divide the two defensively, their rating is 87. Now in this case, number number that is lower is going to indicate better performance. They are by far tops in the conference. Now you make a good point and I would almost go to not just familiarity with with Hurley's antics as far as opponents, but I would kind of go with referees too. Let's see what he can get away with in the in conference. Yeah, I think sometimes if there's a rep doesn't work with him much before, just kind of says what's going on here, my what.
Speaker 1:You know, and maybe let's go yeah, no, absolutely, that's is again. This is again why the conference and the non-conference are just completely different seasons. Almost Fair, very fair.
Speaker 2:Yep, checking in number two is is despite you know the lamenting and the wailing that you and I had several times about the, the lethargy, indifference, disengagement on defensive USC, we are checking it number two with a defensive BP, a 100 plus of 95, nowhere near the. You know the, the clutch and grab of Arizona state, but you know very solidly in number two and the good news is, you know, I see, I see this as a positive for as much as we've seen disinterested for long, long periods of time and as much as we struggled, you know, with defensive rebounding, you know, at times throughout we're still number two in the conference. So this is encouraging. I think there's a big upside here.
Speaker 1:Very well could be. The question I have is is the number for USC defensively these numbers here? Are they good objectively on a nationwide basis? Are they just good relative to the teams in the conference?
Speaker 2:That's a really good point. You know 95, I think is, is it? That's? That's not really awesome nationally. I think Arizona states is now, if you can get away with with kind of do whatever you want, that that's going to be a big advantage and we'll see how sustainable that is. I would say, yeah, there's, there's definitely room to grow in terms of nationally. I didn't run these for prior seasons, I'd be it's, it's. It's a lot of work since there's a lot of data.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just my gut tells me this is probably the worst that we've rated in this for you know, probably, since I'm going to date myself here, since I just call it the. Is it the Princeton season? Was Princeton the one that just shot us out of our, our home gym and then, and then said, yeah, no more of that. Yeah, yeah. That was a rough season, I think. After that we kind of just got it together. So, this is probably, I'm guessing, our worst performance since then.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can see that makes sense. Okay, so ASU is number one in defense, usc is actually has been number two in defense of rating. And then we go to Oregon state and Washington.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oregon state they've got. They've got four big guys that can rebound. Now I don't see them with a ton of blocks, but you know Tinkles a good coach, so that does make sense. And again, these aren't like dominant national numbers that we're talking about at all. And then to the thing we've talked about, washington. I'm just kind of struggling with to make of them overall, only because you know, the first time versus the second time you've be faced them in conference is such a big difference and we've seen that again and again and again since Hopkins has been there. And I'm thinking that they've probably caught some people off guard with that Well, with that matchup zone, although I guess if they change their defense I thought they are still you might say that.
Speaker 1:I think they're still doing it, but it is still an adjustment for teams. But I think it seems like the big difference for them has been bringing in severe Wheeler. Kentucky has really helped them out. I mean, he's averaging almost 16 a game. He's leading the league in assists. So you know, he's.
Speaker 1:he's been the point guard they haven't really had in a while, especially one who can also score, and so it's like they have Brooks and they have Wheeler and then they have a couple, a couple of good bigs. So if you get sort of that combination, that good combination there of ball handlers, score and big, then you can do a lot of damage.
Speaker 2:Interesting, and I'm, if I'm just kind of looking in the USC context, is this going to be a little bit of a concern because I I want to say this might be our least talented big man passing team that we've had in quite some time. And is that going to be maybe a problem? When you're facing that zone and basically your, your best attack to that is get to the, get the ball to the free throw line. If you don't have a real distributor there, could we be facing some problems. Or is that where maybe a hornery comes in?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, hornery is one of those guys who would play the center of the zone, and, and because his, his length and his ability to to shoot it and pass it. What they've been doing, though, is they've been playing. They've been playing Kobe Johnson in that spot mostly, and he's shown some ability to penetrate and distribute from that spot, but right now, his you know, his, his offense is so, his confidence in his offensive games is so bad right now, are so low that it's sort of affecting our ability to to beat the zone. But I think, in the end, I think we've gone all in on just having a bunch of shooters and shooting, you know, shooting you out of that zone, and if we, if we get enough players, uh, rotating and find the right combinations of players who are hitting well, uh, then we should be able to to handle most of those zones.
Speaker 2:Sure and um on that topic. You know I I hit on some ideas on basically that would really line up with that in terms of getting some more offensive kick in the column. Um, it involves those ISLers. There's some pretty interesting numbers in there about him, so check that out.
Speaker 1:Um when, when you're near your device, as they say yeah be sure to check out Mark's column, which will be up not long after this, uh, or will be up today before this podcast is up, so you can reference that.
Speaker 2:All right. Next group of defenses. They're all basically about um, about average, uh national, uh nationally. Stanford, cal, oregon, ucla. Um, two things stand out. Well, I guess three things stand out to me. Um, cal, good job by by Madsen in in year one, getting them respectable right away.
Speaker 1:In that regard, it seems like he's injected some energy into that program already.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which makes sense given his personality. Um, Oregon, you know, yeah, okay, I guess I can see that being down two bigs, we have to keep that in mind. But they're always, you know, for years they've been the active hands team, Um, so I'd expect a little more from them defensively. But again, if you know, I guess, if we're in our shoes, if our starting bigs were Kejani and Erranton Page, um, We'd probably be in a different position defensively. I guess it's safe to say is that fair?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think so. And you know they've not only, but they've not only. You know Biddle and Dante are not the only ones who heard. They've had some other guys get hurt various parts of the year. I think Kishan Barthelamy, I think, is hurt. I think Jackson Shelstead has had some injuries. So they've just been so, so snake bit these last few years that I think to some extent it's sort of inoculated. It's sort of inoculated their coach, dana Altman, from the criticisms that most coaches would get right, cause the last few years they just haven't been the same team. They were during that really awesome stretch they had, I guess maybe from 2015 to 2020, roughly around that stretch. They were really tough to beat and now they've just been kind of a regular Pack 12 team.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, very fair. And the last thing in that, oh sorry, the last one no, go ahead.
Speaker 1:I was just gonna say go onward, Onward with the defense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, in that group UCLA 99.7, literally, nick Cronin has at this point a nationally averaged defense. Now they Euros.
Speaker 1:That's what you get with the Euros.
Speaker 2:I guess. So they take time to develop on defense, but usually by now they have it together to your point. It's gonna take longer with, you know, not just so many new people, but you know, the Europeans, that probably gonna take a little longer. I kind of wonder if sometimes they think to themselves oh Americans like this guy, Cronin my gosh, That'd be interesting conversation to have with them. But you know, when you don't have that to rely on, especially when your offense is so bad, it could be a long season for UCLA.
Speaker 1:No, I totally agree it's. You start looking through the matchups and with the various teams that are right now doing better than them and you kind of wonder where they're gonna get some of their wins. But again, this is, it is a process and I do think Cronin is a pretty good coach, even though he did benefit from the lineup that he inherited. But he's a pretty good coach and to some extent I think you're gonna see some improvement in these UCLA players. I don't know if it'll show up enough for them to make a difference in the conference, but I can definitely see them getting hot in the last half of the schedule of the conference schedule and sort of beating some teams that people didn't expect them to beat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to that point I'm gonna do a deep call back here and stick with me for a second. I don't know if you remember when Floyd was the coach and we faced Oregon State in their first year under Craig Robinson and they were so bad and then literally when we played them, that was the game where suddenly their offense came together and when it clicks it really clicks because the other team doesn't recognize it. Does that make sense? And I think you can see that for them defensively Once they kind of get it. I think there's those first few games. They could really just stymie some people completely.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely, and the only thing with that, though, is that most of the Euros are guys who are naturally skilled offensive guys, so I would actually expect their offense to come around before their defense, if only because so much of defense is not really like.
Speaker 1:The attitude is really hard to develop. If you're already like someone who's like in the Euro, in the Euro leagues and the clubs over there, they're not really instilling the importance of defense, I don't think as much as they are here. So these are guys who are already 18, 19, 20, and they haven't really been focusing on defense as much until now, and so how quickly can they develop that attitude and that intensity and can they maintain it? And so I would just expect them, I would expect these guys to be better offensively or to develop offensively before they do defensively. Now, that doesn't mean that the other guys at UCLA who are not the Euros are not gonna be like. I could see them developing, continuing to develop better defensively, and if just enough of those Euro guys can just not be huge liabilities defensively, then they could potentially turn the team around in the latter half of the schedule.
Speaker 2:Yeah, kind of interesting thing to say about it, McRon and team two, that they might come around offensively first. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1:It's just a latent. They have all these guys with latent abilities who are they're not quite finding their spots and getting used to the speed of this game and the different matchups and styles and all the things that go with it, and you have to think that at some point they're going to pick up everything and that's what McRon is counting on and if not, then they're gonna have a really bad year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very fair, all right.
Speaker 2:And then I just I wanna group the last four defenses here in one group, just because these are also the four top offenses, which is interesting, and I would think that, particularly in the case of Arizona and Colorado, they do play at a higher pace in terms of number of opportunities per game.
Speaker 2:So I think that just they might be playing in these high-paced games where you're just gonna get a lot more easy buckets, a lot of fast breaks with a lot of high percentage shots and a lot of assists, compared to your slow down, low number of attempts and a lot of offensive rebound, put back kind of stuff or create your own DIY offense. So we'll see once they get in the half court game, especially those two teams, how they do. That might be the way to beat them and just keep from playing their fast break game. So I just I don't see either of those as anywhere near unbeatable. So, having said that, I think that if I'm just doing a big picture thing here, I think that whoever wins the conference is gonna lose at least four games, if not five, in conference. I think we're looking like a 16 and four or 15 and five conference regular season champ.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's actually really interesting. I'm not sure the last. Let's look and see the last time that happened. Actually Kind of curious, so the last time. So last year's champ was UCLA, they were 18 and two, the previous year's champ was 18 and two. Arizona the previous year's champ was 14 and four Oregon that was the year that USC played 20 and Oregon played 18 due to COVID.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, I forgot about that that would be kind of the analog 14 and four. And then the year before that Oregon was 13 and five. That was when they still played 18 games. So 13 and five was able to win it back in 2020. So Arizona has definitely showed as dominant as they've looked for much of the season. They obviously have suddenly lost a couple of games in the last couple of weeks that made them appear to be more vulnerable, at least according to public perception. Right, not counting your numbers Losing to Purdue and then losing to Florida Atlantic recently in double overtime, but they do have. I think there's some wins they have on their schedule that maybe won't look as good as they looked at the time, like Michigan State and.
Speaker 1:Duke, Michigan State and Duke wins are, I think are two wins that are probably, you know, not as exciting as they seemed at the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, agree, and that typically I think that's typical of every season. But trying to suss out which ones those are can be a little challenging, but I think that Michigan State one is. That's pretty evident. They've really not been an awesome team this season.
Speaker 1:And Arizona's got a pretty favorable schedule starting out. The conference they play, cal they host I'm sorry they travel to Berkeley, they travel to Stanford. Now those games are. Any kind of road game is tricky in the conference and certainly there's gonna be some guys at Arizona who are new to the conference, like Caleb Love, and that can go both ways it could really benefit them in league or it could be a detriment. But and then they have Colorado and Utah at home and then Washington stayed away and then USC, ucla don't. So Arizona has they go away to the Bay Area, which is not the toughest trip of the road games. I'd say it's the easiest road trip in the league. And then they have four of their next five at home. So it seems like they've got a pretty good setup to get off to a great start in league. And then most of the treachery for them, a potential for treachery is in the latter half of the conference schedule.
Speaker 2:I'm interested to see how they do against Stanford. I'll put it that way especially if Stanford doesn't screw up against, against Armbar you, if we're gonna call him that, in Arizona State and they actually can score some points.
Speaker 2:Get some fans out enough where it's a little dicey Stanford. They're good enough offensively where they might be able to just trade punches with Arizona, especially in a home game. It's funny. Lew Dolson would say that he hated playing at the sports arena because it's easy to get up for you know Paulie Pavilion, and then you're at the sports arena. Just it wasn't the same. And he said a lot of times his team would come out flat and maybe you just see the same dynamic at you know, when he's now. Not that the Haas Pavilion is a big thing, but it's easy just to overlook a game at Stanford.
Speaker 1:Well, it's worth pointing out that Stanford beat Arizona last year at Haas I'm sorry, at Maple's Pavilion.
Speaker 2:That's right, they did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so definitely. Maybe this means that Arizona's less likely to overlook them this year. Yeah, yeah, but it definitely shows that Stanford has the capability. So we'll be interesting to watch that one. It's obviously very exciting. This whole weekend we're getting into all these great conference matchups, so and then we have we talk about Arizona, and Colorado, you say, is last in defense so far. I wonder, does this take into account, say, if a team is up 30 and reserves come in, or are they they slow things down a bit and the other team, you know, scores a lot to make the game respectable?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, no, no, sifting out of garbage time Another another shortcoming of it, yeah, got it okay, yep.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we've gone over the offense, we've gone over the defense. Do you want to talk about player of the year candidates or do you want to go? Just go into your predicted order of a finish.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, the one thing I hit him already. Just the guy that stands out to me is KJ Simpson and we I think we've talked about it enough If I'm gonna have one surprise player the year to spoil a little bit the preview, this kid, Josiah Lake, from Oregon State, is unreal. I don't know if he if he ever misses a shot or if he only comes in against the twos, but man alive, his BPO 100 is 74.6. Wow, it's nuts. And he doesn't start any games. So that's why I said maybe he only plays against the twos, but he's what is he? He's fifth in the conference in Bouscarre. So I kind of I need to see him just to figure out what the narrative is that matches up with these numbers. So if I'm looking at a, at a, you know a kind of like the most improved or surprised player of the year, slash freshman of the year, it's, it's just Josiah Lake, kid from, from Oregon State.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm looking forward to seeing him because he certainly is showing up strongly in your numbers. So you've got KJ Simpson, you've got Josiah Lake, who's a potential guy. Usc's Boogie Ellis is sixth on the list. Yep, I, you know, I think KJ Simpson is at this point, he would. He would be arguably the the player that you're based on what he's done so far. You also have to look at, even though his, his, his analytic numbers aren't good, yeah, if Washington ends up finishing, well, keon Brooks could be in that conversation. If Boogie Ellis is going to be in that conversation, obviously USC has to finish, I would say, first or second in the league, yep, and which, which brings us to kind of an exercise that I think we should do. Do you want to go through USC's conference schedule and try to predict how the game?
Speaker 2:will go, oh my gosh. Yikes, I'm happy to try yeah.
Speaker 1:Let's try it. So, um and and well, here let me just preface that by I've uh, I think on the last in the last four or five years on the board, I have gone through and predicted USC's uh conference record and overall record in the last four years and I've actually accurately predicted it four years in a row. Wow, but I've always. But I've only done it after the non-conference.
Speaker 2:Okay, I didn't need that. What's that?
Speaker 1:Um, so let's uh go through and uh and figure out what we think. The, uh, the record for USC will be Okay. Okay, so at Oregon um Thursday. Um, I think USC is going to win that one.
Speaker 2:What do you think you know? Yeah, can I do the, the, the sports gambler part of me in this, sure, you know. Okay, yeah, can I just do the record. How about that?
Speaker 1:The record Sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Okay, Um, I'm going to. I think. I think that's that's about a coin flip and I think that's almost about a coin flip, surprisingly, versus Oregon state, just because that's a road game and we I could see us overlooking that. So I'm just going to say we're going to go one-on-one on that road trip.
Speaker 1:I think that's fair. Um, my main thing with Oregon is just with their bigs out. I think that the advantage that they would typically have against our bigs uh might be negated. We might even have an advantage in our bigs uh, depending on which bigs show up that night. Um, so, and I think that when USC has an opportunity to beat Oregon at Oregon, it seems to be a uh uh, it seems to be something they take the advantage of. So, uh, I can definitely see the game being very close, um, but I think USC is going to uh, going to pull that one out and I think actually, um, I kind of disagree with you in the sense that obviously, uh, splitting up there is completely possible, maybe even likely, maybe even the most likely of the scenarios, but I feel like USC is either going to lose both or win both, unfortunately, Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um. So right now I'm I'm leaning towards winning both. Okay, uh, because I think if USC beats Oregon, uh, if you can get a, if you can get a, um, uh, a sweep on the road in the conference, you, you win that Oregon game. It's a, it's a huge, just huge advantage, right, because you start out two and O on the road, come back home with California, Stanford and Washington state at home, right, so there's a very good chance. If you win those first two games, are I don't want to say very good you've got a solid chance to to start out five and O, at least if you're looking at the schedule, are you favored in those home games? You probably will be.
Speaker 1:So if you can sneak a win at an injury riddled Oregon and then gut it out at Oregon state, very tough place to play. Uh again, splitting up there is probably the most likely scenario. Um, but uh, and maybe losing both might be the second most likely scenario. But I do think if USC beats Oregon, I think it makes the sweep, uh uh, more likely than the split. So um so, yeah, it's so. You say one and one, I'm going to say two and O. What about California at home?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, I think we win this nice job by Madsen so far, but um, I think that's that's a tough spot for them on the road.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's uh. You haven't two and one. You keep track of your, of your record so far. I have us at three and O. What about Stanford?
Speaker 2:Again, I have them as a win. I've I've got Stanford performing better than last season. Um I I think I'm just hoping at this point we've just got things a little more straightened out and things in order and at that point we just have more talent than them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think uh USC gets a win there, and then Washington state at home. I think that uh Cougars just don't play as well on the road. Um yeah, and this is another USC win.
Speaker 2:Yep, Uh same.
Speaker 1:So you're looking at, you have USC at four and one after five and I have USC at five and O, Even if at four and one. I think the narrative is starting to change a little bit, with the team right, yeah, because that is, they're all, they're got the momentum right, they're, they've ride in their um, they've ride in the ship is kind of what the narrative will be. And uh, and then you go on a road trip. You go on three road trips at Colorado, at Arizona, at Arizona state. Two road trips, three teams, um, at Colorado. I would have to say, uh, that looks like a loss to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, I can't disagree, as I have them with the player of the year and they're just, they're a beast offensively, so I don't, I don't see that one being a win yeah.
Speaker 1:At Arizona. Uh is uh like most years, I would say is a loss.
Speaker 2:Yep, sadly I'm with you on that. The narrative has turned a little bit here. We better win the next one before we come home.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that, uh, usc will sneak out the win at Arizona state. Uh, I just don't think ASU is the offensive team they've been, and so at this point I have USC at six and two in the conference.
Speaker 2:And, yep, I have a five and three, but we've gotten what probably will be our toughest stretch of the season. If I'm looking at a opponent in venue, yeah is that a fair statement? Yeah, I think so, yeah.
Speaker 1:Now we got UCLA at home. I think USC again Tends to play better against UCLA when it sort of knows it has the upper hand with personnel, and in those situations they tend to play very well against the Bruins. So I think this will be another case this time and the Trojans will get the victory over the Bruins at Galen Center.
Speaker 2:I I agree, that's a that's a win.
Speaker 1:Oregon at home. I certainly think that Oregon has played well in the past at Galen. Maybe by now they have Dante and and Biddleback. Certainly they seem like they would be full strength or close to full strength, but maybe, maybe they're not quite In the shape that they would normally be. This is a tough game. I'm gonna say that USC loses that one.
Speaker 1:Wow, I'm actually going with the win here okay, so, and then I think USC will beat Oregon State in Galen. So at this point I have USC at. So I had six and two, seven, seven and two, seven and three, eight and three. We're both at eight and three yeah we're both at eight and three in conference. Now we're on the road at Cal, at Stanford. I would say that that's gonna be a split. I Agree.
Speaker 2:I think that there's that that's like, even though that is the, to your point, the easiest road trip, I Think there's enough of a snake pit factor between one of those two where we might just lose one of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so now that's nine and four Utah at home, colorado at home. I think USC sweeps that one Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know. If I'm just a little too high on Colorado, I'm gonna go for I. Utah's got good metrics too, so I think that even if we beat Colorado, beat in both those teams is a tall order, so I'm gonna go for a split there.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I'm at 12 and four, you're at 11 and five.
Speaker 2:It's ten and five in it.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna love with us 15 games, or your ten at five. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, you're ten and five. Okay at UCLA. I think USC beats UCLA, gets a season sweep and Then gets a split up at Washington. So two and one over those, those, that three road trip, those three Road trip games.
Speaker 2:I am with you there, so I also have them at 12 and six.
Speaker 1:Right. So I'm 13 and five at that point and Then, going into the final two games of the regular season, arizona State I think is a win. So that puts USC at 14 and five. And then Arizona in the last game of the season at Galen Center, the last game of the last Pac-12 conference regular season game for USC. You know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna predict the win there for USC, which would put them at 15 and not 15 and five. That put me up. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So you know obviously a very optimistic Way to look at things, but I'm putting a little bit of faith in Andy infield's ability to to get the get the roster At a more efficient level and luckily the conference isn't it's not a death march. You know, arizona's very good and Colorado looks good and there's a lot of other teams that are that show flashes, but they're not. They're not, they're not dominant, all right, they're not. There's not only. There's many other teams beyond Arizona and Colorado right now who are legitimate contenders for the league.
Speaker 2:Fair, I just want to point, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, like, like they could like, I think that USC could win the league, or or you know, you see, like when the league? Or Oregon could you know some of these teams are. Washington could win the league. Washington can be surprised, but right now you'd have to look at Arizona, and Colorado is like the two main favorites.
Speaker 1:Like there's a distance between them and the group right, Yep, and so USC has a chance to be the as I think has a decent chance to be the team that emerges from that group of kind of the group that is sort of also rands right now agree, and a couple of things in the last two pods, because we don't take time off just because things go bad.
Speaker 2:We have said well, it looks like we're gonna have to win 14 games in conference. Yeah a bit and what do I have us 13 and 6 going into the Arizona game. This is exactly exactly what. What? What? Usc basketball? It's like we have to beat Arizona to win to, you know, to have a chance to win, and you know what I you know what that means we will have anxiety coming out of our ears and then we'll win the game.
Speaker 1:Yeah look, usc has beaten Arizona at Galen before. Yeah, they've. And the sports arena and yeah, and the sports arena it's not like Arizona is not unbeatable. So so I think that the these are, these can potentially be very different teams by by this, by the end of the season, and we don't know and there's certainly a Chance of USC is gonna probably have to beat Arizona potentially in order to To make the tournament.
Speaker 1:Yep because that kind of way because in my scenario, if USC finishes 14 and 6 Right, the only real the quality win that USC has that's like the best win is Colorado.
Speaker 2:Maybe yeah, but that's the best one.
Speaker 1:Oregon would be a quality win too right, but Oregon depends on how we Oregon may not. I'm not saying I'm. What I mean is like the kind of win, like Against a tournament team, for example gotcha.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, like cuz like, who's gonna make the tournament in the league this year? Arizona, colorado right now are the two that you would say are look to be in the best shape. Yep, usc is. It's not like an automatic thing. Usc is a bubble team right now, and then Maybe Washington. That's a shot, you know, he just is. What was the way I'm looking at it. So I don't think this is gonna be more than a four bid Conference.
Speaker 2:But I was likely.
Speaker 1:It's looking like a three-bit conference.
Speaker 2:I would say that there's a group of what the the group of Washington Oregon USC in Utah is playing for. The third one bids yeah, yeah, exactly so.
Speaker 1:So this is, usc might do decent in conference, but it may not be enough. So, but I think if USC goes 15 and 5, it probably means they beat a Combination of Arizona in Colorado. You, I think. I Don't know if they can go 15 and 5 or 14 and 6, even without beating Colorado, arizona, at least once. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm certainly possible. But I think that if they were good enough to win 14, I think they'd be good enough to for one of those 14 wins to be against one of those two teams. And then of course you have the, the conference tournament, which If USC is let's say USC is third or second in the conference, they would conceivably get a pretty favorable matchup the first couple games. So Could win a couple games right there. Get to the conference tourney final and You're looking at if USC goes let's just say if USC goes 14 and 6 in league, that puts them at 20 and 11 for the year. And then they win a couple games in in conference. Put in conference tourney play, it gets 22 and 11. So you're looking at 22 and 11, 22 and 12, 21 and 11. If they go, 14 and 6, which Typically it should be enough. And I think having brawny James, having Isaiah Collier, it's gonna be one of those situations where, hey, this is a team we want to see play in the tournament.
Speaker 1:We want to see brawny James play in the tournament. I think this is gonna be one of those. You know, just one of those things where it, if push comes to shove, they want to get the eyeballs on the tournament and this is gonna help If USC is a bubble team. So I think a 20, a 20 to 22 win USC team probably gets in, but obviously USC wants to win as many games as possible, so it's not to come down to that kind of thing. But I think we're we're past. We're past that sort of stage and this team's development as far as we know now that it's gonna be a real, a real, a trench warfare, going through this, going through this schedule, to try to get USC enough wins.
Speaker 2:Yep, and we'd like heck for Kansas State and Seton Hall.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly so. So you have USC at 14 and 6. I had them at 15 and 5. I'm gonna actually say, I'm actually gonna adjust mine and say 14 and 6 in the end. I don't know if that, I think that'll probably guarantee another top three finish. So 14 and 6 and 20 and 11 is how I see USC's regular season and I think that you're right there with me. So we're we agree on that, yep.
Speaker 1:Okay all right. So now that we have USC sorted out, let's just go over a predicted order of finish in the conference. Who do you have number one?
Speaker 2:I will go with. I'll go with Arizona based on pedigree.
Speaker 1:Okay, I will also go with Arizona, based on, you know, a lot of the factors we've talked about, plus, I think that I think their coach is pretty good. Yep, who's your number two?
Speaker 2:That'd be Colorado.
Speaker 1:Okay, I have Colorado as well. Who's your number three?
Speaker 2:I'm gonna go with USC, just just thinking that we still have, aside from the kids across town, we have probably the most, most room for growth and, yeah, the quickest path to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree. Third USC extending the streak of Top three finishes for Andy Enfield. Who's your fourth place?
Speaker 2:Might surprise you here I'm gonna go with Utah.
Speaker 1:Not that surprising, but I can see that. Okay, I'm gonna go with Washington. They seem to have a little momentum right now. They've got some fresh blood. They just got a. Does not gonna matter this year, but they have a recruit for next year coming in zoom, zoom Diallo, who USC wanted and Gonzaga wanted and Arizona wanted and he chose Washington. Seems to be a little bit a Emblematic maybe. Maybe he liked what he sees that's going on with Washington right now and maybe there's just good vibes up there. So I'm I think Washington will Will make a move up into fourth. Okay, who do you have? Fifth?
Speaker 2:I'm gonna go with Washington.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, that makes sense. I am going to go with Utah. Fifth Okay, all right, who do you have? Sixth?
Speaker 2:I have to go with Oregon, I think. I think you're just looking at tightly bunched between third and sixth here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I agree. Yeah, I'll go with Oregon as well. And then, who do you have seventh?
Speaker 2:I will go with Stanford, just because I think there's something in the promise They've shown in this, this non-conference season.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, I'm gonna go with Oregon State. Wow, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna go with Oregon State seventh. Even though they lose that, that opening, I lose the USC early on. The other thing too is, with UCLA going up on that trip, I think that Oregon State beats UCLA in the first game and I think Sometimes when you feast early you know you're a little full from the, from the victory and so Also might help USC against Oregon State, because you're sort of playing with house money at that point when you're playing the la team sometimes. Okay. So seventh we I had Oregon State, who do you have?
Speaker 2:eighth I'm gonna go with Washington State.
Speaker 1:Washington State. Okay, I'm going to go with Stanford. Who do you have ninth?
Speaker 2:boy man, this is where it's getting tough for me. I'm a, I guess, to your point. Maybe the euros in Westwood get it together and UCLA sneaks out of the cellar to get to ninth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree, ucla at ninth, based on what we've seen, and then tenth.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna go with, take them down, you Arizona State I will go with Washington State and 11th. Oregon State.
Speaker 1:I will go with Cal and and For 12th you have that leaves me with Cal and me with Arizona State.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, such a little faith in Bobby Hurley.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, pretty much. Yeah, he's a fun guy not to have faith in he is. All right. So we've we've gone down over, we've looked over the best offenses, the best defenses, player of the year candidates. We've gone through USC's pack 12 conference schedule. We both predict 14 and 6 and we've gone through the predictions for the team race. We both have Arizona, colorado, usc in that order as the top three finishers and that just leaves us a real quick look at Thursday nights game against Oregon. What do you think happens?
Speaker 2:in that minute. Hold on, you're missing something.
Speaker 1:Did I miss something? Oh yeah, I mean minutes. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, let's. Let's do a new feature doing which is a very nice gentleman. Mark is going to be mean for a moment, and this is what we call marks mean minute. Take it away, mark.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, chris, I'm gonna take you back to what was, unfortunately, the last game of USC's 2020 season. You might remember that ended with Jonah Matthews hitting a three-pointer over Jake Kymond. I sure do one, one second left. Yeah, so after that three pointer, my reaction was oh my god, this is awesome, there's one second left. Let's hope they don't make the shot right. Let's hope UCLA doesn't make a three-pointer here to beat us right, right, right.
Speaker 1:Was that your reaction? Not, in general, it was more like I don't think they have enough time to get off a good shot.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I think you'll be okay. Your reaction was not. My God, let me see the bench. Is that a fair statement?
Speaker 1:Correct.
Speaker 2:I don't want to see the bench reaction. I don't want to see the scores table. Well, guess what? I guess, if you think like you and I, you're not eligible to work at ESPN man, because I am. We talked about this in the off season and apparently, whoever was doing those games that we did in Greece, whoever was doing those broadcasts I guess that's like their farm system for becoming an ESPN director Right, that Auburn game was. So I got seasick with all the cutaways First of all you're here you're there, you get these weird angles.
Speaker 2:You know they have to have something that's looking up a guy's nose inbounding from the sideline. Then you can't see where he's throwing it, you don't know what's happening.
Speaker 1:Oh, how about the worst of all, which is taking your interviewing Charles Barkley, and so you reduce the size of the screen for people who care about the game, so we can see Charles? Why can't we just listen to Charles Barkley? Why do we have to see him?
Speaker 2:You have to see him. Yeah, you absolutely have to see him. You know, we literally missed. I'm thinking it was a turnover and I think there was a dunk, because we have to see Bruce Pearl yelling on the sideline, because there's nothing more important than that.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh there were several. There was a few things that were missed. There was, I think there was a, if I'm not mistaken. I think they missed some free throws, or maybe that was the previous game on the Pac-12 network, but they there was some some shots that were, or maybe it was the ESPN plus game, I'm not sure, but there was a game recently where they just showed the guy shooting and we didn't know whether the ball went in or not.
Speaker 2:Exactly no, but you get a good shot of his nose hairs because it's up close. It's from underneath, Very important. We missed some kind of basket because they had to show Isaiah Collier sitting at the scores bench waiting to check in. I guess a verbal cue of that just isn't enough. We can't take the announcer's word for it.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll tell you the fact that we're playing in the Big 10 next year, which means hopefully, I think it means a lot more CBS games and a lot more Fox games and Fox does it a bit as well. But if we can get once, we get on CBS. Cbs does it like nobody else, right, they just do a great job of it and I'm really hoping that. I'm hoping that we get on a few more CBS games, because it's like if you want to watch basketball and you care about the sport, they not only produce it well, but the people they have talking about it really know what they're talking about.
Speaker 2:Exactly, this is the easiest game to broadcast. You follow the ball, don't insert yourself in it, by trying to put your your little imprint on the game. The game needs has its own imprint. So thus ends the first edition of Mark's Minute.
Speaker 1:Very nice. Let me add one more thing. The other thing they do to that, you know, is so the color commentators. They have a list of notes, things they want to get in during the game, right. So, and I feel like there's maybe for the play by play guy. They maybe do like seven or eight minutes. The first seven or eight minutes of the game, they, they basically do play by play. Right, they're like doing play by play and then the guy's talking.
Speaker 1:But then there's a point where, where they stopped doing play by play and now they're just like talking about an anecdote or they're talking about something, and meanwhile the game is going on and and the play by play guy just kind of occasionally says, oh, and there's a shot by so and so right, and then, and then the first half ends, and then they do a little play by play in the the second half, and then they go back down into the notes, they go into the features and all the little things they want to talk about and they want to get in, and then they're talking about college football and they're talking about the NBA and they're just like, and then it's just these two guys having a conversation while the game's going on right, and and and.
Speaker 1:Then you notice that like they stop really paying attention to the game and and so they don't, really they're not able to tell you what's actually happening. If there's a, if there's something like if somebody just got their fourth foul, they don't really it'll mention it, right and and so you know, and so you're left with, and you know, the graphics aren't always there to show you, so it's like you're left with this big surprise when, when someone you know heads to the bench, so, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just wanted to expand upon your, your mean minute with a, you know, a nasty, a nasty bit of my own, a nasty invective.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And on that, just just to wrap this up, I don't know if you remember, on the on the building the notes in, there was one guy doing a national broadcast of a USC game and he mentioned about somebody who drove into traffic and he I know he had this in his notes because he said, boy, you're going to only have traffic that heavy in the four zero five freeway in Los Angeles. And I don't know if you remember that I just held my hands. He's like this guy's trying way too hard.
Speaker 1:That was definitely a a you know, a pre preset joke that he had someone had wanted to. It's like he got it from chat, gpt or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yes, but not pre rehearsed, clearly no exactly so, all right.
Speaker 1:So just to recap, we've gone through the best offenses and best defenses in the pack 12, we've gone through the players of the year candidates, we've gone through USC's predicted league schedule and then we've gone through the top teams. We both had Arizona, colorado, usc one through three, which leaves us really we. Then we had a marks mean minute and Chris's short and effective, and now we're on to just a quick look at USC versus Oregon. What do you think's going to happen on Thursday night?
Speaker 2:It's going to be a tough game. I'm really having a hard time figuring out what this team looks like without the two bigs. You know they've got three guys that rebounded at a decent rate, but they don't play a lot of minutes, so I think we might have an advantage there. Yeah, metrically they look a lot like Auburn in that they have six guys that play a lot of minutes, that have a BP at 100 to 52 or higher. They've got kind of like a typical Oregon team. They've got five guys that shoot 35% or better from three. We've had a couple of nightmares when it comes to Oregon about them just draining threes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the good news is that by far their most heavily used guy is Jermaine Queeznard. He's a good player. He's used 50% more than the next, the next most frequently used guy, and he's of that top six, he's the least efficient. You know it's kind of a chicken and egg thing about. Well, maybe he's just he's having to be asked more, but you've got that kind of production that's. That's across the board. My gosh, you know, I think you're leaving a lot off the table there. Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker 2:You know, and similarly he's he's outside the top five, he's he shoots 31% Queeznard from three and he's got five guys that are way ahead of him and but yeah, he has the most three pointers. Kind of weird for Dean Altman team because it's clearly he's a good coach. But I just I I'm kind of interested to see like what's what's going on here in terms of all distribution and balance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's just not a, there's not a lot of major weapons for Oregon right now. They've got they've got freshman Kwame Evans, who's who's not very developed. They got Jackson Shelstead, who is another freshman, who is a pretty decent player but he's small, but they've just had so many injuries. And Altman is great at making new with what he has, and you know, as John Rothstein calls him, is says he assembles Rubik's cubes right, because he's always able to assemble a good team. So they're they're. They're definitely not a pushover and they're always tough to play up in Eugene.
Speaker 1:But I think this is a very beatable team. I don't think it's a, I don't think this is a tournament team, not unless they can get their their bigs back and can get everything reassembled again, so to speak. So I think this team has a long way to go and it's got some players that are, that are not just killers, they're not going to. There's some guys who just really don't kill you. So so I think that just USC has better players, and I know it's on the road, but and I know USC hasn't been necessarily beating teams who don't have as good a players as USC. But I think it's conference play. It's a little bit different now and and I think this is a game that USC can and will win- One, one guy to look out for.
Speaker 2:He doesn't start and this would. This would concern this does concern me more for a game in Oregon than that Galen Kario Kendo zero starts. He's their best three or second best three point shooter, and 39.1%. He's their most efficient BPO guy 58.1. He actually has more boo scar than queeznard. Yeah, if I'm looking for, like the, the path where it becomes a real tough one for us, it's it's this guy off the bench has a game, so you know yeah, he's not bad.
Speaker 1:He's a Georgia transfer. He, you know he draws a lot of fouls. He is 20th in the nation at fouls drawn. He fouls seven. He gets fouled seven times per 40 minutes 7.3 times per 40 minutes. So you know he's a physical guy, he draws fouls and he's pretty good. You know, he's pretty good at the two pointer, pretty, like you said, pretty good at three pointer. So he is, he is definitely, he's definitely a guy who, who, who is pretty good, but he hasn't start, like you said, he hasn't started these games right now. Over the over the past five games, jackson Jackson's Shellstead, brennan Riggsby, jadrian Tracy, jermaine queeznard and Kwame Evans have been the, have been the main guys and just not the strongest lineup. So I think it's a lineup that we match up favorably with and unless we just show up and again have just a really bad shooting performance, I think that I think we're going to win this one.
Speaker 2:The one thing I want to see on our end I hope that Vince is 110% engaged, because you remember that game last year Dante made a point just to bully him the whole time and I hope that he actually he has some serious revenge on his mind and just wants to show out and just make his name known.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think that would. It would really behoove him to come out and assert himself in this game, because he's not going to have apparently he's not going to have Dante to kick him around and even if Dante comes back, I don't think he'll be at 100% Okay. So I think USC beats Oregon. Did you, what was your prediction? I had them, I checked it out and I said they split the trip.
Speaker 2:Right, but what do you think? Do you think are you going to reserve?
Speaker 1:your prediction for Oregon itself. Hold it back, I'll go for an L. I just this Okendo guy scares me, although why isn't he?
Speaker 2:starting, although that goes to like the whole distribution of the ball here. Yeah, well, you know, I don't know what his injury status has been either, so okay, so Oregon State on Saturday.
Speaker 1:Like you mentioned, jordan Pope is a guy who is building on a pretty good freshman year. I think he was, if I'm not mistaken. I think he was. Was he the freshman of the year last year? That's right? Yeah, I think he was.
Speaker 2:I remember he had a pretty solid, yet spurts where he was really good and others were just yet a good freshman season. Just to put it in, all right, you know what? I think he was on the all pack 12 freshman team, at the very least.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, so yeah, but he's made kind of taken the next step. They're not the they're not the biggest team, so I don't think there's like any major disadvantage. Again it's. I think this game is actually going to be tougher than the Oregon game, just because Oregon State is. I don't know, it's something about playing in.
Speaker 1:Corvallis, I feel like it's a tiny gym, the gym's not big and I just I feel like it's a little bit suffocating, but I do think USC Eaks this one out. I like this one. I just Oregon State is just such a two man team with.
Speaker 2:Pope and then Josiah Laker we talked about earlier. You know, look at the column for just the drop off after those two. They're just a horrible team outside of the game. You know they do have some bigs that can rebound, which probably explains whether a decent defensive team. But yeah, if we can just avoid just the you know where they call it, the Oregon Trail difficulties, I like our chances here a lot better. Agree, agree, all right. So you have USC with the split. A lot of the teams are a lot better.
Speaker 1:Agree, agree, all right. So you have USC with the split, a loss at Oregon, win at Oregon State. I have USC beating both. We pretty much covered all the all the the predictions that we can make regarding the Pac-12 conference. So is there anything else you want to add, mark?
Speaker 2:No, that's all for this week. Thanks for listening everybody.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening. I was hoping that we would do a shorter podcast for some reason, but it was coming in at 90 minutes, lucky you guys. So thanks for listening. Everybody, enjoy the games this weekend and happy New Year and fight on.
Speaker 2:Fight on everyone.