On to the Postseason: What Do We Know About the Pac-12?
The Pac-12 Tournament tips off on Wednesday. What do we know about the contenders? Who can challenge them?
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The Pac-12 Tournament tips off today at 2 p.m. Eastern/11 a.m. Pacific. What do we know about the four top contenders? Who can challenge them?
The Contenders
The Stanford Cardinal (No. 1 seed, 22-2, 19-2 Pac-12) tries to stay elite
Just to play and practice was a unique challenge for the Cardinal. Stanford, which held the No. 1 ranking for six weeks, did not even have a home court for most of the regular season.
Because of the harsh restrictions that affected both residents and visitors in Santa Clara County, teams were not allowed to practice or play in Palo Alto. After their home opener on Nov. 25, 2020, Stanford did not play at Maples Pavillion again until Feb. 5, 2021. For most of that stretch, both the women’s and men’s basketball teams took up residence in Santa Cruz at the Kaiser Permanente Arena.
Still, a permanent life on the road did not seem to faze the Cardinal. They would remain undefeated for nearly two months until they ran into the Colorado Buffaloes one night in Boulder. The second loss would come in the very next game against No. 6 UCLA.
Since then, the Cardinal have picked things back up and regained momentum with a 10-game win streak -- and given Stanford’s assets, that’s no surprise.
The Cardinal have the Pac-12 Coach of the Year in Tara VanDerveer, who leads the sport in coaching wins. They have co-Defensive Player of the Year in Anna Wilson. They have a whole array of offensive tools. Most importantly, the team has resilience.
“I'm really proud of our team to win a Pac-12 regular-season championship,” VanDerveer said after the Cardinal clinched the title over Arizona. “It was our goal in the beginning of the year and our team has really battled through … a lot of adversity and I'm very proud of our team how they stepped up. Winning the championship is not about one player or two players but everyone contributing and needing different people in different situations.”
The Arizona Wildcats (No. 2 seed, 15-4, 13-4 Pac-12) try to show that they believe
Confidence. That may be the root of the problem for Arizona. Besides Pac-12 Player of the Year and co-Defensive Player of the Year Aari McDonald who on the Wildcats’ roster has the confidence to take the shot her team needs her to take?
That question became even bigger after the Wildcats dropped their final regular season game to Arizona State. The Sun Devils came into the game at 10-9 overall and 5-9 in league play and had just given California its only win of the season.
McDonald shot over 50 percent in Arizona’s latest loss. The rest of her team connected on just 33.3 percent of their shots. She went off for 30 points while the rest of the Wildcats scored just 34 in a game that went into overtime.
Arizona must have players like Cate Reese, Sam Thomas and Helena Pueyo step up on the offensive end of the court. Reese is scoring a career low 11.6 points per game and has been in single figures for three straight games.
Thomas is a difference-maker on the defensive end, but often hesitates to shoot and is also scoring a career low with just 7.8 ppg.
Pueyo proved herself to be a dead-eye shooter her freshman year, but has seen her scoring drop by almost half this year despite shooting a better percentage from the 3-point line. The reason is simple. She has cut her attempts almost in half.
“We’re not going to win games with just two people scoring,” Arizona head coach Adia Barnes said after the loss to ASU.
The UCLA Bruins (No. 3 seed, 14-4, 12-4 Pac-12) try to find stable depth
UCLA can beat anyone. The team from Westwood can also struggle against anyone.
For most of the season, the Bruins have beaten the teams they were supposed to beat. A win is a win, even if it is a close one. Two tight wins over ASU. Splitting two close games with Washington State.
They would do something like blow out a top-15 team like Oregon one day, then fall to an improving but unranked Oregon State two days later. Then, they could do something amazing like defeat Stanford.
Consistency. Stability. UCLA cannot be trusted to produce such things on the court this season.
Perhaps it is to be expected from a team that has had to deal with serious depth issues. The pandemic has not been kind to the Bruins’ roster. They lost two players to opt-outs. The federal government kept two of their international students from ever getting to the U.S.
The team has been forced to cancel competition not because they were in quarantine but simply due to injuries. The conference has a policy that requires seven healthy scholarship players on a basketball team. Injuries have dropped the Bruins below that threshold at times this season.
When they are healthy, they have dangerous players. It does not get much better than this season’s final Pac-12 Player of the Week Charisma Osborne and preseason AP All-American Michaela Onyenwere.
The Bruins certainly have the talent. The question is this: will they have enough depth to deal with a tournament environment?
The Oregon Ducks (No. 4 seed, 13-7, 10-7) try to overcome their youthful inconsistency
The Ducks are used to competing for the conference title. That was not expected to be in the cards this season considering how young the roster was, but they still showed that they can be dangerous. They just haven’t shown that they can be consistently dangerous.
They started out the season defeating six teams by at least 20 points, including then-No. 15 Oregon State. Then, they got into the teeth of the conference season and things got more difficult.
The first real bump in the road was a four-point win over Washington State. Two games later, a two-point loss to No. 11 UCLA. A respectable-enough 13-point loss to No. 1 Stanford.
Then, it got ugly. Arizona blew their doors off twice. UCLA defeated Oregon by 27 in the late-season rematch. A renewed Oregon State beat them by 11 to close out the regular season.
Other than the two-point loss to Stanford in Eugene, there was not a lot for the Ducks to hang their hats on as the postseason approached. There were lessons, though, and that is what head coach Kelly Graves hopes sustains them for the next few weeks.
“The benefit of playing in the Pac-12, one of the benefits, is that this prepares us,” Graves said after a narrow loss to the Cardinal. “Stanford's a legitimate championship game contender. They really are. And so we're used to playing that kind of team, so that when we do get in the NCAA Tournament, we've seen everything. We've played against the best and hopefully we learn from it.”
The Challengers
The Washington State Cougars (No. 7 seed, 11-10, 9-10) try to prove they have staying power
The future is bright for the group in Pullman. People were alerted to that fact early in the season when the Cougs beat Arizona in overtime. This was not the team everyone expected when they were selected to finish last in the conference by both coaches and media.
Pac-12 Freshman of the Year Charlisse Leger-Walker has created hope in a program that had never been ranked in the AP Top 25 prior to this season. She will ultimately decide whether they make their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1991.
The freshman finished just behind McDonald for the conference scoring lead. She had the same 19.4 points per game as the league’s top player, but took more shots to get there (and played more minutes).
There are some other significant changes for Washington State, as well. The Cougars have improved across the board this season.
They had a great point guard in Chanelle Molina last season, but she was replaced by an equally skilled player. It didn't hurt that Molina's replacement happened to be someone Charlisse was well-acquainted with.
The Cougars' new star was welcomed to Pullman by her older sister, Krystal Leger-Walker. Krystal transferred from Northern Colorado when Washington State head coach Kamie Ethridge was hired. She had already found some success with Ethridge at her previous school, and this season shows why the coach trusted her to run a team.
The team has improved its defensive rating and have the first positive net rating since 2015-16 when Her Hoop Stats began analyzing the data.
The Cougars will play Utah in the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament. If they can get by the Utes, it is on to face Arizona, who they have beaten once this season.
The Oregon State Beavers (No. 5 seed, 9-6, 7-6) try to show they are a new team
The Beavers were not going to be one of the top four teams this season, but they were still supposed to be really good. Then came COVID-19.
Oregon State did not even play for almost a month in mid-season and it looked like the team would be on the outside looking in for an NCAA Tournament berth this year. Would the Beavers even play the minimum of 13 games required to qualify? With 11 games canceled or “postponed,” it was a legitimate question.
Then it all changed.
It might be too much to ascribe everything to one player, especially a freshman who joined the team midseason, but a lot of the Beavs’ success does coincide with the introduction of Talia von Oelhoffen.
Like a lot of high school seniors around the country, a high school season in flux and the promise of not losing a year of college eligibility led von Oelhoffen to enroll a semester early and suit up with Oregon State.
She scored 19 points against USC. She played 30 minutes against a top-10 team when the Beavers faced UCLA. She has had at least 10 points in six of her eight games. The two exceptions? In the first appearance of her career and against the conference champs.
The Beavers won their final game of the regular season against Oregon just one week after defeating UCLA. It was especially sweet considering that their rivals from Eugene had blown them out by 20 points in mid-December.
Now, they are not only in the NCAA Tournament discussion, but they could be a problem for the top four teams trying to get the tournament title.
The Colorado Buffaloes (No. 6 seed, 10-9, 8-8) try to get to the Tournament
The Buffaloes were a lot like the Beavers before Oregon State beat Oregon. They have a big win over one of the top four in the league—in this case, Stanford—but they don’t have a lot else to hang their hats on. How far can that big win take them?
The other thing that Oregon State has over them is a season sweep. The Beavers beat Colorado both times they played and were able to leap over them in the standings with the Oregon victory.
Of the three conference teams fighting to get into the NCAA Tournament, most bracketologists are leaving the Buffs in one of their “four out” groups. Whether you’re in the first four out or the next four out, it does not matter. You need to find a way to no longer be on the outs.
Colorado will rely on All-Pac-12 honoree Mya Hollingshed and All-Freshman honorable mention Frida Formann to get them off the bubble. They will face 11th-place Washington in the opening round. A win there is expected, but it will not be of much help in the NCAA Tournament discussion.
Their next opponent would be UCLA. The last game between the Buffs and the Bruins was canceled, ending an opportunity for Colorado to earn another quality win. The Buffs could get that chance now if they can defeat the Huskies. The only thing to do is to grab it.
That’s what every team is trying to do this time of year.